How The Religion of Thinness Grips Us--Existentially

Why do so many smart, educated, and beautiful women buy into the false promise of the slender ideal?

As a college professor, I know many young women in particular who are intelligent and beautiful and interested in making a positive difference in this world. Sadly, however, these very women spend enormous amounts of time and energy worrying about their appearance. It's as if their preoccupation is beyond their choosing. Indeed, most of them would decide to stop thinking about their weight in a heartbeat-if only they could.

Some of them are even quite savvy when it comes to critiquing cultural messages telling them they need to be slender in order to be loved. They know that the images of models in magazines have been airbrushed and/or digitally altered to "perfection." They know that many of the movie stars they look up to subsist on what amount to starvation diets. And, on some level, they also know that their happiness doesn't depend on being skinny. Still, all this knowledge isn't enough to protect them from the feeling that their bodies are inadequate and the corresponding belief that they should be thinner. Why is this?

If the myth that being thinner will make us happier only appealed to our intellects, it wouldn't have much traction. It simply wouldn't grip us the way that it does. But this myth appeals to us on a much deeper level-a level I would call "existential" or "spiritual." That is to say, the myth addresses the part of us that wants to find and feel meaning in our lives. It speaks to the part of us that needs a sense of purpose, a purpose that inspires us even as it gives us a sense of security, virtue, acceptance, and love.

As part of the larger Religion of Thinness-with its network of images, myths, rituals, and moral codes-the belief that being thinner will make us happier hooks us by giving us an alluringly clear and simple answer to some of human beings' most difficult and complex questions: What is the meaning of my life? To what should I devote myself? What does it mean to be "good"? How should I deal with pain and suffering?

Most women are not conscious of the way that weight-loss can function as a kind of ready-made "solution" to these "big questions." This is partly because most do not have or take the time to make reflection on these questions part of their daily bread. Many women have never been encouraged to develop the kind of inner life that probing these questions entails. But if we don't take time to become conscious of questions about who we are and why we are here and what we hope to accomplish with our lives, we will be vulnerable to the ready-made solutions our culture gives us. And when we accept our society's answers to these fundamental queries, we become alienated from our deepest desires and aspirations, because essentially we are living somebody else's dream.

This is what happens when we buy into the myth of thinness. It's somebody else's dream (probably somebody who enjoys making money off of our sense that our bodies are flawed and need fixing). But it is not our deepest truth. And some wise part of us knows this.

Listening to this wise part within us requires us to develop the kind of interior life that provides the space we need to explore the big questions. Our mental, spiritual, and physical health depend on this kind of inner exploration. This is not because we need definitive answers to experience well being; rather, it's because the exploration itself transforms our ordinary lives into adventures that are rich with meaning and that nourish our need for a sense of purpose that is larger than the size of our bodies.