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Eating Disorders Awareness Week

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Next week (25 th February - 3 rd March) is Eating Disorder Awareness Week in the UK and this year�s theme is Breaking Down Barriers [�to treatment], of which there are many. Research indicates that only 20-30% of people with eating disorders receive professional help [1-2], despite the fact that eating disorders are frequently chronic and intractable illnesses associated with numerous medical complications, psychosocial impairment, and the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric illnesses [3]. As well as the stigma linked to mental illness, eating disorders are often also subject to an additional layer of stigma whereby eating disorders are widely trivialised, even among healthcare professionals [4]. Depending on the exact presentation, eating disorders can be viewed as the result of either an over-investment in societal standards to be thin � �a diet gone too far� OR the absence of care and respect for one�s body and self. This is reflected in the research and I have personally h...
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On outrage and images of attractive men

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Men�s appearance concerns have historically had less attention than women�s beauty. So, it�s a strange thing when representations of attractive men become a source of public outrage. In this blog we consider three recent examples, where the representation of �hottie�, �handsome� or simply �good�� masculinity has provoked responses of shock, anger or indignation that appear to underpin a desire to annihilate them. These are, TubeCrush, a website where users send in unsolicited photographs of attractive men on the London Underground; a Lumen dating adver t for the over-50s company whose �Pull a cracker�� campaign was banned on the London Underground, and; the notorious Gillette advert , �The best a man can be�, which received a raft of media attention   for its clean-shaven, non-toxic image of masculinity (e.g reactions here , here and here ). Below we discuss each of these examples and why we think this outrage is misplaced. Photo: kevin-bhagat-804491-unsplash So, starting with Tub...
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Januhairy: Liberation within limits

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Along with �Dry January�, �RED (run every day) January� and �Veganuary�, �Januhairy� is one of the challenges which comes with the �New Year, New You!� onslaught of how to become a better person. In my last Beauty Demands blog   I commented on the dramatic change which has happened as we see ourselves not as �inner� thinking and doing beings, but as �outer�, to-be-looked-at beings. Indeed we have gone so far on this trajectory that a better self now means a better body. In a visual and virtual culture, our bodies are ourselves. Januhairy is a month long challenge which aims to get women to �love and accept� their body hair while raising money for charity. It was launched by students from Exeter University, and has received lots of press, taking off around the world. Photo: istolethetv  (CC Attributions 2.0 license ) In Perfect Me ,   I write a lot about body hair. I call body hair �the canary in the mine�. It is a very clear example of the normalisation and naturalisation...
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My body, my self?

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Last New Year, I wrote a short piece for The Conversation on how we believe � and often unreflectively � that we are, or will be, better if our bodies are better. That our bodies have become our very selves in a visual and virtual culture is one of the main arguments of Perfect Me . This is so widely believed that we often don�t recognise either that it is true (until someone points it out) or how surprising and transformative this is. To think that our selves are our bodies is new. New Year�s Resolutions show us very clearly what we value and what matters to us. These are the goals we set for ourselves. We think these things are valuable and having them is important to us. The top New Year�s Resolutions for 2019 again show this focus, with the top three all being aimed at transforming the body: 1. Diet or eat healthier (71%) 2. Exercise more (65%) 3. Lose weight (54%) The next two are not body related: 4. Save more and spend less (32%) 5. Learn a new skill or hobby (26%) The f...
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A Year in Beauty Demands

At this time of year, magazines urge us to dress in �perfect party dresses to hit the dance floor in� (Marie Claire), and to buy �Christmas makeup sets ALL beauty lovers will want� (Cosmopolitan), not forgetting �the best fake tans for surviving the winter washout� (Glamour). It all sounds somewhat exhausting! Why not instead look back at our blog and see what our contributors have said and done about beauty in 2018?  We began the year, appropriately, with Heather Widdows musing on how New Year�s resolutions had changed over time to focus on appearance rather than character improvement, and the potential harms of this; an idea also explored by Ajmal Mubarik . Throughout 2018, various other themes have emerged:          Social Media As a primarily visual environment, social media is impossible to ignore in relation to appearance. Knowing that social media images are idealised does not make us less susceptible to their effect, according to Ja...
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Blending in and standing out: Comfort and visibility in beauty practices

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When I was about twelve years old, a schoolfriend said I had beautiful eyes. �You should outline them in black!� she said. Encouraged by the compliment, the next morning I attempted to follow her advice. I didn�t own any black eyeliner, so I tried to create the recommended effect by layering blue and brown eyeliner on top of each other. On the school bus, my friend smiled and gave me the thumbs up. I had succeeded! The pleasure was short-lived. Over the course of the day the liners separated and smudged, leaving me with multi-coloured panda eyes. A boy with whom I was usually friendly passed me a note on which he�d written a humorous poem mocking my makeup skills. I was not a figure of beauty. I was a figure of fun. Decades later, most days I still don�t wear makeup. Occasionally, though, I do apply it. Sometimes I regret it instantly: my skills aren�t necessarily up to the job, and I end up wiping it all off. Other times, knowing my limitations and working within them, I achieve a pas...
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Researching beauty in meat space � my brush with the beauty vloggers

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My PhD research centred on beauty vloggers, namely, young women who regularly produce beauty content on YouTube for a living � it�s their jobs. In my work I demonstrate how although the beauty vlogger appears solo in front of a camera, they rarely work alone. The UK (and many other countries) has a sizable beauty vlogging industry, which (in addition to YouTube and brands) also features a proliferating number of intermediaries, managers and �i ndustry experts�. A significant element of the beauty vlogging ecology is the � networking event �. These events are highly feminised and ostensibly centred on leisure: they often featuring a �tea party� or �cocktail� theme, but are branded through post-feminist logics of girl-boss empowerment. In highly decorated rooms, often around a high-end centrepiece cake, stakeholders give lectures, and successful vloggers and influencers speak on panels. Beauty and lifestyle brands horseshoe around the peripheries of event locations, giving out products ...
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