Lto divine Beyoncè would change her feet and ears. Cheryl Cole is ashamed of her cellulite and Britney Spears doesn’t like her nose. Kate Hudson would like to have Gisele Bündchen’s lips and legs (but she accepts hers), Jessica Alba complains about the cellulite that appeared after her second motherhood and never went away. Susan Sarandon confesses: «I gave myself a makeover! If one wants to be attractive until death, they are a bit made of her ».
The survey: “Me and my body”
Celebrities and “ordinary” women all have a high rate of self-criticism that makes the body a battlefield. Two visions collide: perfection and imperfection, self-acceptance and rejection. Who’s winning? Our survey “Me and my body”, which developed two thousand questionnaires distributed over the past few months to the readers of iO Donna and RCS MediaGroup, says that the “body positivity” trend has a slight advantage, that “liking yourself” and “loving yourself”, considering defects, “uniqueness” or even “strengths” comes first in advice and good intentions. Not that women are that forgiving. Invited to rate themselves in front of the mirror, they reach an average of six or a little more.
Body Positivity: accepting yourself or others?
“It’s clear,” he comments Monia Azzalini, researcher at the Pavia Media Research Observatory. «They cannot escape a form of objectification. They are confronted with the idea of what they should be, also with respect to self-representation on digital media, otherwise they would give themselves a higher rating. The imperative of appearance is still summarized in the parameters thinness – slenderness – youth, in images constructed for the male eye: the theme remains seduction. And this happens despite adhering to the idea of body positivity, born in America to eliminate social stigma in the name of diversity and inclusion. The basic concept is to respect the bodies of others. In the survey, however, body positivity is experienced individually: loving each other, accepting each other, explaining to the younger ones that there is no single model to which they can conform. But it is a starting point.”
The engine of perfectionism
Are there culprits in this story? Digital media? The fashion system? “Let’s face it, the size 40 myth exists,” he says Paola Pizza, fashion psychologist (he published with Franco Angeli The courage to like yourself and it just came out The color worn). «Remember The Devil Wears Prada? “The 38 is the new 40. The 42 is the new 56“. Beauty is being thin, despite the inclusion of models like Ashley Graham. Skinny, but with breasts, and if you don’t have them you get them done“.
Some admit that they have a conflicting or fluctuating relationship with their body (sometimes they like each other, other times they don’t): the sense of guilt, having to be a certain way is the driving force of perfectionism, a source of suffering. There is a dominant model, and it can be seen from the spread of very dangerous diets, from expressions like “I have to fit into that dress!”.
We need to reverse the relationship with fashion: how many times is it used to conform and not to enhance one’s identity? We need to change the question. Not: “Does this suit me?” but: “Does it make me happy? Does it increase my self-esteem?».
Overcome the concept of curvy
“Many girls today are anything but thin,” she says Cinzia Lolli, founder of Sophia Curvywho took part in the Winter Melody fashion show in Bologna by Centergross, a giant in ready-to-wear fashion, «and they suffer because they often can’t find fashionable clothes. They find tents, cloaks, bags. This is where I see the weight issue. Today everything is standardized. Very few study the proportions so that a suit fits well, from 48 to 64, and it’s obvious that if you can’t find anything to wear you feel excluded, wrong. But when you went to the seamstresses, there was no such thing as curvy or not curvy, there were the right measurements for each. The burden was not experienced in such an anxious way!
Just to embrace the concept of body positivity, in the Centergross video the models enter a gourmet temple, buy tortellini, move among delicious forms of parmesan and do a blitz in the fish shop. And to reiterate it, on the eve of Milan Fashion Week, Martino Midali had the biologist, the manager and the architect parade alongside the models (normal bodies, not special bodies) and, at the opening, the Sardinian artist Ambra Pintore sang about freedom, diversity, inclusion: «Is it the dress that gives you the soul? Is the dress what you are? No, for sure, but we struggle to recognize it.
The social media trap
«We have scales built into our gaze, we weigh each other. We are in full fatphobia. “You’ve lost weight!” is a compliment» jokes, but not too much, Ameya Canovi, systemic-relational psychologist who talks about the body in the essay Of too much family (Sperling & Kupfer): «My mother never dieted, she was plump but she liked herself and she gave me self-acceptance with milk. But the young people are very stressed, they don’t know who they are yet, they don’t communicate with themselves. Yet the body is communication, it gives information. If you eat more than you should you are needy, you have not been fed. By showing themselves on social media, asking for likes, approval, applause, girls neglect their internal dialogue. They don’t listen to what the body is saying. You learn with time.”
The fear of growing old
With time come other worries: losing autonomy, being inefficient, in a word, getting old. There’s not much fear, actually. But to the question: «Are you trying to counteract aging?” half of the younger ones and 80 percent of the fifty-year-olds answer yes. Every age has its own recipe: move, eat healthily, stop smoking, reduce alcohol (the girls at happy hour), resort to a cosmetic doctor (30 percent) and surgery (20-25 percent). For photos on social media, fortunately, there is always preventive retouching. Models of beauty still exist, less unequivocally, and range from Matilda De Angelis (“I suffer from acne, the standards of perfection have intoxicated me”) to Jennifer Aniston, from Helen Mirren (“Why not claim a fashion that “gives” an older body?”) to Kate Middleton, from Ashley Graham (her slogan: Eat, pray, love) to Bella Hadid, models on opposite sides of the scale: a 52 tending towards 54 and a 40.
«Fashion has an enormous influence» assures Paola Pizza. «But showing different bodies must correspond to a real change, not just a politically correct choice. Put a curvy there and you’re good…”.
The means by which we exist in the world
«Right on social» recalls Azzalini «one of the media with which women can interact, the concept of body positivity originates. Despite being one of the main sources of anxiety (comparison makes it difficult to accept oneself) they have given space to other voicesthe. There are those who have used them, like Matilda De Angelis, to treat acne, others vitiligo. We need no one to be discriminated against because of their physical appearance. When we can all say “I am as I am and I respect others as they are” there will be no more battles for body positivity.” But Ameya Canovi would like to change the definition, «from body positivity to body neutrality. The body is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is the means by which we exist in the world.” Ashley Graham also hates the term “curvy”. We still have to work on the words. Because yes, you know, words are stones.
More generous in self-examination
«Let’s talk about yourself. How much do you like yourself?». 30 percent fluctuate between 5 and 6. Almost none of them reward themselves with a good ten. Half give themselves a seven or an eight, the others give themselves a five or less (15 percent), which means: fail. The younger ones are dissatisfied, especially the forty-year-olds, who give themselves a limited pass, while the more mature ones are reconciled, perhaps because age leads to greater balance. Perhaps because they accepted the invitation of Diane Keaton, from the age of 77: «Look at yourself more generously». In self-examination there is little generosity: the breasts are too small, the arms are thin, the post-maternity abdomen is relaxed, the capillaries on the legs are ugly, the waistline has increased, the fat pads are invincible. «No one, as children, teaches us appreciation for fear of narcissism» observes Canovi. «Instead we should feel beautiful. A body that does not respect the rules can be at peace. To like each other you have to go to school about yourself, understand yourself in depth, reconcile. Only then will that very long list of defects be shortened.”
We on the scale, where is the body positivity?
To the question “Which parts of the female body are still the object of indiscriminate criticism?” the 91 percent answer is “The weight.” To the question “What do you struggle to accept?” the answer is, for the majority, still «The weight». In the open answers, however, there are mature reflections. Like this one: «A healthy body, even with a few extra pounds or with stretch marks and cellulite, allows us to live our life. We must not despise him or stress him by thinking of losing 7 kilos in 7 days.” At all ages the nightmare is “The belly”. Long lists of treatments follow: cryolipolysis, laser, biorevitalization between 30 and 40, abdominoplasty, radiofrequency and fillers between 40 and 50, blepharoplasty and liposuction between 50 and 60, a sign, in the best case scenario, of the desire to improve oneself, in worse, than an inconvenience. «Among the most criticized parts” notes Monia Azzalini, “the butt, the breasts, the legs, the thighs, all linked to seduction. She doesn’t seduce with her nose… Even if, in words, they accept themselves, women struggle to free themselves from the patterns they have made their own, and on the basis of which they judge themselves.”
The gaze of others, and ours
How important is the gaze of others? Very. 40 percent of those interviewed rate it between 7 and 8, the youngest, exposed on social media, between 9 and 10. The “others” are “friends”, “partner”, “people I meet”, “my mother”, “children”. Only 20 percent don’t care. But which look comes first? Many answer “Mine” (68-70 percent).
It seems like a good thing, but psychologist Ameya Canovi disagrees: «In reality we have introjected the beauty commandments by which we judge ourselves. The evaluation of others is already within us. If in my very first relationships and then, as I grew up, I was considered inadequate, clumsy, too thin or fat, I will go looking for confirmation of the theory I have about myself. I will treat my body as it has been treated. A mix of what comes from the mother and later from the social context. There is school and there are parties. During adolescence we are wax, malleable. If I have been branded as awkward I will see myself the same way. Yet a disharmonious nose can match the face. Julia Roberts’ mouth is big but it suits her!
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