Tyra's doin good...but another suggestion couldn't hurt

I’ve been thinking about my change agent…yes, again. I am actually pretty surprised that I have still heard nothing back from Tyra! Well, one of her producers or even an intern at least. I did some research of the Tyra show and I found that apparently one of her favorite things to do is put herself in other peoples shoes—her most memorable example of this is the episode in which she donned a fat suit to see what a day in that life was like.

This write up of the article explains the interesting parallel that while Americans are increasingly obese, “the ideal body image is getting steadily thinner.” One of the major inspirations for this episode was the idea that it is TV that sets our standards. The show write-up explains, “Only one in 300 female characters is obese. In real life, one in 4 women is either overweight or obese. Reality TV is no help, 9 out of 10 women on these shows are thin. Out here in the real world, only 5 out of 10 can make that claim." Is it possible that ideals such as these are a little disheartening? What is with this type of portrayal? Why are producers, writers, and casting directors constantly feeding us these images and stereotypes? Why are we as consumers allowing them to? How far are we going to allow this to go?

We have people, possibly our friends and family, logging onto pro-ana websites and literally killing themselves and encouraging others to do the same. We sit and watch as these people wither away, yet we still support the idea that thin is beautiful, and nothing more is. I just don’t understand what we are waiting for. Perhaps eating disorders are not enough of an instant disease for us to notice it happening all around us. True, no one is spontaneously combusting in the seat next to us, but these people are dying, slowly and painfully and so, so lonely. It is time to stop putting these images in their faces. So, thank you, Tyra, for finally taking a stance and putting something new out there for us to tune into. Now, perhaps you should read a certain letter giving you new show material from a certain Chapman University student :)