Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
No one who has been through their teens could contest that it is one of the most superficial periods of their lives.
As a result narcissism is the prevalent character trait: sometimes by playing the mirror game, staring at yourself while prodding and pinching and wishing the jelly bits to be less jelly-like and for toned muscle to emerge beneath oozing fat. But is this not an exaggeration? Talking to peers today most would agree with me and say that we endeavour to look like Beyoncé or Jessica Alba rather than Nicole Ritchie.
Few of us would look at the fashion models gracing the catwalks and see an ideal that we would want to emulate, even though banning underweight models at the Madrid Fashion Week was a beneficial change. Bones jutting out and no hips might have been the heroin chic ideal that Kate Moss made prevalent in the 1990s and Twiggy did in the 1960s but today there is more appreciation of all kinds of figures whether more a Twiggy or a Beyoncé.
Despite this though, I still cannot ignore the fact that there is a definite stigma of being overweight as a teen. Who has the best body or sexiest ass are all discussions that are had at break times and do not expect to feature in this list if you have fat excessing over jean waistbands. Instead this superficiality is more likely to trigger comments of, “she looks like she spent her summer holidays at Fuddruckers”.
This desire to look good causes many teenagers I know to turn into miniature health experts, quoting our BMI’s and discussing calorie counts and how long we spent at the gym the day before. For the vast majority this remains as a healthy interest with being in shape. But for some, I will admit that it becomes an obsession. Talking to one peer, they detailed how at one point going to the gym for three hours a day and only eating one meal became routine before they realised the absurdity of their habits.
But who is to blame for this? Unfortunately, it must once again rest on the media for amplifying an obsession with size, whether big or small. It is true to say that only when magazines, newspapers and television programmes stop discussing weight and end the hyperawareness of size will it stop being a feature of teenagers’ obsessions too.
Anisa Ghuloom is a 17-year-old student in Bahrain
