Body Image

Every day millions of women lose time, money, energy, creativity, self-esteem and emotional connectedness to their loved ones. Why?

They lose these to an endless pursuit of an unattainable, unrealistic standard of female beauty — the thin ideal. Fashion is about fantasy, but somewhere along the way we forgot that. Instead, we began to think that every girl and every woman in our world was supposed to achieve this unreasonable and unhealthy ideal. As a result we all lose. We all lose when 50% of our population is distracted from more meaningful and fulfilling pursuits that make life full and worth living. And when 50% of our population is raised to hate their bodies, we all lose because research shows that body dissatisfaction is associated with poor health behaviors.

Pursuit of the healthy ideal — which looks different for different women — requires us to take care of our bodies. The healthy ideal happens when we simultaneously maximize our physical health, mental health and quality of life. For better or worse, however, our bodies are no different than any other object or living being in our care. Hate them and we are likely to abuse them. Love them and we will finally begin down the road to health. So give up Fat Talk, which reinforces the thin ideal, and join us in the pursuit of the healthy ideal.

Fat Talk

Fat Talk describes all of the statements made in everyday conversation that reinforce the thin ideal and contribute to women's dissatisfaction with their bodies. Examples of Fat Talk include: "I'm so fat," "Do I look fat in this?", "I need to lose 10 pounds" and "She's too fat to be wearing that swimsuit." Statements that are considered Fat Talk don't necessarily have to be negative; they can seem positive yet reinforce the need to be thin — "You look great! Have you lost weight?"

Delta Delta Delta's Involvement

Fat Talk Free® Week is an international, 5-day public awareness effort to draw attention to body image issues and the damaging impact of the thin ideal on women in society. This 2nd annual nationwide body activism event was borne from Delta Delta Delta's (Tri Delta's) body image education and eating disorders prevention program, Reflections: Body Image Program™.

Dr. Carolyn Becker, an associate professor of psychology at Trinity University, leveraged the unique organizational structure of sororities to disseminate a groundbreaking, peer-led eating disorders awareness program — with exciting results. Tri Delta learned of the program and joined in 2005 to pilot the program at major universities across the country. With strong positive feedback from participants, Tri Delta launched the program nationwide in 2008. In the process, Tri Delta recognized the prevalence and damaging effects of chasing the thin ideal and Fat Talk among women of all ages and started a major body activism movement for all women using the principles of Reflections — and Fat Talk Free® Week was born.