anythings.org

Having a semi-scientific background and understanding the ways in which scientific studies work, I have to say I was more than a little miffed to read this article about a study done linking adolescent girls’ weight to their perception of their own popularity. They claimed that girls who viewed themselves as unpopular gained more weight over a two year period than girls who viewed themselves as popular. What was the weight difference, you ask? Popular girls only gained 6.5 pounds over two years, while unpopular girls gained 11.

While how a woman feels about herself can be important when looking at her weight gain and loss, it isn’t always the source of their “fat”. I have met fat, popular high school girls and I have also met skinny unpopular high school girls - all whose happiness did not hinge on their weight. But then again, what one person knows isn’t true for the entire world of American high schoolers. Unless, of course, I’m completely off base here and everyone is walking around high school in mini skirts and stilettos like the ladies of Mean Girls.

Now, maybe it’s just me being “old” and “uncool” (ok, I’m 22, I’m not that old and uncool)… but have things really changed so much since I was in high school? Sure, girls were dieting and drinking Slim Fast for lunch - or skipping lunch altogether - but they were not nearly as concerned with their weight as high school girls are today. The last time I sat in a room surrounded by 15 year old girls was only a few months ago and all they seemed to care about what their weight, their appearance, and how this would attract boys. They spent eons criticizing other girls out of the yearbook or on their MySpace pages and almost as long looking at themselves in a mirror. Maybe it’s because I went to high school in a smaller and less urban town, but there is something wrong with this picture. Are young girls really connecting thinness with popularity?

Of course, we can always blame the celebrities, models, and other worthlessly famous individuals for this sudden “thin is in” craze. We can even blame Apple, Inc. for their last iMac commercial - “Thin is Powerful.” But really, can we blame anybody? Thin has been in for quite awhile. We can’t blame Lindsay Lohan or Nicole Richie for a trend that has been raging for years - more years than I think most of us have been alive.

While I’m sure being rail thin, but supple in all the right places, has helped many actresses and talentless famous people further their “careers”, is it really helping people in the real world? Other than the occasional “scientific study” claiming pretty people get hired more frequently and those of us blessed with an hourglass body make more money, there isn’t really much of a claim to be had by being thin.

One minor reflection on the previously mentioned study: they compared girls using their self-reports of popularity. While they are claiming to link a girls “self-image” of her popularity with her weight, how do we know this wasn’t impacted by a psychological illness such as depression, or even more serious life events such as sexual assault, family problems, or trouble with classes? Or, even more minor in a researcher’s eye, a recent break-up with a boy who told a girl she was disgusting and nobody would ever love her? In addition to this, they compared 4,264 self-reported popular girls with only 182 self-reported unpopular girls, leaving quite a few questions unanswered as far as I’m concerned.

This study is trying to link a poor self-image of popularity with unhappiness by preying on our deeply ingrained stereotypes that nobody likes a fat girl.

While the data for this study was taken in 1999, they are interpreting the it with today’s societal perceptions of body image and weight, which have become more and more in favor of increasingly thinner bodies. I was a high school freshman just turning 15 in 1999 and I knew I was dreadfully unpopular. Hell, I was even harassed on a daily basis for being rail thin and flat as a board and I still didn’t gain the weight this study is claiming the girls they took data on did. I didn’t even weigh 100 pounds, and didn’t hit anything above 110 until after I was in college for two years. While my weight is mostly due to genetics, my self-image didn’t have much of an impact on whether or not I gained weight.

But then again, I like to think of myself as a fairly logical and level-headed person: I don’t connect two variables together that are entirely unrelated and try to draw conclusions to support society’s stereotypes.