As an expert in eating attitudes and behaviors, the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR) research group Loricorps offers a reflection following a recent media article about a virtual game featuring a fitness club owner whose goal is to make His clients lose weight and earn points for every calorie lost.
Our team marvels at this game that promotes the internalization of the ideal of slimness, even a muscular weakness that leads to artificial weight, the culture of eating and just eating rationally.
Following the adverse effects of COVID-19 on nutritional health, all of these phenomena are fertile ground for dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors that result in restrictive, bulimic, and emotional eating habits.
The ideal of slimness!
Regarding the ideal of slimness, studies show that little girls as young as 5 years old internalize thin and sometimes muscular bodies as body norms to achieve. This internalization, which remains stable throughout adolescence and adulthood, thus increases the risk of developing a disturbed relationship with one’s own body and with food, but also with those of others, as in the case of grossophobia.
Through the ages
Slimness has not always been synonymous with beauty in our society. Historically, the depiction of beauty has evolved over the centuries. During the Renaissance, for example, curves were an aesthetic ideal of “healthy,” illustrated, among other things, by the Birth of Venus, a work by Sandro Botticelli.
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In the course of the 20th century, however, the ideal of beauty changed. In the 1940s, Marilyn Monroe conjured up the image of the ideal body in the shape of an hourglass. In 1960, the Twiggy model ushered in a shift in body ideals towards more pronounced slimness.
From the 1990s, the phenomenon of slimness became synonymous with beauty in our society. The internalization of the ideal of slimness depends heavily on our culture, which is heavily conveyed by the media (social and traditional).
positive examples
In response to these worrying findings, the Loricorps transdisciplinary team would like to highlight the broadcast of Disney’s short film Reflet, starring Bianca, a ballet dancer, who animates a fable about physical acceptance as an active component of self-esteem. ” [L’héroïne] fights against his own reflection and overcomes doubt and fear by channeling his inner strength, grace and power,” Disney wrote in a statement.
These are encouraging actions that promote a culture of body diversity for girls and boys in our society.
Johanna Monthuy-Blanc, Ph.D, Full Professor, Head of the Loricorps Research Group at UQTR and Investigator for the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQ) at the Research Center of the University Institute of Mental Health of Montreal (CR-IUSMM)
Giulia Corno, PhD in Psychology, Postdoctoral Fellow of the Loricorps Research Group at UQTR