Teen body image

Flex, Dec, 2005 by Greg Merritt

According to a recent study conducted by researchers at Flinders University in Australia and published in the May 2005 issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, television makes adolescent boys and girls desperate for bodies few can healthily achieve. The survey of 1,452 secondary school students found that young teens who watched extremely fit physiques on shows like The O.C. or in music videos were more likely to have poor images of their own bodies and thus be at risk for eating disorders or steroid use.

The study's author, Marika Tiggemann, also singled out the increasing bulk of children's action figures "that have become more muscular than even extreme bodybuilders," as reported by E.J. Mundell at drkoop.com. Tiggemann clearly hasn't seen Australia's own Lee Priest or Luke Wood.

"Most people are perfectly healthy, but cannot look like the TV stars without doing something unhealthy," Tiggemann said. "As I see it, a whole heap of people are unnecessarily miserable about this and waste energy on something that is trumped up." As we see it, Tiggemann is the one wasting energy and trumping things up. Her study is in contrast to recent surveys about the ever-increasing obesity of American youth. Surely, they need more encouragement to be fit, not less. Furthermore, with enough effort and time, most teens should eventually be able to achieve--via health-boosting exercise and nutrition--physiques comparable to a soap-opera star or a music-video dancer. Achieving a physique comparable to Lee Priest or Luke Wood won't be nearly so easy.