Am I Thin Enough Yet Summary

It seems that of many of the issues and problems facing society today, few workable solutions are to be proposed. Psychology often takes the role of addressing these pressing problems such as suicide, eating disorders, and so forth, but in the search for a solution the field often ignores the wider social forces involved in these problems. In order to more fully understand these issues and work towards a solution, people need to examine these wider forces as well. One author and sociologist, Sharlene Hesse-Biber, tries to do this in her book Am I Thin Enough Yet? She focuses on eating disorders in her studies. She goes beyond the traditional psychological explanations of eating disorders into a powerful argument against the social, political, and economic pressures women face in society that can lead to eating disorders.

Sharlene Hesse-Biber first became interested in her research about eating disorders while she was the director of the Counseling Center at Boston College. After seeing the overwhelming incidence of female students reporting eating problems, she became interested in the broader factors at work in the incidence of this disorder. She began her study by initiating a survey of 395 students (both male and female) concerning their eating habits, diets, and their attitudes towards self, families, friends, and school.
She also conducted interviews in the health care and fitness industries. Next, she conducted an in-depth study of 60 college age women over an eight year period.

In her book, the author refers to the problems of eating disorders as the "cult of thinness," comparing the insatiable pursuit of being thin to that of a religious cult.
In both cases, members are isolates, follow a rigid set of rules and values, and seem obsessed with the path to perfection. Through interpretive sociology, Hesse-Biber highlights the various ways in which American families, schools, popular culture, and the health and fitness industry all contribute to this "cult of thinness," undermining young women's self-confidence as they emphasize the notions that thinness is beauty and that a woman's body is more important than her
mind.

Hesse-Biber examines the influence of patriarchy on eating disorders and the ideal concept of a woman's body. She shows that throughout history, women have always been preoccupied with their bodies and gone to great lengths to possess the requirements for the times idea of an ideal body. She shows that even in today's society, there are interrelated social structures and practices present that allow men to oppress and exploit women. She gives examples of women who believe they must look a certain way if they are to obtain a husband or success, exemplifying the social forces that influence a woman to value her body over her mind.

She examines how the economy of today's society also contributes to the "cult of thinness." She shows how popular culture reaffirms the notion of the ideal body by plastering magazines and television with ads degrading to women and depicting insanely unhealthy, underweight girls and pictures of beauty. There is an enormous profit to be made from these ads, convincing women that they need to obtain this ideal and buy these products to do so. The health and fitness industry also benefit greatly from the "cult of thinness." By convincing women that they need to lose weight and look a certain way, profits can be made from exercise videos, diet foods, weight-loss plans, and so forth.

One interesting find Hesse-Biber makes is by comparing to weight charts, one takes from one of the largest diet and weight loss organizations in the United States and one issued by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. She finds that the weight loss organization places the ideal weights for women much lower and the actual medical ideal weights in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's chart. The emphasized her notion that the weight-loss industry plays a part in convincing women that need to loss weight and join the "cult of thinness." She finds that for men the two charts and very similar, showing the de-emphasize on men and being thin. She also shows that the desired weight of most women falls well below the medical ideal.

For the most part, Hesse-Biber's study focused on young women from white upper-class and middle-class families, but she also introduced the reader to people from different cultures and situations who had acquired eating disorders, oftentimes in the pursuit of the American standard of physical perfection. She suggested that the cult of thinness is spreading to other populations such as preteens, men, and various ethnic and social classes.

The book concludes with Hesse-Biber's suggestions of solutions to the "cult of thinness." She recommends that women can overcome their low self-image and obsession with thinness through therapy, spiritualism, and empowerment. She comments that women must become their own person and live up to their ideals, not societies. She suggests social activism through education as a way for women to empower themselves and fight against a society obsessed with ideal beauty and weight.

For the most part, Hesse-Biber's research seemed very convincing and enlightening. She performed a lot of preliminary research before conducting her experiment, and she used various forms of obtaining data in her research, conducting surveys, viewing documents, interviewing industries, and conducting in depth studies. She seems to be using interpretive sociology in her studies, and I believe she in very accurate in this approach. The presentation of actual stories and emotional cases of women causes the book to be very impacting suggestive to the reader.

It would be interesting to see if the survey and interviews Hesse-Biber conducted were with students from various schools or just the school she was counseling at. If it is the case that the information came only from one college or area, it would seem that the information and data center would be biased and not necessarily representative of all society. Sharlene Hesse-Biber attempts to move beyond the psychological explanations and influences on eating disorders, but perhaps in moving beyond she completely dismisses them. Although her approach is sociological and well founded, her argument fails to take into account the psychological explanations on eating disorders, and this factor could possibly be seen as undermining her argument as a whole.

In conclusion, Hesse-Biber's research, although convincing in a sociological perspective, fails to take into account the role of psychology. An even more convincing future study that could be conducted would be one that brings the fields of sociology and psychology together. By attacking the problem in unison, new theories might be found on what causes eating disorders and new solutions could be proposed.