Scathing criticism had been launched at the media for causing young women to be immensely dissatisfied with the way they look.
Yes, if you read magazines with heroin chic waifs on the cover, that image will undoubtedly affect your eating habits and perception of body image. But that can’t be the entire problem.
In a Glamour magazine survey, 75 percent of women age 18 to 35 believed they were fat, but only 25 percent were proven to be medically overweight.
This is particularly interesting at Northwestern, which was named the fifth fittest college in the nation last year by Men’s Fitness magazine, yet much attention is devoted to maintaining a certain clothing size.
Why hasn’t more attention been paid to the retail clothing industry? Girls have a similar reaction looking at models in Vogue as they have trying on jeans at the Limited.
Unlike in the past, there is no standard for women’s clothing sizes. You could walk into Urban Outfitters and wear a size five, then go to Express and be two sizes larger.
One of my female friends recently told me that her father asked for a pair of pants for his birthday. Befuddled, she wondered how she was going to pick out a pair if he didn’t try them on first. He responded, “It’s easy. My waist is this many inches and my legs are this many inches.” Exasperated, she exclaimed, “All guys have to do is get pants in that size and it always fits, no matter what brand it is! Life is not fair!”
As young women, our sense of body image is being controlled by faceless corporations trying to sell, sell, sell.
According to an April New York Times article, “There is the reality … that retailers and clothing makers strive off clothing confusion.” The article goes on to explain that consumers are likely to keep wearing the same clothing size and stick with the store where that size fits.
At a retail clothing store in downtown Chicago where I work, I hear women’s cries erupting from the fitting rooms: “Oh, I can fit into a size six here! Normally, I wear a size eight.” “Do these run big?” “Do these run small?” And the ever-popular “I would look so much better in these if I lost weight!”
Why is trying on clothes such a horrible experience for women? It shouldn’t be painful to purchase clothes.
These women are going to rush home and eat rice cakes and water for a week because they don’t fit into something or dislike the way a particular garment fits them.
Some corporation shouldn’t be dictating so much of how we feel about our bodies.We take our sizes too literally and project this onto our perceptions of body image.
Every time a woman shops for clothes, she is told she is large. In retailers’ lasting quest for profit, they shouldn’t play with our heads – or our jeans size.
Jasmine Wiggins is a Medill sophomore. She can be reached at [email protected].
