Blogs and headlines are abuzz about the body size of American Idol Jordin Sparks. If she takes the name-calling to heart (and stomach), she may engage in a regimen of unhealthy, “pro-thin” behaviors to try and join the ranks of idol winners and finalists Ruben Studdard (who lost 100 pounds), Diana DeGarmo (who dropped three dress sizes --to a size four), Carrie Underwood, (who’s accused of losing too much weight), Jennifer Hudson (who lost weight for her role in the movie DreamGirls) and Taylor Hicks (who lost 22 pounds and made the cover of People Magazine). Among other offshoots of the show, “Idol” is becoming a weight loss plan.
While we’re all concerned about the obesity epidemic sweeping our country, the more troublesome issue here is the message that we’re sending to all American idol fans, who already feel relentless pressure from the media and popular culture to be thinner. As they watch their “idols” slim down, fans may start fad dieting, vomiting, compulsive exercising and the latest, chewing and spitting out food to reduce calorie burn. These behaviors lead to eating disorders, which, once established, can last a lifetime in one form or another. Every adult woman I interviewed for Lying in Weight: the Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women traced her disorder to hurts and hits taken in adolescence.
Jordin Sparks is our culture’s “idol.” She is also the living symbol of a battle our culture is now fighting: fat versus thin. The reality is that Americans are getting collectively heavier. At the same time, their standards of beauty, their idols, are increasingly based on getting thinner and thinner. Jordin Sparks is caught in the middle. Let’s hope that she and all her fans don’t go after the wrong dream of thinness and fall into the ranks of 30 women in the U.S. who are now suffering from eating disorders. We can stop this by taking charge of our own dreams.