Everyday Sociology Blog

Thinking Like a Sociologist: Understanding Changes in the "Ideal" Body Size

By Karen Sternheimer

I have been working on a research project this summer that includes analyzing movie fan magazines published throughout the twentieth century. As I examined the articles and ads, I was struck by how even back in the 1910s ads for weight loss products were very common. By the 1920s, weight loss had become a topic in several magazine stories too.

Each year in my deviance class, we talk about how weight norms shift and change over time. The most common explanation students offer is a reasonable one: that super-skinny people are celebrated in media, from movies, television, and magazines, to gossip websites that criticize celebrities for being “fat” if they merely look normal.

This is makes sense; certainly popular culture shapes the way in which we understand beauty.

But thinking like sociologists, we need to dig deeper. Why, for instance, are there significant cultural differences in body dissatisfaction? Research has repeatedly found that African American girls feel greater body satisfaction than white girls, for instance. Why might this be? One study concluded that parental emphasis on dieting and dissatisfaction was the best predictor of teens’ feelings about their bodies. So culture matters, but not only media culture.

Here’s another sociological question the media answer does not address: why do body ideals change over time in the media?

It might seem like standards of beauty insist that women get thinner and thinner over time, but my magazine research reveals that the relationship is more complicated than that. Yes, today’s supermodels like Kate Moss are much thinner than 1950s icon Marilyn Monroe and her fuller-figured peers. But to understand why, we must examine this issue more deeply.

Let’s go back to the 1920s, when ads for weight loss products and articles about getting thinner appeared more regularly in the movie magazines I’m studying.

Photoplay, June 1925

If you take a look at a snippet from the 1925 article above, you can see that fame and material success were considered the rewards of silent movie star Clara Bow’s weight loss. The article also describes her as a flapper, or a young woman who flouted gender norms of domesticity and docility. Wearing bobbed hair, short dresses and abandoning full skirts and corsets, flappers also challenged notions of beauty.

Motion Picture Classic, November 1924, p. 21

Photoplay June 1925, p. 142

But thinking like sociologists, we need to think even more about why this style would have changed when it did and not, say ten years prior. A major political shift took place in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified and women gained a constitutional right to vote in the United States.

Historian Joan Jacobs Blumberg, author of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, considers this major change a watershed moment in women’s bodies. No longer bound by legal restrictions—women could increasingly inherit property and maintain custody of their children in the event of divorce—Blumberg argues that self control heightened at this time.

Photoplay, September 1926, p. 30

The growing prosperity of the 1920s also provided women with a bit more independence in their teen and young adult years. More women could attend college, though certainly not anywhere near the proportion we see today, but this too provided more opportunity in an increasingly advanced industrial economy. While the kinds of jobs women had were still very limited, the growth of department stores created new professions that gave women opportunities to gain a bit more autonomy.

I noticed a very interesting change when reading magazines from the 1930s: they offered advice and ads about how to gain weight! There were still occasional ads for weight loss products that rudely proclaimed how terrible being fat was, but an overwhelming number of ads chided skinny women. Yes, we do see frighteningly thin celebrities called out on magazine covers today if they appear anorexic, but I have no memory of ever seeing an ad promising weight gain like the one below.

Motion Picture, February 1934, p. 83

So why would thinness suddenly go out of style? One clue rests in the lower right of the ad: the National Recovery Administration (NRA) logo, a depression-era agency that set fair competition standards for businesses. At a time of want, such as the Great Depression, being skinny could reflect poverty, while in times of plenty being thin implies self-control. Developing countries today with serious poverty problems don’t idealize thinness the way that wealthier nations do.

Photoplay, September 1936, p. 72

As you can see, body ideals can shift relatively quickly due to economic and political circumstances. More recently, we might consider why the 1980s body image, personified by supermodels like Christie Brinkley, focused on women as athletic. Brinkley made the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue three years in a row and frequently appeared on fashion magazine covers.

Contrast that powerful 1980s ideal with the late 1960s icon model Twiggy, so-named for being stick thin. While we often identify the 1960s as the time when the second wave of the feminist movement really gained traction, it wasn’t until the 1980s when women made major professional inroads and began to take on positions of power at work.

Thinking like a sociologist, we can see that idealized images of weight are complex and a product of social, political, and economic realities. In the United States, we have an ongoing battle between consumption and gratification and the Puritan Ethic of self-restraint and self-control. Have you ever noticed at grocery story check-out lines the magazines with a big piece of cake on the cover and promise of a new diet inside? What other sociological factors do you think make the images of beauty shift in the media?

Top Chef and the Black/Non-Black Divide

By Tamara K. Nopper, Ph.D.

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania

http://bandung1955.wordpress.com/

I love the show Top Chef. I watch it religiously and regularly chat about it with fellow fan and friend Kevin Eddington. Although more of a foodie than me—he actually knows what sous vide means—we share concerns about the show’s racial dynamics, some of which I want to discuss here. Specifically, I want to explore how Asian Americans and African Americans are represented on Top Chef and in the process, draw from approaches emphasizing the Black/non-Black divide.

The Black/non-Black framework is proposed by George Yancey in his book Who is White?: Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide. According to Yancey, this framework is more helpful for analyzing racism than a white/non-white paradigm because Blacks experience a unique degree of social isolation, as evidenced by how whites, Latinos, and Asian Americans reject them as potential neighbors and marriage partners yet remain open to each other. Yancey’s conclusion bears out on the show.

Asian Americans are present as contestants, chefs, judges, and of course, hosts, and Hung Huynh won the title on season three. Yet Asian Americans face particular racial expectations: they’re encouraged to talk about their ethnicities or immigration histories, badmouthed for cooking too many Asian-influenced dishes, or expected to cook Asian food regardless of training. For example, Huynh was told that despite his skill and “technique,” his food lacked “soul.”

White head judge Tom Colicchio, reminding Huynh of Huynh’s Vietnamese background, said he didn’t “see” him in his food. Such comments reinforce the model minority myth, which celebrates “Asian” work ethic and mechanical productivity while denying us unconditional subjectivity, sociability, and authority automatically afforded whites.

Ultimately Huynh incorporated Asian-influenced flavors into his final meal in hopes of revealing his “authentic” (ethnic) self to the judges. As Huynh tried to express “soul,” his (aired) image shifted from a technically efficient, ultra-competitive, and unlikable Asian to a more humbled Asian eager to take advantage of American opportunities available to him and other immigrants, making one blogger conclude, “he seemed to…acquire social skills in front of my eyes.”

Whereas Asian Americans are racialized in ways that whites aren’t— white contestants aren’t expected to cook foods of their ethnicities so that judges “know” them—African Americans, for the most part, are physically absent from the show. Yet as Frank B. Wilderson, III explains in the anthology Biko Lives!, even when physically present, Blacks remain absent. Despite the popularity and skills of Tre Wilcox and Carla Hall, they exemplify what Wilderson describes as “the absence of a subjective presence.” Unlike Asian Americans, who could explicitly reference their ethnic backgrounds, they could not. They couldn’t talk about Black marginalization in the culinary industry, but were forced to adopt de-racialized tropes of gender and class marginalization used by whites, particularly women and those who are not classically trained.

Black participants also lacked what Wilderson describes as “political presence” in that they were denied cultural and institutional authority. Although Blacks don’t automatically cook (or eat) “soul food,” they are often relegated to doing so regardless of training. While “ghettoizing,” such gestures, as my friend Kevin points out, also imply that soul food has little value to the non-Black culinary world.

Indeed, no chefs were expected to know foods that are culturally associated with Black people, with the exception of the final competitions held in New Orleans on season five. Yet at both dinners, all of the judges were white except for Asian host and judge Padma Lakshmi. Because Bravo TV, which airs Top Chef, doesn’t have all five seasons archived on its website, I can’t say for certain, but I only remember one Black person, chef Govind Armstrong, ever sitting at the judges’ table during deliberations. I only remember four other Black people—and only one of them a chef—serving as guest diners: chef Marcus Samuelsson (whom my friend Kevin points out was not born or raised in the United States), actress and comic Aisha Tyler, sociologist Mary Patillo (who was never introduced to viewers but who I recognized from being in the same profession), and musician Branford Marsalis—who was the lone Black guest at the final New Orleans dinner.

Marsalis even drew attention to his lack of political presence: after listening to others discuss how dishes tasted good but didn’t “pop,” he remarked that chefs talk just like musicians. Although the others tittered, Marsalis, perhaps inadvertently, alluded to the absurdity of his physical presence as a musician at a food competition where all of the other guests were esteemed members of the culinary world—and all non-Black.

Consistent with Yancey’s and Wilderson’s arguments, then, Asian Americans are more present in multiple ways compared to African Americans on Top Chef. Asian Americans compete, host, sample, and judge. We’re recognized as having an identifiable culture and permitted narratives of “Asian Americanness.” Intrusive, limiting, and racist, these narratives nevertheless serve to endear us to non-Asians because they affirm our presumed ethnic “exoticness” while simultaneously re-institutionalizing “universal” ideas related to the white immigrant experience that emphasize outsider status (but not social inequality). And, Asian cuisine is treated as a legitimate cuisine with history, culture, and place as demonstrated by whites citing it as their specialty, talking about taking classes in Asian cooking, or traveling to Asian countries to learn flavors and techniques. Finally, Asian cuisine is racialized as simultaneously traditional and global and therefore marketable to non-Asians.

Enjoyable to watch, Top Chef is, like many pleasures experienced in a racist society, an opportunity for sociological reflection. When the soon to be launched Top Chef Masters airs, I am sure my friend Kevin and I’ll have lots to dish about. And I am certain that the Black/non-Black divide framework will still be useful for understanding the show’s dynamics. The program’s website already tells me as much. Announcing the competition of “24 world-renowned chefs,” its pictures do indeed speak a thousand words. As images of participants reveal, a few Asian Americans will be featured as competitors and host/judge; but this time around, there are literally no Blacks on the show.

Health and Wealth

By Karen Sternheimer

Benjamin Franklin famously said, "Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"--words that I strive to live by. We bear a great deal of responsibility for our overall health, and getting enough sleep, exercise, and proper diet go a long way towards feeling good.

That said, there are many factors that contribute to our overall health, some beyond our control. Inheriting the right genes helps (or as some say, picking your parents wisely), but other factors affect whether we get sick, and if we do, influence the likelihood that we will recover from illness. One such factor is wealth. Franklin could revise his famous aphorism to say that those who are wealthy have a better shot at being healthy, at least in contemporary America.

The December 2008 issue of Self magazine got me thinking about this topic. One article, “Secrets of America's Healthiest Women”, provided a rundown of which cities ranked at the top for prenatal care, cancer occurrence, and a variety of other measures related to health care screenings and treatments. Under each item, the magazine offers readers a chance to “Steal their Secret” and provides suggestions that might be related to the city’s overall health.

For instance, Honolulu, Hawai’i was listed as the city with the least cancer, and their “secret” is their plentiful fish markets. Readers are encouraged to “load up on wild salmon, herring, and halibut.” By contrast, Gary, Indiana was listed as the city with the most cancer. Is their problem too few fish markets?

Possibly, but there are other significant factors that might predict that Gary residents would be sicker than those in Honolulu. Most centrally, 31.6% of Gary residents live below the federal poverty line. In contrast, 8.6% of Honolulu residents live in poverty. Gary’s 2007 homicide rate was 73.2 per 100,000, indicating high levels of violent crime. Honolulu, on the other hand, is one of America’s safest cities, with a murder rate of 2.1 per 100,000 residents in 2007. The stressors of navigating violent communities, coupled with high unemployment (Gary's unemployment rate is 15.5% compared with 4.2% in Honolulu) certainly can interfere with good health, especially if residents have limited access to regular health care.

So should residents of Gary pack up and head to Honolulu? Considering the median income in Gary is $26,725 and median home value $71,700, it is unlikely that many could afford Honolulu's median home price of $604,600. Even trying to follow Self’s advice about eating more seafood might be difficult. Low-income communities are notorious for lacking large grocery stores stocking healthy choices like produce, let alone seafood. Couple that with a limited food budget and fresh fish is a luxury many people in poverty cannot afford.

Other healthy cities listed, like San Jose, California (poverty rate 9.9%) and Seattle, Washington (13.1%) have significantly lower poverty rates than Gary and the other cities that frequently topped the “unhealthy” list like Memphis, Tennessee (26.2%) and El Paso, Texas (27.4%). People in the “unhealthy” cities also experience higher rates of racial/ethnic segregation, another factor that is important to consider. Areas with high degrees of segregation often provide fewer basic services like health care for residents. This problem is particularly acute here in Los Angeles, where hospitals in low-income, predominantly black and Latino communities have shut down or drastically reduced services. In an era of budget deficits, this trend is likely to continue.

I enjoy reading Self for the tips on healthy living, which I try and incorporate into my routine whenever possible. Yet the title of the magazine reflects our very individualized notions of health and well-being. Yes, we are responsible for ourselves, but other factors rooted in the social structure shape our health, which can be beyond our control. It is instructive for us to see which cities have the healthiest residents, but we also need to examine what patterns have created these disparities.

My health is partly a result of my behavior and genetics, but also reflects other sociological factors, not the least of which being my socio-economic status (related to my education, the job market, and my family’s socio-economic status). Not only do I have health insurance through my employer, but there are a number of high quality health care providers in my area (my dentist’s office is actually just across the street!). And when I do need medical treatment, my and my family’s experience navigating the health care system provides me with advantages that others might not have. What social factors might enhance or affect your health?

The Meaning of Christmas

By Janis Prince Inniss

Christmas celebrations as we know them have a long and varied history. And even today, Christmas is celebrated in many different ways around the world. For a taste of Christmas worldwide, have a look at the CBS photo essay about Christmas in several countries.

When I lived in Antigua, I learned that one tradition there on Christmas Eve is for people to hang out downtown until late at night, many doing last minute Christmas shopping. Throngs of people—mostly teenagers, I think—would line a few major streets. It reminded me of Carnival. In Guyana, the entire Christmas Season (and that’s what it was referred to as) meant it was time for masquerade bands. These groups of merrymaking bands wander neighborhoods, drawing crowds.

They feature stilt walkers, Mother Sally and a Mad Bull or Mad Cow. The Mad Bull or Cow is really two people costumed to look like a cow, with the person in front wearing a cow head mask, using the horns to butt people, and the other person serving as the back of the cow, kicking at their audience. I found them frightening as a child, and the heavy drums and flutes that accompanied them heightened my terror. Christmas in Guyana also meant “putting away the house” an expression meaning redecorating. New furniture (or at least spruced up furniture), new curtains, along with heavy cleaning are all essential at Christmastime. In fact, most people are awake past midnight decorating so that everything is fresh for the unveiling of their newly “put away” house on Christmas Day.

Special food and drinks like Pepperpot, Garlic Pork, sorrel, mauby and ginger beer are all enjoyed at this time. And as in many other countries, special decorations, Father Christmas and gift gifting are central to Christmas in Guyana.

But when I was in graduate school, I asked myself why I celebrate Christmas. At the time, I laid claim to no religion in particular, although I was not anti-religious. I attended no church and don’t recall praying on a regular basis. So, I wondered why celebrate Christmas? I had, and still have, wonderful memories of Christmas from my childhood. Apart from the special food and drink, spying the dollhouse that was to be a surprise for me is a treasured memory, as is saving to buy my parents gifts, and successfully hiding gifts for my Mum. I also remember having visitors and helping Mum to serve hors d’oeuvres on special trays. Having soda! And Nat King Cole’s voice. All of these are part of my Christmas memory book.

But fast forward to the days when I was in graduate school and had my own over-priced apartment in Los Angeles. Thinking about the reason for doing so, rather than simply doing it because I always had, why was I celebrating Christmas? The question for me hinged on with what other particularly Christian activities was I involved? Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the principal figure in Christianity. And so given that I was not involved with anything particularly Christian, I was trying to take part in Christmas merely to enjoy its goodies—food and fun. Since moving to the U.S., I had been spending hundreds of dollars on Christmas presents for lots of friends and relatives. Each year, there was a feeling of uncontrollable spending and gift exchanges. (Don’t misunderstand. I was living what seemed like a fairly decent life but that didn’t make me a practicing Christian; people of the major world religions and even those without are doing the same too.) 

As a baby, I was baptized Christian and while I did not grow up attending church, I had become rather interested in the institution when I was about eight, and took up Sunday school in earnest. I don’t remember how long that interest lasted but in my late teens I became interested in religion and started going to church again. All of my church-going up to that point had been in Guyana and Antigua, but when I came to the U.S. for college I stopped going to church—that was yet another area of life to try to navigate in a new society, and I let it go.

I didn’t really know much about Christianity actually. So why was I celebrating Christmas? How much of my Christmas celebration was based on the purely consumer aspects of it? It’s clear why Christmas is beloved by retailers; they earn as much as three-quarters of their annual profit at this time! But why should I love it or celebrate it? And why do you celebrate Christmas, if you do?

What meaning is there in your celebrations, if any at this time of year? Is it important to you to know the origins of traditions? Does it matter if they are related in a traceable way to that which you are celebrating? Left to your own devices—can you imagine not having the advertising blitz that we see late in the year that direct us to the “must buy” gifts of the season—how might you and your family celebrate? Consumption has become a part of the Christmas ritual in North America. How much of the meaning of Christmas is tied to shared consumerism and the objects we consume?