Skinny culture. You see it depicted everywhere: in social media posts of Instagram models, on billboards showcasing thin bodies, and in the dieting culture that consumes us. Also known as “the thin ideal,” skinny culture perpetuates a narrow standard of beauty where having a thin body, little fat, and a small waist is considered the ideal body type. While commonly seen in Western cultures, this phenomenon is prevalent around the world.
To truly understand why we live in a society where thin bodies are idealized, we need to understand how skinny culture became mainstream. Dieting culture began as early as the 1840s, when Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister, began advocating for a women’s diet, which he said correlated with being a healthy and moral person. His followers ate mostly graham-flour bread, vegetables, and water.
In the 1860s, a protein-heavy diet called the Banting Diet became popular. This rise in popularity correlated with the end of the corset trend. Previously, corsets had been used to alter a woman’s body; however, it was only meant to rearrange fat, not decrease it. When corsets came out of fashion, women were no longer able to reshape their natural bodies, causing many to turn to dieting.
Perhaps the most significant factor causing women to diet was the development of food science and the introduction of calories. This allowed people to track and cut calories in order to control their weight. By the 1920s, America was fully emerged in dieting and skinny culture. By the end of the 20th century, the magazines, advertising, and film depicted exclusively skinny models. Having a thin figure became universally celebrated.
In recent years, body positivity and inclusive representation has begun to pop up more often. That said, the skinny body standard is still dominant in mainstream media today, and especially due to the rise in consumption of social media. On social media, people are constantly surrounded by pictures glorifying thin bodies. Photoshopping tools have also become more pervasive and mainstream. Online, bodies are edited so that people have smaller waists, legs, or other skinny features.
The problem isn’t exclusive to women. Muscular and lean bodies are increasingly being marketed to men as the ideal body type, encouraging abnormal eating patterns or steroid usage. Studies on how social media has impacted body image have shown that participants feel more negative or dissatisfied with their appearance after only 10 minutes on social media. Not surprisingly, there has been a surge in eating disorder prevalence globally in the last decade. In America alone, it is estimated that around 30 million people will have an eating disorder at some point during their lifetime.
Although many struggle with body insecurity, it most significantly impacts certain groups, specifically women and people of color. Empirically, colonialism and institutionalized racism has used weight as a means to justify discrimination of black people. A lot of the beauty standards we see today are rooted in racist ideologies that thin and skinny bodies were more beautiful.
This has created generational harm for people of color. In 2019, a study found that Latinx, African American, and Asian Americans are more likely to have disordered eating than white people. However, they are half as likely to be diagnosed or receive treatment. For women in general, diet culture has been and continues to be used to control how women look and behave. Pressure on women to achieve skinny bodies trickles down to younger ages— a study by Smolak in 2011 found that 40-60% of elementary school girls already worry about becoming “too fat.”
Skinny culture doesn’t only affect one’s confidence; it is also related to negative impacts on both physical and mental health. Disordered eating affects the nutrition your body gets, which can harm your heart, digestive system, mouth, teeth, and bones. People with an eating disorder are also 11 times more likely to attempt suicide. Every 52 minutes on average, one person dies from an eating disorder, leading to 10,200 deaths each year. These statistics can not simply be ignored. What will happen as media consumption increases as technology develops over time? Although the diversification of media has happened in recent years, skinny culture remains a pervasive, systemic issue that must be addressed.
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