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Home › Articles › Body Image › Are You Hot?

Are You Hot?

Why TV's Latest Creations Aren't Such a Hot Idea

By Kelly Burgess

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Randall Flanery admits he's been lucky. None of his 10 children ever had any particularly significant body image problems. The closest they've come was once when he was bickering about something with one of his teenage daughters, and she made a comment about being fat and wanting to be thin. Later, she told him she'd just been trying to push his buttons.

Flanery is too experienced at spotting actual body image problems to fall for that. As associate professor of community and family medicine at Saint Louis University, he has been treating eating disorders for 20 years. However, he's rarely been as concerned about the emerging self-image of preteens and teens as he has become recently with the popularity of the television program Are You Hot?

"The media sends many subliminal messages regarding body image that are explicitly focused on standards that very few of us can achieve," says Flanery. "Kids do watch these shows, and it does affect them whether they say it does or not. There's a natural human tendency to be unsure about how you appear to other people. In this program they're doing that very explicitly and in a very negative way."

A Growing Problem
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), eating disorders are on the increase among teenage girls and young women. AACAP estimates that as many as 10 in 100 young women suffer from the two most serious eating disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia. What's even more disturbing is that the problem is appearing in children as young as 5 and 6.

Furthermore, many experts believe, Flanery among them, that the media is a significant contributor to the problem. And with the current trend in shows that emphasize superficial qualities, such as body type and looks, the problem isn't going to go away any time soon.

Been There, Felt That
Ophira Edut may be 30, but she could almost pass for a teenager herself. She also works in a hot teen market as the resident astrology expert for Teen People Magazine
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