COLUMN: Examining a prime-time disorder

From Jeff Adler's, "Section 8," Fall '98 From Jeff Adler's, "Section 8," Fall '98If you enjoy watching the Philadelphia Eagles thrash their opponents on "Monday Night Football," these are tough times. Following a crushing 34-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys earlier this season, the chances that you'll see the Eagles on a Monday night before 2000 are about as good as the NBA actually playing the all-star game in the city of brotherly love. But when the episode started, I was shocked to see that Flockhart is now a ghost of that woman from the opening credits. Those bubbly cheeks had disappeared along with her waistline. Honestly, Ally McBeal's dancing baby has thicker wrists than its partner Flockhart does. Apparently, I seem to have been late in noticing that the 34-year-old actress looks unhealthily thin. This September when Flockhart stood to receive an Emmy award, people nationwide were stunned to see her looking emaciated. Since then the tabloids have made her life a living hell. Everywhere she turns, reporters and fans have wanted to know the truth: Is their heroine a victim of anorexia nervosa? After nearly two months under the public microscope, Flockhart repudiated claims that she suffers from an eating disorder in the nation's gossip column, People magazine. Forgetting for a moment that denial is a symptom of an eating disorder, this is what the actress had to say: "I guess I don't know the exact definition of anorexia. But I eat.? Am I anorexic? I guess my answer would have to be no." Anorexia nervosa is defined as a severe psychological eating disorder, typically seen in girls and young women, in which the person is psychologically unable to eat and refuses food. Quite simply, it's self-starvation. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the symptoms of anorexia include fear of gaining weight though underweight, absence of three consecutive menstrual cycles and the maintenance of a body weight 15 percent below what is to be expected for that age and height. A table by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company showing the height-weight relationship for adults indicates that a woman of small frame with a height between 5'5" and 5'6" should weigh 117-133 lbs. Flockhart, who is 5'5 1/2", says she weighs 100 lbs. Although it's difficult to tell from numbers alone whether a person has an eating disorder, the debate still rages. The World Wide Web is littered with chat groups devoted exclusively to this topic, and for every critic of her weight, Flockhart has a supporter who argues that she is just your typical small, healthy girl. These are the same people who say that the media should leave the actress alone. How would you feel, they ask, if people were commenting on your weight and appearance? But such is the price of fame. Although I empathize with Flockhart, the success of her show has elevated her to the status of a TV role model. This past week, Ally McBeal ranked No. 21 with 14.6 million viewers. And who are these viewers? Let's not kid ourselves. Ally McBeal is a show marketed to women, especially young women ages 18-24. What exactly are these people watching? At times, Ally McBeal is a show which contests social conventions, but simultaneously it reinforces pop culture standards. In Greek, Calista means "most beautiful," and People ensured that our culture uses Flockhart as a standard of measurement when they ranked her as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world for 1998. In effect, Ally McBeal instructs women in contemporary bodily aesthetics. The show says, "Here. This is beauty. Now go emulate it." Flockhart, however, says in rebuttal that, "I can't go out and gain weight and be somebody I'm not in order to be a better role model." Perhaps she would be a better influence if she weighed more, but her point is important. We cannot solely blame her nor her show for a problem which runs rampant in pop culture, or for that matter, in Penn culture. Penn's campus is replete with women who are too thin for their own good. If it wasn't, Saladworks would have gone out of business long ago. And there are places like that all over campus. Yet even when I see a girl who looks like she is starving herself, a part of me still finds her attractive. And in short, the problem is me, or more generally speaking, men at large. We live in a male-dominated society, the flagship of which is mass entertainment. Television shows co-created by men, like Ally McBeal, foster ideals of beauty for women to aspire toward. Similarly, these same shows suggest an ideal by which men judge the beauty of a woman. Then, these men grow up to design television shows of their own according to the ideals on which they were raised. It's a self-propagating system which makes us obsess over our appearances and in some cases starve ourselves to the point of danger. But as history has proven, standards of beauty can change. What we need to do is be conscious of the problem and how it affects us and those around us. I don't mean that you should stuff your face with Ben & Jerry's. There's nothing wrong with "fat-free" as long as your life does not revolve around that idea. But if it does, then you may have a problem that needs some medical help. Take care of yourself before things get out of control. Otherwise, who knows? You may not be around the next time the Eagles play on Monday night.