FYI Health Tip
Remember that you are probably hyper-critiquing that body part
Share This Tip
A life-sized Barbie? Beauty never looked so ugly. It’s eating disorder awareness week and to help educate people, one college student created a shocking life-sized replica of Barbie. Pretty is the last word that comes to mind when you see the doll — pretty scary is more like it. It was built by college student Galia Slayen, who has struggled with an eating disorder. The creation is 6 feet tall with a 39-inch bust, 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips. Slayen hopes showing the unnatural proportions of the doll will help raise awareness of the unrealistic expectations of beauty.
Health Poll
Loading ...Slayen suffered from anorexia as a high school cheerleader; and while she admits Barbie dolls alone weren’t directly responsible for her eating disorder, playing with the “perfect” doll through her childhood probably did not help. Women are constantly being bombarded with images of perfection and unrealistic body images. Barbie is one of the most popular toys in the world, and the question remains: is it setting our little girls up for issues?
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
The procedures that people torture themselves with are endless; from Botox and Restylane to facelifts and beyond, it seems to some, no amount of nip and tuck will ever make them feel better. This phenomenon is called body dysmorphic disorder or BDD.
BDD is a serious condition where people obsess on a particular physical flaw. The doctors may say they are underweight, but ask an anorexic suffering from BDD and they can only see the fat. People with BDD may not want to look in the mirror, they may use clothes and makeup to cover up their flaws, they often times seek plastic surgery, and yet they never seem to feel pretty. Why? It’s not just that these patients are thinking about their body, it’s the side of the brain they are using to think about their body. Dr. Jamie Feusner, a UCLA psychiatrist, conducted new research on BDD using MRI brain scans. The study concluded the BDD suffers used the left — more analytical side of their brain — than the control group when looking at pictures of a face. Whereas the right side of the brain is used for seeing the whole image in its entirety, the left side of the brain is used to pick things apart and scrutinize the details.
Is there a lesson to be learned in this for all of us with body image issues? Yes, the next time you catch yourself cursing a wrinkle or daydreaming about a smaller nose, remember that you are probably hyper-critiquing that body part. You shouldn’t look through a microscope to see the world, so why would you look through a microscope to see yourself?
You may also like:
Thank you for pointing out these errors. It's nice to see someone cares about grammar and punctuation. An unedited version went live through a tech glitch -- and thanks to you we noticed. Cheers!
Was FYI Health Writer out of easy stories, was it a pay-for, or are you just gearing down for the rapture? It's been knocking around the interwebz since early March. Not enough dramatic reaction to a non-story about two unimaginative victricrat college students who apparently failed geometry?
This is moronic. Those proportions look NOTHING like Barbie which is obvious from the photo. What ever happened to objective reporting?
My girls had hundreds of Barbies and all turned out wonderfully well adjusted young women. This Slayen needs to get over her BoobEnvy and leave the rest of us alone.
If you ask me, the problem comes from parents who are still immature when they have their OWN children and men who are constantly assessing and degrading women. Do not make the mistake of thinking that young girls are deaf to the chatter on every tv show regarding women's appearances. But we cannot blame men at all because they are viciously defensive...
Fantasy is fantasy. Yes, Barbie is a TAD unrealistic but so are unicorns and goblins...you don't see young girls getting surgery to look more like a harry potter character. Basically women need to be educated so when they have their own girls they will be the type of human who knows what matters in life and what is bull.
Using the left, analytical side of the brain more when self-critiquing? Sounds like this brain activity needs to be re-channeled into someting more productive that pays a living wage instead of shelling out mommy and daddy's money for these teenagers' and young women's obsessions about appearance "flaws." Brain activity gone viral, it seems.
HSDONNA:
It has been edited. While everything wasn't caught, the article you just read makes far more sense than the mangled one we commented on 4 days ago.
The article is excellent.
It's too bad that the previous comments drew focus away from the topic. Bad writing and punctuation are rampant on Internet articles. This article is really not very bad compared to others.
Agreed. Run-on sentences, missing colons --the punctuation makes the piece a train wreck to try to read. Punctuation aside, this needs a proofreader badly ("Barbie is one of the one of the most popular toys in the world...)
Did an intern write this article? Somebody really needs to edit for punctuation.
