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daily kansan
wednesday
11.10.99
fourteen.b
Weighty issues
Celebrities and sedentary Americans tip both ends of an unhealthy scale
By Heather Woodward Kansan campus Editor
hey are the American version of royalty.
Although they lack crowns, they adorn themselves with jewels and varnish. They are beautiful.
lavish evening wear. They are celebrities the people who reside on slick magazine covers and glowing television sets.
And the female members of that elite group are thinning down, at times at the cost of a sound diet, according to an Oct. 18 article in People magazine. The article, which compares older photos of stars such as Jennifer Aniston and Gwynth Paltrow with photos from this year, reveals an apparent, and not necessarily healthy, difference.
Meanwhile the rest the country is getting fatter.
About a week after the People article, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study about the increase in Americans who are overweight and obese.
More than half of adults are overweight and one in five adults is obese, or more than 30 percent heavier than ideal body weight. The numbers for women are a bit lower: 46 percent are overweight and 19 percent are obese.
Being obese is not healthy — the study showed that 300,000 people die each year from weight-related problems. Obese individuals are more prone to heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, bone and joint diseases, gall bladder disorders and sleep apnea.
Joseph Donnelly, professor and chairman of the health, sport and education science department, conducts studies on weight management issues. He said it was predicted that half of the population would be obese by 2020.
"There has been an increase of 10 percent obesity in 10 years." Donnelly said. "There is no other condition or disease that has ever made that kind of change. It's so incredible."
He attributed the trend to less exercise and the abundant availability of
"We are genetically
wired to be physi c al six to
eight hours a day." Donnellly said. "Only 20 percent choose to become active every day."
Among that 20 percent are actresses, the People article said, who tend to work out more and eat less than the average person.
To combat the pattern of less exercise in the general population, Donnelly said government officials had discussed such options as denying federal funding to housing projects that do not include sidewalks, building parking lots for public officials at least 500 feet from their buildings and increasing the tax on food, especially fast food.
But beyond sheer willpower, there are no guarantees that people will change their habits.
Melissa Wilson, Garden City Junior, said she thought stress contributed to obesity.
"I know when I'm stressed, I'm more likely to eat chocolate than go out and exercise." Wilson said. "I think people view exercise as an inconvenience."
Ann Chapman, a registered dieitian who works at Watkins Health Center, said she agreed that increased obesity was caused by less daily physical activity.
"People are more sedentary," she said. "It's not because of increased food intake or caloric intake. We have lifetimes today that decrease our physical activity. We have elevators, escalators and remotes, all kinds of remotes."
That lifestyle means more pounds and a more distorted image of what those pounds signify as the media ideal becomes more unattainable. Chapman said that according to the Eating Disorder Awareness Program, 80 percent of healthy weight teen-age females saw themselves as fat.
"The images portrayed by the media are hard on all women's self-esteem," Chapman said. "It's becoming more
and more unrealistic,
which increases women's anxiety
level. The m o d e l they're aspir ing to be is becom ing skin nier and skinnier."
Women at the University of Kansas are no exception. Melissa Wilson, who is a resident assistant in Ellsworth Hall,
image was an issue she and other RAs were concerned about to the extent that they were planning to have a forum about it in December.
"It's something that even girls at this level deal with," Wilson said. "Women see successful women as those skinny models, and they see smart women as those skinny models. Unfortunately, the body types that we are exposed to are pretty unrealistic."
Tamara Falicov, acting assistant professor of theater and film, said the media ideal was a dangerous one that had been growing since the 1980s. It has been epitomized recently with speculation about Ally McBeal star, Calista Flockhart, suffering from an eating disorder.
"Models like Kate Moss in Calvin Klein ads show women, grown women, who have bodies like little girls," Falicov said. "What I don't know is whether Hollywood perpetuates these images, or whether it's a reflection."
Either way, Falicov said she saw her students play out Hollywood's version of attractive femininity in their scripts and productions.
"I'm aware of students' characterization of the relationships between women and men," Falicov said. "There is a tendency to pick glamorous women for the main role. I don't know if they're consciously or subconsciously perpetuating those images in their own work. But I've never seen anything that questioned the representation of women and men."
Not all Hollywood images are pencil thin—take Roseanne or Rosie O'Donnell for example. Both Oprah Winfrey and Ricki Lake have struggled for years with their weight. And Camryn Manheim, an overweight star
of NBC's The Practice dedicated her
1998 Emmy Award to "all the fat girls." Falicov said she thought Manheim was a role model for people who do not fit the Hollywood stereotype.
"She's breaking the taboo and going against the grain," Falicov said. "She's someone who's holding up fatness and is in Hollywood, and she's not ignoring her body. She's a role model for women who don't look like Barbie."
But, Donnelly said,overweight people were more likely to be discriminated against for jobs and college entrance.
It's not a disease you can hide " he said
FAT FACTS
62.3 percent of men are overweight.
46.6 percent of women are overweight.
18.8 percent of men are obese.
19.3 percent of women are obese.
African American women have the highest prevalence of being overweight: 64.5 percent.
Hispanic women are second with 56.8 percent overweight.
Caucasian women are third with 43 percent.
Among men, overweight estimates are about the same for African American , Hispanic and Caucasian: all between 62 and 64 percent.
The prevalence of being overweight or obese also is related to the level of educational attainment among U.S. adults, especially among women.
60 percent of women who have not graduated from high school are overweight.
49 percent of female high school graduates are overweight.
29 percent of women who earned post-graduate college
29 percent of women who earned post-graduate college degrees are overweight.
source: Center for Disease Control
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