An epidemic of beauty sickness: Renee Engeln at TEDxUConn

Renee Engeln touts women's obsession with beauty as beauty sickness. She suggests some ways the situation may be checked.

So, today's theme is the future.

I'm going to talk about a growing epidemic
and what we might do to stop it.

But first I'm going to start in the past.

About 15 years ago,
I was an eager, young, graduate student

and I spent a lot of time teaching.

I really liked my students,
I got to know them very well,

and the more I listened
to my female students,

the more I picked up
on something troubling.

These bright, talented, young women

were spending alarming amounts of time
thinking about, talking about,

trying to modify
their physical appearance.

They wanted so much to feel beautiful.

Now, our perceptions of beauty
are complicated.

They have deep evolutionary roots.

From a scientific perspective,
beauty is not just desirable,

but also rare.

So, what's struck me was not that
these women wanted to feel beautiful,

or that they didn't all feel beautiful
all the time.

Instead, what's struck me
was that their quest for beauty

seemed, at least at times,
to overrule, to overwhelm

every other goal or interest they had.

These were young women
just embarking on their adult lives

and they were worried.

They worried that they were too fat,
they worried that their skin wasn't clear,

they worried that they were already,
at the tender age of 20, getting wrinkles,

they worried that they didn't look like a
"Sports Illustrated" swimsuit model

or a Victoria's Secret angel.

They worried that they had cellulite,
they worried that they weren't a size 00,

and I was worried about them.

So, I went to my grad school adviser

and I said, "I got an idea,
this is what I'm going to study,

right, this is going to be my thing,

and in particular I'm going to consider
how images like this

might be affecting women."

And she said, "Mm, na, don't bother."

"You don't need to look at that,"
she said,

"because really, smart women,
they know better.

They know better than to be affected by
things like media images."

And I said, "Well,
that's an empirical question."

So, based on the research
I've conducted since then,

I have to say she was kind of right.

In some ways, women do know better.

This is an advertisement
I use in one of my studies,

and I'm going to show you some responses
from research participants.

So, women know that the images
of women they see in the media

are often unusually thin,

possibly even eating disordered.

They know the women
they see in these images

aren't representative of
the general population of women,

they understand that
they're statistical outliers.

And on top of that,

women are very aware
that in the real world

nobody, nobody actually looks like this.

So, that's the good news,
women do know better,

they know about eating disorders,
they know about Photoshop, that's great.

Here's the bad news, it doesn't help,
it doesn't seem to matter.

Knowing better isn't enough,
The same woman who said this, for example,

"This body type is unrealistically skinny,
and her ribs are showing,"

and you're kind of like: yeah, right on.
She followed it up with,

"I'm not as skinny.

Should I go to drastic
weight-loss programs and tan,

risking my health?
I feel like I want to be like that,

I wish I was a model.

Maybe after seeing this picture,
I won't want to eat."

That's not what you want here as a
researcher, using this picture,

I have to tell you, but we moved on.

This is not a failure
of information processing,

it's not a failure of intelligence,

and it is definitely not
a failure to know better.

This is beauty sickness, and that's what
I'm going to talk about today.

Now, do only women get beauty sickness?

No, it can afflict men too,

but women are much more likely
to hate their bodies.

Women spend more money on beauty,
they spend more time on beauty,

there at 10x greater risk
for anorexia and bulimia.

Women are more likely to get
commentary about their physical appearance

from friends, from romantic partners,
from sometimes complete strangers.

There were a little over 1.5 million
cosmetic surgeries in the US in 2012.

Almost 90% of those went to women.

So, today I am going to talk about women.

What are these symptoms
of beauty sickness?

I see beauty sickness when women
who are full-time college students,

not professional models,

tell me they know exactly what to do
when someone pulls a camera out.

The women where I teach have shorthand
for it -- I'm going to demonstrate it.

It's side, out, down,
tilt, skinny arms.

And you get, apparently,
extra points for this.

I don't know if you got that.

Here's one of my students
who's kind enough

to let me put this picture
in the slideshow.

Here are two others who are
demonstrating the pose as a joke

at their senior formal.

That's how ubiquitous it is.

Now, what's wrong with wanting
to pose in a flattering way

when your picture is taken?
Nothing...

...But, it's worth asking,
how did we get to a point

where so much of
women's time and energy

is being taken up by concerns
that used to belong

only to professional models
and actresses?

And more importantly,
what happens to women

when their energy is so intensely
focused on their own appearance?

So, physical beauty comprises
a number of characteristics,

but for women there is one that swamps
all others in terms of importance.

Do you know what it is?

Yeah, it's weight, right, it's body size.

There's a statistic that's
often bandied about in conversations

about women's obsession with body size,

but actually comes from a survey in
"Esquire" magazine in 1994.

But it gets a lot of attention,
because, apparently,

54% of women said they would rather
be hit by a truck than be fat.

I'd like to first knowledge that "Esquire"

is not where we turn
for careful scientific research!

But... I'm fascinated by reactions
to this statistic.

I brought it up in class once.
I said, "Class,

54% of women would rather be
hit by a truck than be fat."

And I expected to see outrage.

But instead of seeing horror on
the looks of my female students' faces,

I heard a series of questions.

I heard, "How big is the truck?"
(Laughter) "What kind of truck?"

"How fast is it going?"
(Laughter)

and, "Just how much, exactly,
would it hurt?" (Laughter)

And it kind of makes sense,
I think probably getting hit by a truck...

...hurts.

But there's something else
that hurts too,

and that's living in a culture
where you are bombarded

with these three messages,
over and over, and over gain:

Message 1:
Beautiful is the most important,

most powerful thing
a girl or woman can be.

Message 2:
This is what beauty looks like, and,

Message 3, which is sometimes implicit,
it's sometimes just an inference:

You don't look like this.

It shouldn't surprise anyone
that, in laboratory studies,

when we expose women
to images like this,

even for just a few minutes,

it increases depression and shame,
it reduces self-esteem,

it lowers body satisfaction,
this is beauty sickness.

Our sense of what's real,
what's possible when it comes to beauty,

is warped by our overexposure
to these images.

Instead of seeing them for what they are,
which is extraordinarily rare,

we start to see this
as typical or average.

So, you can look around the world
and you can see that men and women

are getting fatter,
but the body ideal for women

is getting thinner and thinner, so that
the distance between what a woman is

and what she longs to be gets
bigger and bigger.

It's not a small gap,
it's a gaping chasm.

If you look in that chasm,
you're going to see beauty sickness.

Now, when evolutionary psychologists
look at images like this,

they make the argument
that this kind of beauty is like sugar.

In our modern times, we're getting
too much of it, in too high-up doses.

Our brains don't quite know
what to do with this.

It's not good for us.
It gives us the message,

that this is typical,
even though it's not.

So, it warps our sense of what's real,
it's making us sick.

What other signs do I see in
our culture of beauty sickness?

If we look at popular online news sources,

well -- we'll pick on
"The Huffington Post" today --

they cover things like crime and
politics and world news and education,

and, then, as you probably know,
they also cover really important things,

like what famous women look like,
what they're wearing,

whether they've gained weight,
how they've lost weight.

These are all from the same day
on "The Huffington Post",

two of them were on the front page,
when I took the screenshot.

Beauty sickness is what happens

when women spend so much time worrying,
not about their education,

their career goals, their family
or their relationships,

not about the state of the economy,
the state of the environment,

the state of the world,
because they're too busy

worrying about
their weight-loss goals,

their skin care regimen,
the state of their arms,

the state of their abs,
the state of their thighs.

How did we get to this place?

According to a set of ideas
called objectification theory,

here's how it works.

Women live in a world
where they're taught

that their primary form of currency
is their appearance.

And you can't escape it.

You walk down the street and
people comment on your appearance,

advertisers tell you
how to be more beautiful,

television programs,
even news programs,

ridicule women who fail to meet
traditional beauty standards.

Your appearance is so chronically
observed by other people

that, over time, you internalize
that perspective,

so you become an observer of yourself.

Instead of moving around,
looking out at the world,

you spend all of that time imagining
how you look to the world.

Is my hair okay?
Is my forehead shiny?

Am I standing up straight?
Am I sucking in my stomach?

Am I smiling the right kind of smile?
Do these jeans make me look fat?

Do I have muffin top?
Do I have skinny arm?

Do I look okay?

Right? You've internalize this notion

that your body is always, always
on display for other people,

always up for evaluation,
so you better keep an eye on it too.

Now, psychologists have long told us
that we have finite cognitive resources.

So, just as, despite
my students protestations,

I hold that you cannot be on Facebook
and text and pay attention in class

at the same time.
(Laughter)

You also cannot chronically monitor
your body's appearance

and be engaged with the world.

So that's the worst outcome
of beauty sickness.

When you are beauty sick,
you cannot engage with the world,

because between you
and the world is a mirror.

And it's a mirror that travels
with you everywhere,

you can't seem to put it down.

It's beauty sickness
that makes women self-objectify,

that makes our young girls
want to grow up to be sexy things.

I spoke on a panel last fall
about media images,

and I got a question from
a young woman in the audience.

And she said, "Isn't this power?

Right? If women can
get things, valuable things

from this culture by being beautiful,

shouldn't we embrace that as a form of
power that's uniquely available to women?"

And I get it, I really do,
I get what she's saying.

But what kind of power,
at least what kind of real power,

is so ephemeral,
what kind of power expires

when you're thirty, or maybe forty,
if you are lucky or a celebrity?

What kind of power
is inversely correlated

with the attainment of wisdom
and life experience?

I want to reiterate here that
there is nothing wrong with beauty.

Our brains are so sensitive to beauty.

We know it when we see it,
we process it in milliseconds.

This desire to be beautiful,
the desire to be desired,

it is not something you can
completely shut off in the brain.

Wanting to be beautiful
is not the problem;

the problem is when it's all
our young girls and women want to be.

I would like young girls
and women to be like this,

I'd like them to be
so much more than hot.

So, how can we turn the tide
against beauty sickness?

Here are just a few ideas.

So, first: invest less in beauty.

Instead invest in things that last,

into things you don't have to fight
to keep in middle and older age.

If television shows like this
leave you thinking

more about your appearace instead of less,

stop watching them.

If there are magazines that
leave you obsessed with a body ideal

that most women can never
realistically achieve,

stop reading them.

Try not to think of your body
as a collection of parts

for other people to look at.

Think of your body
as unified, as whole,

as your tool for exploring the world.

Stop worrying maybe about
the size of your thighs,

and think about the strength
of your thighs,

because those legs, after all,

are the legs that walk you
around in the world.

And stop talking about your upper arms
as though they are "diseased".

Those are the arms that reach out and
bring the things you love close to you.

As this anti-anorexia ad says,

don't let people make you into a sketch;
you can be more than this or this.

Because your body is not for looking at,
it's for doing things.

Another thing you might consider is,

just as some people like to limit
their children's screen time these days,

maybe limit your mirror time.

And since today's talk
is about the future,

here's a direct way
you can impact the future

with respect to beauty sickness.

You can stop telling little girls
they're pretty.

So every time --
it sounds counterintuitive, right?

-- don't tell them they're ugly!

(Laughter)

Don't do that either!

But every time you feel compelled
to comment on a little girl's appearance,

consider complimenting one of
her other many lovely qualities instead.

Do you need help?
Here are some ideas.

Consider noticing when she is smart
or hard-working or generous

or persistent or kind or brave,
and, when you do that,

you undermine the system
that teaches girls

their best bet for social status
is the pursuit of beauty.

Try to raise daughters
who see their appearance

as a minor sidenote to their character
and their hard work.

You can change this conversation.

We are never going to live in a world
where beauty doesn't matter.

Our brains weren't made that way.

But we can live in a world
where beauty matters less,

and these types of characteristics
matter more.

And, in fact, small changes
in the way we think,

and the way we talk, and the way
we interact with each other,

could pave the way for
a truly more beautiful future.

Thank you.

(Applause)