How strongly do you feel that skinny equals beautiful? Don’t rush to blame Top Model marathons—turns out, your DNA might actually be the culprit. A new study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders says genetics may influence how strongly women idealize thinness as beautiful.
The researchers asked 343 female twins between the ages of 12 and 22 how much they wanted to look like people from movies, TV and magazines. They were assessing the girls’ “thin idealization”—basically, how much they believed that being skinny was key to being beautiful. The researchers found that identical twins (who share 100 percent of their genes) had more similar thin idealizations with each other than fraternal twins (who share just 50 percent of their genes). Meaning: thin idealization may be genetic.
Obviously, we’re all susceptible to this line of thinking—thanks, in part, to images we see every day in the media. “Technology is way ahead of us in terms of our emotional development,” says Judith Banker, founder and executive director for the Center for Eating Disorders. “Even if you intellectually understand that many of the images you see are altered,”—by beautiful lighting, great photography, and retouching post-production—“it’s easy to forget and you can start to think you should aspire to what you see.” What this study suggests, though, is that people genetically predisposed to thinking skinny is beautiful are possibly more sensitive to these media portrayals than those who lack the thin idealization gene.
But just because you may be susceptible to carrying these skinny-means-pretty traits, doesn’t mean you have to fall victim to them. Try activities that are internally rewarding, where there is less focus on external performance, says Banker. “Maybe you’re great at tennis, but you focus on too much on how you play. To get out of the mindset, add in a different sport and focus on the fun of it,” she says. By fortifying your internal sense of well-being, it is easier to be less self-critical.
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Image: Brand X Pictures/Thinkstock
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