Story URL: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=197020
Story Retrieval Date: 5/19/2013 10:14:43 PM CST
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Natalie Brunell and Lauren Gold/MEDILL
Beauty magazines portray what Americans think of as the "ideal concept" of beauty.
Is beauty more than thin deep?
by Natalie Brunelland Lauren Gold
Nov 30, 2011
Data source: Oxygen Media survey.
Graphic produced by Natalie Brunell and Lauren Gold/MEDILL.
Data source: National Eating Disorders Association. Graphic produced by Natalie Brunell and Lauren Gold/MEDILL
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Data source: National Eating Disorders Association. Graphic produced by Natalie Brunell and Lauren Gold/MEDILL
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Data source: Pew Research Center poll.
Graphic produced by Natalie Brunell and Lauren Gold/MEDILL
Courtesy of Jaclyn Siegel
University of Florida student Jaclyn Siegel struggled with an eating disorder and now speaks out about self image.
What is beauty? Pedestrians in Chicago's Loop discuss it inside out.
For Jaclyn Siegel, 20, physical appearance always played a significant role in her life. She and her identical twin, Brittany, started getting attention for their looks when they were babies.
The two high school cheerleaders became active in student government, and, as a result, they were considered ‘popular’ at their south Florida high.
“Everyone knew who I was. The popularity and the attention made me feel pressure to live up to those standards,” Siegel, who is now in college in Florida, said. “I would get positive feedback, compliments, guys hitting on me. I liked the attention.
“To keep that up, I felt like I had to look good. I felt pressure to stay pretty and stay thin. I felt like I wasn’t good enough. Everyone thought I was perfect.”
As her concerns for weight and body image increased, Siegel eventually developed bulimia, an eating disorder that involved binging and purging in secret. On top of the pressures from her peers, she felt she was always measured against her sister.
“We’re twins, and we realized people compare. One’s going to be heavier, one’s going to be smarter,” Siegel said. “We forgot that we are two separate individuals. It affected us.”
After extensive therapy and support from family and friends, Siegel said she is now in a better place and no longer determines her value solely based on appearance. She and her sister are undergraduate students at the University of Florida studying psychology, and both plan to go to medical school.
“Now, I’m getting feedback for my stronger self-image,” Siegel said. “I learned over time that happiness and people liking you has nothing to do with being skinny or pretty.”
Siegel found that for her, embracing exercise and a more physically fit lifestyle became the key to feeling beautiful.
“Being active makes me feel glowing and positive and confident – it’s all mental,” she said.
Over 60 percent of adult women in the U.S. are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And over one-third of overweight adult women are obese.
The biggest beauty concern of American women today is usually weight, said Michael Cunningham, professor and psychologist at the University of Louisville. Cunningham focuses much of his research on quantifiable traits of physical attractiveness.
But if body weight is one of the primary gauges of physical attractiveness, what does this mean for today’s definition of beauty?
“People get pretty hyper about issues of weight,” Cunningham said. “And it can get carried to extremes that can affect a person’s health.”
A large influence is the portrayal of women’s bodies in the media, according to Cunningham. “Now, the average voluptuous five-foot-four woman may feel inadequate,” he said, especially when she compares herself to the celebrities on screen and in beauty magazines.
“I don’t think media care about the science of [beauty] one bit, but certainly the media have a preference and a strong bias toward attractive people,” said Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York.
And research has shown that who is considered attractive doesn’t vary when you examine beauty in other nations, according to Reis. “Angelina Jolie would be considered attractive in any country on this planet.”
Cunningham concurs by referencing five factors that his research has identified as influencing the perception of attractiveness. “She does have most of the ideal qualities that comprise the physical attractiveness stereotype,” Cunningham said. “She has large eyes, a small nose and smooth skin. She has high cheekbones, narrow cheeks and eyebrows that are relatively strong. She has expressive qualities, like large lips and a big smile.”
And sure enough, when Medill Reports took to the streets of downtown Chicago to survey people about their ideas of beauty, the name Angelina Jolie continuously came up. Jolie is 5 feet 8 inches tall, according to Hollywood websites, and weighs in at around 105 pounds.
Meanwhile, the average American woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. That adds up to a body mass index (BMI), the standard measurement of doctors and nutritionists for assessing healthy body size, of approximately 24 when calculated using CDC standards. A normal BMI falls between 18.5 and 24.9, according to the CDC.
Jolie’s BMI is approximately 16, indicating someone who is underweight.
But a low body mass index equates to the beauty mass index in today’s weight-obsessed society.
“There’s high consensus about who is good-looking and who is not, but there isn’t a lot of understanding on why people were making those judgments,” Cunningham said.
There are five major categories that influence judgments of attractiveness, which Cunningham developed over the course of his research. Some are biological factors, and some are cultural: childlike or “cute” features, sexual maturity, expressive cues (like smiling), grooming, and aging.
“You can influence several of them. For example, cuteness includes things like having nice, dewy skin that makes you look youthful. You can influence that by staying out of the sun and using moisturizer. Cuteness is also influenced by having a small nose,” he said.
Meanwhile, factors such as high cheekbones, pronounced bone structure and body weight influence interpretations of sexual maturity.
“Beauty is the judgment that someone is physically attractive. Physical attractiveness is determined in terms of the five categories,” Cunningham said.
While who is considered beautiful may be somewhat universal, the importance of beauty in culture absolutely does vary.
Brazil, for example, is the plastic surgery capital of the world, Cunningham said. In fact, statistics show more than 400,000 plastic surgery procedures are performed in Brazil every year, though many people fly in from other countries for their beauty fix.
Physical attractiveness becomes a tournament depending on your environment, especially in a place filled with beautiful beaches like Brazil's, Cunningham said. “Everyone is trying to look good in a bikini. You’re going to be competing over physical appearance.”
But the emphasis on outer beauty in Brazil transcends just acquiring a certain physical “look,” according to Cleise Gomes, a native of Brazil and founder and owner of Cleise Brazilian Day Spa, a full-service spa in Chicago specializing in Brazilian treatments for the face and body.
“In Brazil, our concept of beauty is relative to the whole body and mind,” Gomes said. “There needs to be a balance. We all see people who are striking on the outside, but as they reveal themselves, our perception changes. In the long run, the inner beauty wins out since outer beauty will fade.”
As in Brazil, Gomes said her Chicago clients’ primary concern is preventing the aging process.
“We live in a youth-driven society,” Gomes said. “No one – man or woman – wants to be perceived as ‘old.’ As a result, a multi-billion dollar industry has developed to address those aging issues and keep people younger-looking than their age.”
In the United States alone, the beauty industry is worth an estimated $50 billion. And according to Forbes, the Miss Universe pageant, one of the most lucrative beauty competitions and owned by Donald Trump, is estimated to be worth $20 million.
A couple of years ago, Jaclyn Siegel competed in the University of Florida’s “Miss
UF” pageant in an effort to raise awareness about self-image and young women who struggle with body image and eating disorders like she did.
“I overcame a huge obstacle. I don’t really wear shorts in public, but I wore a bathing suit in front of all those people on stage,” she said. “It really helped my confidence. I proved to myself that I was beautiful.”
Siegel was third runner up and voted “Miss Congeniality,” despite her lack of pageant or modeling experience that other contestants typically have. She raised money for young women who cannot afford health care to get treatment for their eating disorders. More than anything, she said she did it to represent all girls.
“Beauty is not a surface thing. It’s not physical,” Siegel said. “It’s definitely more inside than out. A beautiful person is someone who is caring, kind, thinks of others and has a positive outlook on life.”
Cunningham’s research supports this. The pillars of physical attractiveness aren’t everything, he said. Personality plays a huge role in determining someone’s judgment of beauty.
“You can raise your [attractiveness] quotient just by smiling. A perfect 10 who is not smiling is not a perfect 10 and does not draw people to her,” he said. “Once people start a conversation, then judgments of attractiveness will change. There are people who look great until they start talking, and then they don’t.”
“A good personality gives someone more beauty than their physical features,” Siegel said.
And that type of beauty is universal.
