Students Share Body Image Tales

What began as submitted responses to an article on Middbeat regarding body image at the College has now evolved into a campus-wide storytelling event. Spearheaded by Leah Fessler ’15 and Sayre Weir ’15, “Let’s Start the Conversation: A Story-Telling Event Focusing on Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Wellness at Middlebury College” will be held on April 17 in the Gamut Room.

The event’s mission statement states that the goal of the project “is to spark meaningful conversation and bring more awareness to body image and eating disorders on campus.”

The inspiration behind the event began with a Middbeat article written by Fessler in February that focused on how obsessions with body-consciousness often manifest into unhealthy habits and negative self-comparison at the College. It generated 2,000 page views within its first two hours online.

As stated in the article, the initiative behind the piece was to “decrease that negative [body image] tendency, and increase celebration of body-diversity,” as well as to create an online forum for written stories or prose about personal experience with such issues. In addition to the overwhelming number of page views, the article also received 180 survey submissions and 45 written responses, most of which were anonymous.

“It was very encouraging to see that people were invested in this project and were excited about it,” said Fessler.

A common trend throughout the submissions revolved around fitness and the desire or need to somehow inflict a change upon one’s body.

“The vast majority of submissions were reinforcing the idea that the standards at Middlebury of beauty have influenced students to adopt a negative self image as it relates to their bodies,” said Fessler.

Some responses were from students who are currently suffering or have suffered from serious eating disorders, referencing times of hospitalizations and other drastic preventative measures. However, some pieces were also written with a positive outlook on the subject.

The story-telling event will feature approximately half of the submitted responses, two-thirds of which are from female authors, and one-third of which are from male authors. There will also be an open-mic portion at the end of the event, where anyone in the audience will have the opportunity to share their experience or story. There will also be a follow-up discussion regarding the event the following week.

For both Fessler and Weir, the issues of body image are deeply rooted in the College’s environment.

“Ever since I arrived at Middlebury, it’s been glaringly obvious that the standards of thinness and beauty are extremely amplified and unrealistic, causing a lot of anxiety, especially among girls in addition to boys,” said Fessler. “The standard of beauty here causes a lot of self-image problems. There’s an obsession with fitness on campus, and those things feed off each other.”

Weir reinforced the idea of competition that is inherently comprised in this issue. “I believe the obsession with body image found on campus is a byproduct of our determination to succeed and compete, and it perpetuates itself when we allow food and fitness to dominate conversations,” she said.

Even though this topic poses such a huge problem, it often goes unsaid.

“What bothers me the most is that no one wants to talk about it. People will talk about almost every other image on campus, but no one wants to ever talk about body image. I think a lot of people are afraid of admitting that this is a serious problem,” said Fessler.

Thus the goal of the readings is to create an open platform for dialogue and conversation.

“It should be a powerful and meaningful night, and I hope it will spark lots of discussion regarding how we can continue this important conversation,” said Weir. The co-organizers hope that students in the Middlebury community who might feel anxiety will find solidarity and support from others on campus, and this event will hopefully provide the outlet to do so.

“I think it’s time to start talking about it,” said Fessler. “We’re not professionals, or psychologists, or nutritionists, but we are concerned peers who are part of the problem, and that is something that we need to admit and start talking about. This is our community, and we have the power to influence it.”