Recently I have come across the term “thinspiration.” This word basically means, an image (but could be just about anything such as song lyrics, poems, or anything thing else) that motivates one to be thin, stay thin, or get thinner. This idea seems at first like a relatively harmless motivational tool. Then I saw a picture of what one catagorizes as thinspiration. See below.
Now here is my idea of thinspiration.
See the difference.
What is important to point out about this, is that people, and women especially who suffer from anorexia or other eating disorder have a mental illness. It is not uncommon for one who suffers from an eating disorder to also suffer from another psychological disorder called “body dysmorphia”. The mayo clinic’s definition of body dismorphia, “… is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can’t stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw either that is minor or that you imagine. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful and distressing that you don’t want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called “imagined ugliness.” (mayoclinic.com) You can click here to read more about the disorder. What is frightening about this mentality is that it often can lead to one perceiving themselves as large or “overweight” when in reality the person is thin, and often unhealthily thin. Such is suspect behind these ideas and images one might cling to as “thinspiration.”
What can be said about this in regards to the media? A lot of “thinspiration” images come from young hollywood. You have thin celebs such as Kiera Knightley and Nicole Richie who are often photographed and these images reach people with anorexia and other disorders and are taken and held up to an enviable light as inspiration or a goal to be just like them, look just like them. Those are only two examples of celebrities but there are many celebs who have made drastic weight loss changes in their lives, but their lives aren’t private their images are among many that can be considered thinspirational to young women who idealize them.
The pressure in hollywood to look good at all costs is high. In my opinion it seems like young hollywood in an effort to keep up with the jones has also lost more then just weight, they’ve seemed to have lost their sense of confidence, and sense of self. Look to Lindsey Lohan, she was a beautiful talented young actress on the brink of her career, and then she literally lost a ton of unnecessary weight. Is it because the pressure was too strong in the hollywood scene, was she influenced by the media’s’ ideal’ image notion, or was she the rise and fall of her own destruction and despair? I wouldn’t know, no one can really know, because in most cases it is a number of things that happen to a person to make them lose control, that can affect one mentally, but it’s important to point out that the media is not innocent, and certainly does not help with this seemingly increasing social problem.
Below is a thinspiration video, that one girl made to motivate herself and friends and posted it on YouTube.
If that video isn’t evidence enough of what the media and our culture is capabale of influencing upon young women, then I’m not sure what is.
