Ethnicity and body image
How much does your culture and ethnicity affect your body image? TheSite.org finds out.
Positive body image
Research has shown that Black women with high self-esteem and a strong sense of racial identity actually rated themselves more attractive than pictures of supposedly 'beautiful' White fashion models. Other studies indicate that this may be because western Black women are more flexible in their concepts of beauty than their White counterparts.
A British study showed that Asian-British women were more content with their body size than White British women, despite the fact that the Asians' ideal body size was as slim as that of the white women. This suggests that the Asian-British women were less concerned about matching the ideal than the White women. A study of Mexican immigrants in America found that those who had immigrated after the age of 17 were less affected by the super-thin ideal than those who were 16 or younger when they came to the US.
Where things are changing
Root (1990) states that Black and Asian women who look and dress more like White women will have better jobs, salaries and social lives open to them than those who do not. Root feels this may put pressure on those with less western looks to try and shape their bodies to fit the mainstream culture's female body ideal.
There is some evidence to support this. The thin ideal for women seems to be spreading across all ethnic groups. In the last ten years there has been a significant amount of dieting and body shaping among African American celebrities. Performers such as Janet Jackson, Toni Braxton, and Oprah Winfrey have all become thin. Black female stars in the film, music and fashion industry are now just as thin as their White counterparts. And it is not just the UK and America where these changes are occurring. In traditional South African culture, a large posterior was favoured because it implied a woman was well looked after. But in recent years cosmetic surgery has come into vogue among up-and-coming black professionals.
Cosmetic surgery
The desire to change how we look, not only through the colour of our skin, but with the shape of our bodies, highlights a world where many of us are still not comfortable in embracing our ethnicity. Ethnic minorities including Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans, are increasingly going under the knife.
- The US was one of the first countries to start the trend of creating bigger lips through botox lip enhancing treatments. Women are even abandoning the waif look to get curves and a bootie like J-lo through implants in their buttocks.
- Asian men and women have been going under the knife for eyelid surgery to make their eyes look more westernised and African Americans are slimming their noses down with rhinoplasty.
Danger Zone: Any cosmetic surgery carries risks, but many people find that once they have changed one thing, it can become an addiction and there are other things they want altered.
Where things remain the same
- In Cameroon and many other parts of Africa, obesity, especially in the buttocks, has been associated with abundance, erotic desirability, and fertility. Fat has been seen as a statement of well-being and has been frequently produced artificially through fattening processes.
- In Jamaica, generally females want to be big; size 10 is too thin, while being a size 16 or above is seen as much more attractive. Weight is generally associated with wealth and prosperity and social status. So, instead of the health risks of crash diets, there is a new problem, that of fowl pills. These pills are simply hormone tablets used by farmers to fatten up hens before slaughter. They are being bought for just under a tenner a dozen by women desperate to get the perfect fuller figure. These pills contain the sex hormones, testosterone and progestogen, large doses of which can encourage breast cancer.
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