Study Indicates Pre-school Girls Idealize Thinness
Girls decide they don’t want to be fat long before middle school or high school. A study published last month in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research found that girls as young as three idealize thinness. The study of 55 preschool girls (ages 3-5) measured the degree to which these girls had internalized the “thin ideal.” The researchers used games of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, asking each child what game piece character they wanted to be. The three characters were exactly the same, except one was thin, one was average size and one was fat. After the child chose her character, the researcher asked to switch. This was done to measure how emotionally invested the child was in the character. The researchers found that there were significantly more negative comments about the fat character and significantly more positive comments about the thin character. They were led to conclude, “it is quite plausible that a combination of anti-fat messages and pressure to achieve unrealistic beauty standards is related to the development of body-size stereotypes and thin-ideal internalization in girls at a very early age.”1
Those messages may come from various sources, like TV advertisements, diet products in stores and the language parents use on a regular basis. Whatever the source, many of the girls in this study did not only prefer the thin ideal, but expressed hatred for the fat character. When weight is stigmatized at such a young age, weight discrimination resembles more of a natural trait than a learned attitude.
This study clearly calls us to begin body image education much earlier than high school. Most of this type of education involves deconstructing media messages that students have believed by the time they reach high school. This means that new body image education must be tailored to children who don’t have the cognitive ability to break down harmful attitudes. This new education has to be intuitive and it has to begin before school. Ultimately, if the next generation is going to be prepared to accept themselves as they are, it has to begin at home.
Sources:
1 Harriger, J.A., R.M. Calogero, D.C. Witherington et al. 2010. Body size stereotyping and the internalization of the thin ideal in preschool girls. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 63: 1-5.
To view this study, visit: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t6q12286t54215g5/