Too Close to the Bone

In her article "Too ‘Close to the Bone’": The Historical Context for Women’s Obsession with Slenderness", Roberta Seid, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, examines what she calls the historical context, as well as the negative effects, of society’s ideal of slenderness. Seid main point in the article is that the current ideal body size of society is much too thin to be healthy. While Seid does have a well founded belief, her use of logical fallacies and a few extreme views may make her readers that the rest of the paper is also unsound.

In the article, Seid makes the claim that the pursuit of slenderness has become almost religious in nature. She shows that there is reward and punishment by society in following the doctrine of this religion, and that virtue is shown by pounds, clothing sizes, and body measurements. Seid goes on to say that never in history has the body ideal been as thin as we have made it. In fact, Seid claims, thinness was often looked down upon, and those who were slender were pitied by society. Earlier societies believed that plumpness meant that you were emotionally well and healthy.

The societal trend toward slenderness, Seid notes, began after the turn of the last century. The ideal toward slimness as it is currently practiced began shortly after World War II, with a large movement to make Americans lose weight. These ideas intensified in the following decades, defining normal-sized Americans as "overweight." Seid makes the claim that it was common belief that if you were overweight, it was simply because you lacked the willpower and desire to lose weight. Seid mentions, however, that many studies have shown that thinner people are not necessarily healthier than larger people. She also notes that efforts to reach the societal ideal often yield negative results, such as eating disorders and the inability to lead a rich and productive life.

Seid also examined why women are more affected by this struggle for thinness. She suggests that the societal ideal, even for women, is more masculine than most females can achieve. Also, as Seid points out, women are held to more stringent standards in all areas of society, and body appearance is no different. Seid then proposes ideas on what future historians will make of our desire for thinness. She then goes on to suggest that it would be terrible if women did not rebel against this "religion". Seid further claims that this "religion" of slenderness is appropriate for only those whose ideals do not extend beyond physical appearance.

In her piece, Seid uses the fact that no society in history has ever placed as much importance on slenderness as modern Americans have. While this may very well be true, there is a logical fallacy in condemning slenderness based upon this fact. Just because it was done in the past does not make it right. For example, until 1865 the United States allowed slavery to be legal, but that does not make slavery right. The same is true for slenderness. Just because society valued a plump figure before the turn of the last century does not make it the right ideal for our current society.

In addition, Seid uses binary reasoning, or the reasoning that there can be only two options, by implying that you can either be slender or healthy. This has many problems. First of all, there is not necessarily a distinct separation between slenderness in good health. Many slender people are in outstanding physical condition. Moreover, the use of binary reasoning excludes the third possibility of being unhealthily overweight.

Another example of binary reasoning in “Too ‘Close to the Bone’” is the statement that people who care about their personal fitness and health cannot have any purpose in life beyond their physical appearance. It wrongfully implies that people can only be concerned with a single issue in their life.

Roberta Seid has seemingly created a new, personal ideal for herself. This is by no means a bad thing, for no two people are identical, and that includes body type. However, Seid has seemingly used this ideal for society, in which many so-called “normal sized” Americans are now below, and has drawn the conclusion that they are “too close to the bone”. On the contrary, Americans in general are far from being at unhealthily low body sizes for their personal health.

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