English research

Hi there i have 4 pages research project( Dosen’t include the titel and refrence pages)

in attachment i uplode the sources to use for that.

 

Subject : What are the causes and effects of stereotyping in our current culture (US culture)? 

  

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Evictions at Sorority Raise Issue of Bias
Dillon, Sam
New York Times (1923-Current file); Feb 25, 2007;
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2009)
pg. 17

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________
Report Information from ProQuest
November 17 2013 18:11
_______________________________________________________________

Document 1 of 1

Indian mascots — you’re out

Author: Shakely, Jack
Publication info: Los Angeles Times [Los Angeles, Calif] 25 Aug 2011: A.15.
ProQuest document link
Abstract: There are many things in this country that are subject to majority rule; dignity and respect are not
among them. […] it is dignity and respect we are talking about. Since the creation of the National Coalition on
Racism in Sports and Media in 1991, that group of Native American organizations has been protesting negative
portrayals of Indians, hammering away at what’s behind our discomfort with Indian sports mascots.
Links: Base URL to 360 Link:, Click here to order Full Text from OCLC ILLiad, First Search Authorization
Full text: I got my first lesson in Indians portrayed as sports team mascots in the early 1950s when my father
took me to a Cleveland Indians-New York Yankees game. Dad gave me money to buy a baseball cap, and I
was conflicted. I loved the Yankees, primarily because fellow Oklahoman Mickey Mantle had just come up and
was being touted as rookie of the year. But being mixed-blood Muscogee/Creek, I felt a (misplaced) loyalty to
the Indians. So I bought the Cleveland cap with the famous Chief Wahoo logo on it.
When we got back to Oklahoma, my mother took one look at the cap with its leering, big-nosed, buck-toothed
redskin caricature just above the brim, jerked it off my head and threw it in the trash. She had been fighting
against Indian stereotypes all her life, and I had just worn one home. I was only 10 years old, but the look of
betrayal in my Creek mother’s eyes is seared in my memory forever.
So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when half a century later, a Los Angeles Times editorial about
legislators in North Dakota struggling over whether the University of North Dakota should be forced to change
its team name and mascot from the Fighting Sioux provoked such a strong reaction. It was an irritant, like a
long-forgotten piece of shrapnel working its way to the surface.
Most stories about sports teams and their ethnic mascots are treated like tempests in a teacup. The Times’
editorial writer, however, while noting that the solons probably had better things to do, understood the sensitivity
and pain that can accompany such a seemingly trivial subject. It is a small matter, perhaps, but far from trivial.
Many of the fights over team names and mascots cover familiar territory. Usually the team name in question has
been around so long as to lose a good bit of its meaning. The University of Illinois’ Fighting Illini, for example,
refers to an Indian nation, but now that its Chief Illiniwek mascot has been abandoned, few people make the
connection. Nor do they think twice about what the Atlanta Braves or Edmonton Eskimos or Florida State
Seminoles represent other than sports franchises. But that doesn’t necessarily make the brands benign. And
the irony that the football team in our nation’s capital is called the Redskins is not lost on a single Native
American.
The controversy over changing ethnocentric mascot names is not a simple matter of stodgy white alums holding
onto college memories. Indians, too, are conflicted. In a 2002 study on the subject, Sports Illustrated reported
that 84% of Native Americans polled had no problem with Indian team names or mascots. Although the
methods used by the magazine to reach these figures were later criticized, that misses the point. If 16% of a
population finds something offensive, that should be enough to signal deep concern. There are many things in
this country that are subject to majority rule; dignity and respect are not among them.
And it is dignity and respect we are talking about. Since the creation of the National Coalition on Racism in
Sports and Media in 1991, that group of Native American organizations has been protesting negative portrayals
of Indians, hammering away at what’s behind our discomfort with Indian sports mascots. Many of these mascots
— maybe most of them — act like fools or savage cutthroats.

http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/885036807?accountid=10797

http://ub5km9uy9t.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQ:newsstand&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Los%20Angeles%20Times&rft.atitle=Indian%20mascots%20–%20you’re%20out&rft.au=Shakely,%20Jack&rft.aulast=Shakely&rft.aufirst=Jack&rft.date=2011-08-25&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=A.15&rft.isbn=&rft.btitle=&rft.title=Los%20Angeles%20Times&rft.issn=04583035

http://fairmontstate.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/illiad.dll/OpenURL?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQ:newsstand&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=Los%20Angeles%20Times&rft.atitle=Indian%20mascots%20–%20you’re%20out&rft.au=Shakely,%20Jack&rft.aulast=Shakely&rft.aufirst=Jack&rft.date=2011-08-25&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=A.15&rft.title=Los%20Angeles%20Times&rft.issn=04583035

http://partneraccess.oclc.org/wcpa/servlet/Search?wcapi=1&wcpartner=proquesta&wcautho=100238110&wcissn=04583035&wcdoctype=ser

When I went to an Atlanta Braves game in the 1970s, the Braves name wasn’t the biggest problem. It was that
cringe-worthy Chief Noc-A-Homa who came stomping and war-dancing his way out of a tepee in center field
every time the Braves hit a home run that got to me. He was dressed in a Plains Indian chief’s eagle bonnet and
acted like a village idiot. To their credit, the Braves retired Chief Noc-A-Homa and his girlfriend Princess Win-A-
Lot in 1983, amid assertions by the Brave’s home office that the protesters were over-dramatizing the issue.
Few people complain about Florida State University calling itself the Seminoles. But its war-painted and lance-
threatening mascot Chief Osceola is intended to be menacing, and that’s the take-away many children will
have. Such casual stereotyping can breed callousness. In the “only good Indian” category, in 1999 the New
York Post entitled an editorial about the pending New York-Cleveland baseball playoffs, “Take the Tribe and
Scalp ‘Em.”
It isn’t easy or inexpensive to remove ethnic and racial stereotypes from college and professional sports. When
Stanford University changed from the Indians to the Cardinal in 1972, recriminations were bitter. Richard
Lyman, a friend of mine, was president of Stanford at the time. He said the university lost millions of alumni
dollars in the short run, but it was the right thing to do.
In 21st century America, to name a sports team after an African American, Asian or any other ethnic group is
unthinkable. So why are Native Americans still fair game? As benign as monikers like Fighting Sioux and
Redskins or mascots like Chief Osceola may seem, they should take their place with the Pekin, Ill., Chinks and
the Atlanta Black Crackers in the dust bin of history. It is the right thing to do.
Credit: Jack Shakely is president emeritus of the California Community Foundation and former chair of the Los
Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission.
Subject: Colleges & universities; Mascots; Native North Americans;
Location: United States–US, North Dakota
Company / organization: Name: University of North Dakota; NAICS: 611310;
Publication title: Los Angeles Times
Pages: A.15
Publication year: 2011
Publication date: Aug 25, 2011
Year: 2011
Section: Main News; Part A; Editorial Desk
Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company LLC
Place of publication: Los Angeles, Calif.
Country of publication: United States
ISSN: 04583035
Source type: Newspapers
Language of publication: English
Document type: Commentary
ProQuest document ID: 885036807
Document URL:
http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/885036807?accountid=10797

http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/885036807?accountid=10797

Copyright: (Copyright (c) 2011 Los Angeles Times)
Last updated: 2011-09-26
Database: ProQuest Central

_______________________________________________________________
Contact ProQuest
Copyright  2013 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. – Terms and Conditions

http://www.proquest.com/go/contactsupport

http://search.proquest.com/info/termsAndConditions

Indian mascots — you’re out

ANNE E. BECKER

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI:
NEGOTIATING BODY IMAGE AND IDENTITY

DURING RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE

ABSTRACT. Although the relationship between media exposure and risk behavior among
youth is established at a population level, the specific psychological and social mecha-
nisms mediating the adverse effects of media on youth remain poorly understood. This
study reports on an investigation of the impact of the introduction of television to a rural
community in Western Fiji on adolescent ethnic Fijian girls in a setting of rapid social
and economic change. Narrative data were collected from 30 purposively selected ethnic
Fijian secondary school girls via semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Interviews were
conducted in 1998, 3 years after television was first broadcast to this region of Fiji. Nar-
rative data were analyzed for content relating to response to television and mechanisms
that mediate self and body image in Fijian adolescents. Data in this sample suggest that
media imagery is used in both creative and destructive ways by adolescent Fijian girls
to navigate opportunities and conflicts posed by the rapidly changing social environment.
Study respondents indicated their explicit modeling of the perceived positive attributes of
characters presented in television dramas, but also the beginnings of weight and body shape
preoccupation, purging behavior to control weight, and body disparagement. Response to
television appeared to be shaped by a desire for competitive social positioning during a
period of rapid social transition. Understanding vulnerability to images and values imported
with media will be critical to preventing disordered eating and, potentially, other youth risk
behaviors in this population, as well as other populations at risk.

KEY WORDS: body image, eating disorders, Fiji, modernization

INTRODUCTION

Eating disorders—once more prevalent in postindustrialized and Westernized
societies—now have global distribution. Moreover, population studies demon-
strate that transnational migration, modernization, and urbanization are associated
with elevated risk of disordered eating among girls and young women (Anderson-
Fye and Becker 2004). Despite advances in treatment, up to 50% of individuals
with eating disorders do not recover fully (Keel and Mitchell 1997). Similarly,
primary prevention programs have not yet yielded strategies for achieving sus-
tained behavioral change in young women that would protect them from an eating
disorder. This is undoubtedly tied to the complex and multitiered ways in which
the social environment underpins the values and behaviors that contribute to risk.
On the other hand, there has been great interest in how media imagery may be one
means by which sociocultural context impacts risk. To this end, a more nuanced
understanding of the pernicious nature of the impact of media exposure and its

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28: 533–559, 2004.
©C 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
DOI: 10.1007/s11013-004-1067-5

534 A.E. BECKER

integration into adolescent and young adult identity is a critical intermediary step
in developing effective therapeutic and preventive strategies for eating disorders
across diverse populations.

The present study examines the impact of the introduction of television on
ethnic Fijian adolescent girls’ identity and body image in rural Fiji through nar-
rative data collected from 30 schoolgirls in 1998, 3 years after the introduction of
television to their community. A previously described cross-sectional, two-wave
study demonstrated a dramatic increase in indicators of disordered eating during
the 3 years following the introduction of broadcast television with Western pro-
gramming to this community, a period which was also a time of rapid social and
economic transition (Becker et al. 2002).

Media, teens, identity, and risk

Exposure to media imagery is known to affect adolescents and young adults
profoundly; indeed, this principle is the foundation for billions of dollars invest-
ment in marketing products to these demographic groups. Part of the success
of marketing to youth lies in stimulating a desire to develop—and project—
a particular identity. A remunerative strategy for marketing health, beauty, and
fashion products, for example, is to create an awareness of a “gap” between
the consumer and the ideal, and then to promise (and sell) the solution in a
product (O’Connor 2000; see also Mazzarella 2003). This strategy has become
especially powerful against the backdrop of the American ethos and predilec-
tion for reshaping and cultivating the body (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg
1996). Whereas the producers of such media imagery and messages have ar-
gued that their products are meant as “entertainment,” vulnerable individuals
unequivocally incur unintended serious adverse consequences through exposure
to these images. Examples of this include the routine and gratuitous violence
depicted in film, television, and music, and their amply documented effects
on children (Black and Newman 1995). In addition, a growing literature sug-
gests that media exposure has adverse effects on body image for some young
women.

The complex ways in which American adolescent girls and young women
embrace or resist media imagery and creatively use other cultural resources to
construct their social identities are not well understood. The published medical
literature on media and body image, with few exceptions (Becker et al. 2002;
Richins 1991), is based on quantitative survey data. Moreover, and also with few
exceptions (e.g., Rubin et al. 2003), there are almost no data available on the impact
of media exposure on how girls and young women of diverse ethnic and cultural
backgrounds construct and represent their identities. Finally, because American
youth generally have had chronic and unremitting exposure to media imagery by

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 535

adolescence, conventional quantitative methodology has been unable to unpack
the complex ways in which media imagery permeates identity in Western contexts.

For American youth, a distinctively postmodern ideology supports the notion
that identity is created and achieved, as opposed to fixed and given. The resources
for developing such an identity have increasingly shifted to extrafamilial sources,
such as peer groups and media imagery. Moreover, the means of projecting per-
sonal identity have gradually shifted from mind and character to an increasingly
visual and consumeristic focus (Lasch 1979). Indeed, young women (and likely
young men) learn at an early age that identity can be projected through visual
props and thus manipulated in a variety of ways, so that identity representation
is more likely to be directed at “seeming” rather than “being” (Bourdieu 1984).
Clinical experience suggests that young women may be especially vulnerable to
the illusion that the self can be reshaped and remade. Unfortunately, the conse-
quences of this culturally sanctioned illusion include body and self-disparagement,
poor self-esteem, and the demoralization of women (Becker and Hamburg 1996).
Moreover, there may be a serious adverse impact on mental and physical health,
potentially resulting in risk-taking behavior (Klein et al. 1993) and eating disorder
symptoms.

Identity, body image, and consumer culture

Consumer culture and media imagery have a pervasive and powerful influence on
girls at a critical developmental stage; American girls are socialized to cement and
signal identity through visual symbols that include visible consumption of prestige
goods or a particular body presentation that conforms to cultural aesthetic ideals.
The concept of identity used here is not a developmental one, but rather follows
the social constructionist conceptualization of identity being “something that has
to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual”
(Giddens 1991). Put another way, identity in this sense is “co-constructed” by the
local social world in such a way that individuals draw heavily on cultural resources
and symbols to construct, understand, and represent who they are (McKinley
1997). The project of defining and depicting an identity in contemporary Western
culture has increasingly centered on a visual focus that depends on the use of
material props. This, in turn, provides much of the standard fuel driving consumer
culture, wherein status is conflated with possessing and displaying prestige goods
(Featherstone 1991). The Western, postmodern “self-identity” is then arguably
very much constructed as a process of competitively positioning oneself through
the savvy manipulation of cultural symbols—e.g., by displaying consumption
of material goods or inscribing or adorning the body in culturally salient ways.
Examples of this span many ages and include the increasing use of tattooing and
body-piercing as markers of personal identity (Sweetman 2000) and the 1980s and

536 A.E. BECKER

1990s phenomenon of constructing a professional self through “power dressing”
(Entwhistle 1997).

There are several reasons to believe that adolescence places girls at particu-
lar risk as participants in consumer culture. For instance, many have suggested
that adolescence is a time when American girls are challenged by simultaneous
conflicting cultural demands to maintain both a trajectory of achievement and the
requirements of female roles; such conflict, if severe and unresolved, may mani-
fest in a variety of difficulties, including an eating disorder (Gordon 2000; Pipher
1994). When girls entering adolescence experience the prevailing cultural pressure
to please and to seem (Pipher 1994), they look to the media as a guide to their
self-presentation. In distinction to societies in which status is overtly ascribed,
the freewheeling license to create and/or remake the self is especially appealing
within the American frame of opportunity and achievement. The popular illu-
sion of equal economic and social opportunity has attached itself to the culturally
peculiar notion of the body’s plasticity as well. That is, girls are socialized to
believe that they can reconfigure their bodies (with enough “hard work”) in ways
that invariably lead to disappointment and all too often, self-loathing (Becker and
Hamburg 1996).

Media exposure and risk for violent and risky behaviors

The association between media exposure and violence is unequivocal. Numerous
studies have documented the relationship between violence viewed on television
and aggressive behavior (Paik and Comstock 1994; Wood and Wong 1991), which
may have socially hazardous (Centerwall 1992) as well as psychologically harm-
ful consequences. This impact on children is believed to be mediated in part by
imitation of what is depicted on television (Black and Newman 1995). In addi-
tion, substantial evidence links television viewing (as well as radio, movies, music
videos) to adolescent engagement in risky behaviors (e.g., sexual activity, alco-
hol use, cannabis use, and tobacco use) (Altman et al. 1996; Anonymous 1995;
Centerwall 1992). Similarly, the mechanism by which media encourage risky be-
haviors is thought to be the provision of “culturally normative behavioral models”
that justify the behaviors (Klein et al. 1993).

Media exposure and risk for disordered eating and poor body image

Media exposure has also been implicated in enhancing risk for the development of
an eating disorder, although this has received far less attention in the pediatric and
public health literature. Much of the literature and theory on how cultural context
promotes risk for disordered eating and poor body image has emphasized how so-
cial pressures to be thin (generated and sustained in large part via media imagery)
are internalized and thereby contribute to body dissatisfaction and, ultimately,

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 537

disordered eating in vulnerable individuals (Garner et al. 1980; Stice et al. 1996;
Striegel-Moore et al. 1986). One means by which exposure to idealized images
of beauty has an impact on body image is through stimulating social compari-
son (Festinger 1954) and body dissatisfaction (Heinberg and Thompson 1992).
Indeed, numerous observational and experimental studies have demonstrated an
association between reported media exposure and changes in body image (e.g.,
Abramson and Valene 1991; Field et al. 1999; Harrison and Cantor 1997; Irving
1990; Richins 1991; Stice and Shaw 1994; Tiggemann and Pickering 1996). How-
ever, there is little understanding of what renders media images so compelling a
model for vulnerable individuals (Becker and Hamburg 1996), and the actual ways
girls experience and use media images (and the ultimate impact on body image
and dissatisfaction or disordered eating) are not yet sufficiently well understood
for potentially effective interventions to be developed. Finally, the ways in which
girls and women might respond to media images and media-promulgated values in
diverse social contexts are inadequately understood. However, Western-identified
images and products may be especially powerful in non-Western contexts precisely
because of their perceived “exclusivity” (Mazzarella 2003).

METHODS

Study design and data collection

The impact of television exposure and social transition on body image and so-
cial identity among ethnic Fijian schoolgirls was investigated with open-ended,
semi-structured interviews via a cross-sectional design. A sample of 30 subjects
was purposively selected (for maximal variety) from a study population of 65 self-
identified ethnic Fijian adolescent girls enrolled in forms five through seven (mean
age 16.9 years) in two secondary schools in Nadroga, Fiji, from July to August
of 1998. Nadroga is a province in Western Viti Levu, the largest island of the Fiji
group. The schools are both located within a 15–20 minute drive from a town with
a population of approximately 8000, and also include boarders from more rural ar-
eas. This cohort of schoolgirls had already been recruited for the second wave of a
two-wave cohort study assessing the impact of television exposure on disordered
eating attitudes and behaviors in Nadroga, Fiji, after they had been exposed to
television for 3 years. Specific research questions centered on whether (and how)
exposure to Western television in the context of concomitant rapid social and
economic transition has stimulated changes in body image and disordered eating
despite local cultural practices that have traditionally supported robust appetites
and body shapes. Interviews were conducted in English (the formal language
of instruction since the third grade) by an American research assistant experi-
enced in assessing disordered eating symptoms and facilitated by a Fijian research

538 A.E. BECKER

assistant from the Nadroga area. Written assent was obtained from subjects and
a written informed consent obtained from a corresponding parent or guardian.
Interviews were audiotaped, subsequently transcribed, and analyzed to extract il-
lustrations of the ways identity and body image were being shaped by television
viewing as well as ways in which girls appeared to be integrating images, ideas, and
values introduced by television into their strategies for managing social change.
The research was approved by both the Harvard Medical School Committee for
the Protection of Human Subjects and the Fiji Research Committee.

Study site

Fiji is an archipelago of over 300 islands on the geographic and cultural border of
Melanesia and Polynesia. Slightly greater than half of the population (393,000)
is of ethnic Fijian (indigenous Pacific Islander) origin. Fiji was selected as a
study site because of the recent (1995) introduction of television to this relatively
media-naı̈ve population. Moreover, a variety of traditional cultural norms and so-
cial mechanisms strongly support robust appetites and body shapes in the ethnic
Fijian population. For instance, the importance of food presentation and feasts as
facilitators of social exchange and networks supports consumption of relatively
calorie-dense foods. Even routine meals are accompanied by somewhat extraor-
dinary efforts by hosts or family to encourage appetites, including a noteworthy
frequency of pro forma and quite genuine entreaties to eat heartily (e.g., “kana,
mo urouro,” or, “eat, so you will become fat”) (Becker 1995). In addition, similar
to other Pacific Island populations (Gill et al. 2002; Pollock 1995), robust bodies
were traditionally considered aesthetically pleasing. In Fiji, this was in part be-
cause a large body reflected both the capability for hard work and also indexed
care and nurturing from a dense social network (Becker 1994).

Finally, there is no indigenous illness category in Fiji corresponding to any
eating disorder described in the DSM-IV. Moreover, prior to the 1990s, anorexia
and bulimia nervosa were thought to be rare or nonexistent among ethnic Fijians
(Becker 1995), However, two locally defined syndromes among the indigenous
population, macake (a syndrome chiefly characterized by appetite loss) and ‘go-
ing thin’—both without a Western nosologic correlate—reflect an enormous social
concern with appetite and a fear of weight loss. Thus, in contrast to societies in
which pressures to slim are perceived to be an important context for disordered
eating behavior, Fijian girls have not conventionally been motivated to reshape
their bodies through diet or exercise (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg 1996).
Possibly more protective against eating disorders than the absence of social pres-
sure to be thin in Fiji was the fact that Fijians traditionally were not motivated to
reshape their bodies. That is, whereas they expressed admiration for the aesthetic
appeal of certain body features (most notably, large calves and a body that is jubu

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 539

vina, or robust), they did not typically express interest in nor focus efforts toward
attaining the culturally ideal shape (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg 1996).

Notwithstanding this traditional context, previously reported data from a cross-
sectional, two-wave cohort study demonstrated an increase in disordered eating
attitudes and behaviors among ethnic Fijian schoolgirls between 1995 (when
television was introduced) and 1998 (Becker et al. 2002). Analysis of the narrative
data from this study revealed that a majority of study subjects felt that television
had influenced attitudes toward body shape and weight in this peer group. Many
subjects explicitly indicated a desire to emulate television characters; for some
individuals, this appeared to be related to the perception that career goals could
be enhanced by this route (Becker et al. 2002). This was a somewhat unexpected
finding, given the traditional Fijian disinterest in personal investment in reshaping
the body. Hence, the present study seeks to explore in greater detail the ways in
which the girls responded to television in the context of rapid economic and social
change in Fiji through a secondary data analysis.

The observed changes likely have many antecedents, which include concrete and
ideological ramifications of modernization throughout the Pacific. For example,
obesity is becoming increasingly prevalent across Pacific populations (Gill et al.
2002). In Fiji, this is in part likely due to increased consumption of processed
foods (National Food and Nutrition Centre 2001) and availability of motorized
transportation. As obesity has begun to be identified as a serious public health
issue in Fiji and throughout the Pacific, new attention has been drawn to medical
risks associated with overweight and personal responsibility for controlling it
(Snowden and Schultz 2001). This indeed may have influenced the shift away
from a relatively passive and self-accepting stance toward body shape (Becker
et al. in press.).

The partial electrification of rural Fiji that began in the mid-1980s has been
accompanied by relatively rapid economic, political, and social changes. For ex-
ample, as a cash economy has gradually replaced the preexisting subsistence
agriculture economy (with extended families growing the root crops that are
the dietary staple), there has been increasing pressure for youth to find wage-
earning jobs, in distinction to the recent past, when the expectation was that
youth would either be engaged in domestic duties and/or work on the family
plantation. With increasing opportunities for wage-earning and the stimulation
of consumerism by advertising and other exposure to Western lifestyles through
television, the acquisition of prestige consumer goods (mostly electric appliances
such as refrigerators, television sets, and radios) is now becoming more pos-
sible and common in Fiji. With the traditional economy fairly dependent on
informal and formal distribution of resources, the current generation finds it-
self without consumer-experienced role models for navigating this new social
environment.

540 A.E. BECKER

RESULTS

Televised imagery appears to have engaged the imagination of Fijian youth at mul-
tiple levels, apparently operating synergistically with the sweeping and rapid social
changes taking place in Fiji over the past two decades. The ensuing changes in self
and body image were multifaceted. On the most superficial and concrete level, tele-
vision appeared to redefine local aesthetic ideals for bodily appearance and presen-
tation. Television scenarios also appeared to stimulate desire to acquire elements
of the lifestyles portrayed, including the body shape perceived to be best suited for
obtaining a job. Subjects explicitly reported modeling behavior and appearance on
television characters. Indeed, role modeling of television characters appeared to
conflate moral virtues, success in job opportunities, and appearance. On a subtle
but palpable level, study subjects indicated that television characters, appearances,
and values portrayed on television provided an anchor for identity as well as com-
petitive social positioning in a rapidly evolving social landscape. For some of the
subjects, the newly introduced pressures to reshape their bodies and compete for
employment appear to have fostered disordered eating. Excerpted interview data
that follow illustrate major themes concerning subjects’ responses to television.

Redefinition of body ideals and development of an ethos of body cultivation

“I see the ads in the television, and I admire their fitness, their sizes.”(S-61)1

“[N]owadays we watch TV, and some creams [are advertised . . . ].
We can change, change our body.”(S-16)

Frequent comments admiring the appearance of television characters centered
on their thinness and their apparel (see Becker et al. 2002). Especially striking were
the comments that reflected the girls’ motivation to reshape their bodies and the
acceptance that individuals have the ability to pursue this—not at all indigenous
concepts. Specifically, the notion of increasing physical activity for weight control
was linked to television commercials advertising exercise equipment. In addition,
the concept of modifying diet gained unprecedented popularity in this community.
These changes are particularly notable given the stability of previous traditions
concerning bodily aesthetics (Becker 1995). The following excerpts from inter-
views illustrate the validation of imported body ideals and the emerging Fijian
adolescent endorsement of remaking the body. For example, one young woman
remarked, “[I like how] they look nice, the way they always have the figure and all.
I mean, they look a bit tall and thin, not that very fat” (S-48). Another respondent
said,

Some of my friends, when they watch TV2 , when they see one actor, they want to look
like that actor. They lose weight, and um some of them gain more weight. And that’s how
my friends are affected by watching the TV. (S-59)

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 541

Several other respondents reflected on how visual images on television motivated
girls in their peer group to reshape themselves.

S: [TV influenced] Fijians into trying to change their body. And they, they’re doing things
to make their body look attractive, especially getting slim.

I: Do you think television has affected your attitudes about your body or how much you
care about your body?

S: It has led me to try to get slim also and watching the type of food I eat. (S-46)
I: Do you ever wish that you could be more like them [television characters]?
S: Yes very much, [laughs] because they look so sexy, and I know they look nice.
I: What makes them sexy?
S: The way they, the way they act in the television, I like it.
I: Have you ever done anything to be more like them?
S: Uh-huh. [laughs] I think so. [laughs] Well ah, I used to go into the town and look for

some clothes that fits me that I think they, which I can compare to the ones I see on
television, you know, and I take them home. [ . . . ] I have to act like them, and I have to
see myself in the mirror, that’s all. That’s how I do it.

I: Do you ever, do you think that watching TV or videos has affected how you feel about
the way you look?

S: Yes, I think so. Well ah, I just see those ones who are on the television, and the way that
they look, I want to be like them.

I: Do you think that watching TV or videos has affected the way you feel about your body
or your weight?

S: Yes, very much. I have, ah, you know, when I see them I think that I have to lose weight.
(S-20)

There was also evidence that the redefined aesthetic ideals were embodied and
identified in peers they wished to emulate:

I: How do [your parents] want you to look?
S: Um, they want me to look like um some attractive women nowadays. That they dressed,

dress beautiful, that they dress very nice, and beautiful for their hair cuts and their weight.
They’re so slim and tall from having, they just imagine that I look like I can be like them.
So they are very possibly, like, looking at my weight.

I: They hope you will become like those women?
S: Yes.
I: And how about you? Do you want to become like those women or do you want to become

different?
S: I want to become those women. That they are very slim and tall, that I’m losing my

weight, that I’m trying to be like them. (S-24)

In addition, interview data were noteworthy for multiple references to televi-
sion commercials that featured exercise equipment. It appears that the aggressive
marketing of fitness equipment promoted an ethos of body cultivation among
the respondents. The following interview excerpts illustrate the effects of such
advertising.

Well, American television, I think that is, I mean they are the best, cause they are intro-
ducing [ . . . ] a modern technology in order to lose our weight, and also I think they give

542 A.E. BECKER

modern advertisements on how we should lose our weight, like exercising and all those,
and the type of food that they introduce on the advertisements. I think that is good. (S-62)

This study participant also observed that exercise equipment was increasingly
popular among her peers: “Well, most of the women, most of the Fijian houses
I’ve been visiting, they got that kind of equipment that they’re introducing, like
Fast Track and Fast Rider.” All this resulted in her wishing to join in, as evidenced
in her comment: “I really just want myself to be like that. I feel like owning one
equipment like that.”

Other comments resonated with the desire to purchase exercise equipment
advertised on television.

I mean [TV] has shown how to become thin [ . . . ] I mean the machines and all how to
get thin. They always show in the TV and I always see. (S-48)

When they, when they show exercising [on TV], I mean exercising shows, and then I
feel that I should be like that, I should lose my weight. (S-16)

On the subject of exercise equipment, another young woman noted her motivation
to obtain exercise equipment, inspired by television:

[TV] affect[s] me because sometimes I feel fat, and I usually encourage my mom to buy,
I should, at this point every day, I should be at home and use the Power Rider for losing
some weight at home. (S-34)3

The eagerness to acquire a piece of exercise equipment for the household—an
obvious parallel to the enthusiastic purchase of television sets during the same
period—is in one respect remarkable, given the cost relative to the disposable
income, but in another respect a completely predictable response to the desire that
the ads stimulated.

Identity and roadmaps: Navigating unfamiliar social terrain

“I have to look at what they’re doing and cram so that I can become one of
them.” (S-26)

“[C]ulture in Fiji normally accepts women here as big, heavy. In the TV, the
women are thin, so it has [affected cultural traditions in Fiji].” (S-58)

Generally, adolescent respondents in this study were quite forthcoming about
their admiration for and desire to emulate characters portrayed on television. In
some surprising ways, they frequently appeared to identify with characters on
television. Although their expressed admiration was not restricted to appearance,
commentary about thinness, hairstyles, and dress was the most prominent. In
addition, however, respondents noted other characteristics of television characters
that they admired or wished to emulate. For example, several indicated an interest
in the character Xena from the show Xena, Warrior Princess, because of her
physical strength and embodiment of female ability to equal men. Others singled

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 543

out characters who were focused on helping others—a trait very much related to
more traditional Fijian values. Frequently, respondents made clear their strategy to
model themselves on television characters. They referred to their changing local
world and benefits to learning about global culture from these characters. Indeed, it
became clear from these interview data that adolescent girls were using television
to map out pathways to employment.

The following interview excerpt illustrates this point:

I: What do you think of American TV?
S: I uh, in the American TV, I think it’s good because it give us uh, information and uh, it

always [helps] us to, to see what [things are going on] around in our, in our world today.
I think it’s good to watch American TV.

I: What show or shows do you like the best?
S: Uh, only the uh, Shortland Street and uh, and uh, and news that come in the world. World

news.
I: Why do you like these shows?
S: Uh, because us, it help me in my, it help me in my future and it always it almost

help me to know what it’s going on around the world ‘cause [ . . . ] in the TV so we
can see what it is happening around the world and it can teach us uh, many lesson.
(S-23)

Yes. It’s really affects the way that I look. Sometimes we copy the, like for example on the
TV, we are copying what, what is being advertised, we copy it and try to show it to our
friends. (S-24)

Others further indicated that television was having a sweeping and generally
positive effect on ethnic Fijians.

S: [TV] teaches us, uh it teaches us some kind of, of the other worlds that we don’t know
about America.

I: Which shows do you like the best? What programs do you like the best?
S: Beverly Hills.
I: Why do you like that show?
S: Because it teaches me what I should do, and what I should not do.
I: In what terms? In what ways, what you should do how? [. . . In what way] do you mean

that?
S: Ah, about my future, life, what is good and what is bad about [the] future. (S-26)

[The characters on television,] they’re very marvelous. They’re very nice. They really
look good. They very, they showing us [. . . ] the way, they’re very happy. They’re
helping me, and they’re helping other people as well. They change our lifestyle.
(S-64)

In addition to indicating their use of television as a general guide to life, subjects
frequently expressed concrete admiration for the appearance of specific television
characters. Perhaps this is best expressed in the latter respondent’s explanation
for the impact of television characters on her feelings about her appearance:
“[ . . . ] I want to be like them. I want to be just like those people.” The dimensions
most important to her centered on appearance, weight, and self-presentation as

544 A.E. BECKER

she listed “[t]heir weight, the way they dress up, the way they eat, and the way
they talk” as the aspects that she perceived had most affected her. Another subject
commented that the widespread emulation of television characters’ “eating habits
and styles, of clothing styles” stemmed from the girls “trying to practice what they
see on TV and videos” (S-61).

Interestingly, character and physical qualities of television characters were
sometimes conflated, as in the following two excerpts:

Well, I just want to be like her [Xena]. Like the actions that she takes, and also
sometimes she makes decisions. I mean, even the old man and the adults have to lis-
ten to her, so I really want myself to be like that. And also, I like the look of her
body, the shape of her body sometimes I really want myself to be like her [ . . . ].
(S-62)

[I admire] Xena cause she’s a woman, and she can fight more with a–especially with the
tall, the giants, you know? And she killed a man, like in some of the men, they come in and
try to make uh, to fight against her, but she is Xena. She tried her best to kill them, cause
she is a woman and she’s, but you know like that is, men, they think that they do things,
but look what the men can do, girls can do too. (S-50)

Whereas the latter study participant reported her friends’ admiration for the “Xena”
character based on her modeling of gender parity, she indicated that the television
show motivated her to emulate Xena’s figure: “when Xena started, from there I
started to change my, I lose weight” (S-50).

Competitive social positioning

“And those kinds of [fat and short] people too, they are not, they don’t have jobs
because of their weight, and I mean the way they ate and all.” (S-48)

Interview respondents often intimated that their emulation of television characters
was strategically motivated by a desire to position themselves competitively
vis-à-vis their peers. It is noteworthy here that competition and achievement are not
traditionally sanctioned values among ethnic Fijians, although explicit references
to competition were made by some of the subjects. Indeed, traditional Fijian cul-
ture has not supported upward social mobility, and aspirations to higher education
and social pretensions were often actively criticized and discouraged. Thus, it ap-
pears that television content as well as new opportunities for social and economic
advancement may have stimulated this discourse. It is also possible that the ques-
tions posed precipitated—or at least brought to a more explicit level—the desire to
reposition themselves. This competitive ethos was often embedded in concerns ar-
ticulated about securing a good job. Related to this, several respondents indicated
their perception that overeating or overweight promoted laziness—something
they wished to avoid in conventional domestic responsibilities in their homes.

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 545

Illustrations of modeling on television characters to become competitive for jobs
follow in interview excerpts.

I have to follow what they do [on Shortland Street . . .] so that I can be, I can be good in
that particular jobs. (S-23)

Another young women explained how she perceived that copying actors en-
hanced her chances at getting a job:

The [actors] are very smart when they act. They look very beautiful and nice. The [. . .]
way they speak and the way they smile and the way they act on the TV is very good. But it
also taught me a lesson. (S-24)

Specifically, she reflected that “sometimes we ourselves, students, copied [ac-
tors] so we can present it to others just to show that we are really interested in
such a job [ . . . ].” She concluded by saying that the compelling reason to emulate
television characters was “to become successful in whatever I want” (S-24).

In some cases, respondents were in fact quite pragmatic in their wish to lose
weight to compete for particular jobs. For example, the following three young
women talked about their perception (possibly quite accurate) that achieving a
slim figure was requisite to obtaining the sought-after position of flight attendant
on Air Pacific.

I wanted to lose my weight because I am looking for my future depending on my career
what type of career I want, so I want to lose my weight such a job and sometimes you
become fat we are not suited for that kind of career or that kind of job that we want. Like
for example, uh, flight attendants [ . . . ] we could see that they are, they are slim and tall
and very thin. From there I can figure it out that I want to lose my weight because of my
career, career, career. (S-24)

[I want to lose weight] because I don’t want to become fat, and your fat leads to obesity.
And before just because of my mission, I wanted to become an air hostess, and I wanted to
lose weight. [ . . . ] And you know air hostess, they want people who are tall and thin, and
not that fat. (S-48)

[B]ecause I’m too fat, I’m not too happy. [ . . . ] when I leave school, I want to become
flight attendant so I think the most important thing is my weight. So I have to cut it down
[. . . ]. (S-46)

Interest in television characters as role models for success in finding jobs was
not restricted to appearance. For example, one respondent commented that she
admired Scully, a character from the X-Files because of both her courage and her
success in her employment. She said she wanted to be more like this character
because, “I want to have a good job like her and, ah, and to have a better future”
(S-16). In addition, there was widespread admiration for the character Xena from
Xena, Warrior Princess. As noted above, generally Xena was admired for her
abilities, not just her figure, and some girls said they liked her because she was
powerful and represented the possibility that women could work.

546 A.E. BECKER

[ . . . ] I’m a girl and Xena’s a girl, so I support Xena because she’s very brave and . . .
because we often say that men are brave and not women. [ . . .] because I have two brothers
I have to fight sometimes and say, “Oh look at us girls. We are brave and we are tougher
than you boys. Look at you defending those boys. And those boys are just weak and Xena
is much braver, so you boys are of no use. Because just in order to fight with my, to pass
with my small brothers because they often say that boys are better than girls. But now at
least we know that boys and girls are equal. Men and women are equal. (S-64)

However, it was clear from others’ comments that social and economic success
was conflated with a slim figure, as in the following two excerpts:

[T]he actresses and all those girls, especially those European girls, I just like, I just
admire them and want to be like them. I want their body, I want their size. I want myself to
be in the same position as they are. (S-64)

[S]ometimes we can see on TV . . . teenagers and they are very slim. They are the same
ages but they are working, they are slim and they are very tall and they are cute, nice, so
from there we want ourselves or we want our bodies to become like that. So we try to
maintain our weight, try to lose a lot of weight to become more like them. (S-24)

In addition to their explicit awareness of using television as a resource
for guidance in succeeding and thriving in Fiji’s evolving cash economy,
several respondents talked more explicitly about perceived social competition.
Although Fijian society was traditionally one in which social status was ascribed,
comparison of effort and talent was, not surprisingly, commonplace. On the
other hand, upward social mobility was not a realistic option. However, the girls’
narratives appeared to reflect an acceptance of self-promotion and competitive
social positioning. For example, in explaining what she admired about television
characters, one subject commented that she admired that “They act smart; they
try to advertise themselves” (S-35). Additional comments revealed an overt sense
of the competition girls experienced:

[ . . . ] I think, teenagers have to lose weight, and as for teenage girl, she has to lose weight,
and she has to attain a size which to be in competitive world, and to be, because in this
age, teenage girls are competing with others, so we have to be like others, because many
teenage girls are all fat [ . . . ] (S-64).

This young woman qualified this statement with her belief that girls did not
have to be the “thinnest,” but rather eat in an “average” way so as to avoid being
overweight. She went on to describe why it was important to her to lose weight.
It is noteworthy that she equates thinness with energy as well as social standing.

I’ll lose weight firstly because of my standing. Because I want to be, in order to lose weight,
when you lose weight, I think, when I lose weight I’ll be active, and I’ll have much energy
to walk from here, to go from there and then there; to do some studying here; to do some
reciting here. And also I just like to lose weight you know for my friends to like me—to be
with me—because I think some of these fat girls are left out in this world because they are
fat [ . . . ](S-64)

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 547

Weight, energy, and productivity

“I live on a farm here. Ah, I want to do more work to help my parents.
[ . . . B]ecause my body’s too fat, it’s too lazy.

So I want to lose weight in order to do more work.” (S-41)
“When I eat less, it’s good for me, but when
I eat too much, I couldn’t do [jobs].” (S-50)

In contrast to a striking lack of commentary about being thin to be attractive
to boys, many girls discussed their opinion that maintaining a lower weight or
eating less made them less “lazy.” Parallels of economic sluggishness of the social
body were not explicitly made, but it is intriguing that girls frequently associated
thinness with ability to work, whereas more traditionally, a strong and robust body
was associated with ability to work. Illustrations follow:

Yes, my parents usually tell me to eat a small amount of food, not to eat, because when
I eat a lot of food, I become lazy, sleepy. (S-7)

It’s good for my health to be, to be lose weight because I am looking in future so that I
can do a lot of work so I cannot get some type of sickness when I have to do that type of
work. (S-23)

I don’t feel good about [overeating] cause the eating is to get lazy. (S-56)

[My family] usually tell me to lose weight so sometimes when I’m not interested in
doing some work, that’s the time when they comment some more, some more words for me
and told me that “we know you’re gaining weight. It’s better for you to lose weight, cause
it’s better for you to lose weight when you’re doing some work at home it’s easier for you
then just gaining weight and moving slowly and not doing some work fast” [ . . . ]. (S-44)

This respondent and two others also tied their desire to be thin to the modeling of
television characters:

[Television characters in Xena and Hercules] look fit most of the time when I look at
them, so I always admire if I could be, look, fit, look like them, so it’s easy for me to move
around and do work. (S-44)

No, I just want to be slim, because they [TV characters] are slim. Like it’s influencing
me so much that I have to be slim. I have to be fast enough so to run around when in time
of help. (S-45)

It makes me feel good because I am thin and I can do every work in the family at home,
unlike fat people who are always getting lazy and feel like relaxing all the time. (S-48)

It is of note that another respondent commented that television itself interfered
with productivity:

Television makes people lazy. By watching television overnight, when they wake up in
the morning and they are told to go somewhere and do some work and they are very lazy
and it make them create conflicts in their home by not doing anything. (S-35)

548 A.E. BECKER

Although the concerns about overeating, overweight, and television resulting in
laziness arguably flag a collective concern Fijian youth have as they wonder how
Fiji will perform in the global economy, it is far from a uniform signal. That
is, several girls expressed a more traditional opinion that eating and weighing
more were beneficial in promoting an ability to work better, harkening back to the
traditional valuation of robust body size in pre-television Fiji (Becker 1995). For
example, one respondent described her ideal weight as

Thin, not that thin. Like some people who are very skinny, I don’t want that. I mean a bit
thin, not like very thin. I’ll be thin, and I want my body to be built, bigger and strong, not
that kind of thin. (S-48)

But others expressed more ambivalence in the optimal body size, very likely
because aesthetic ideals and cultural meanings imbued in body shape are changing
so rapidly. As an illustration, one subject said, “I feel a bit happy because uh, my
parents always admire me if I lose weight, and it helps me in doing my work at
home in the village”(S-35). On the other hand, the same subject also reported that
her parents advised her to gain weight, saying, “we should gain weight because
we can help more.” Similarly, another respondent said, “fat people can’t do more
job at home, so that I can make myself slim so that I can do everything at home”
(S-34). However, she also equated eating and weight with her ability to work in
the following statement:

I feel happy more about [eating a lot of food], because I do a lot of job at home cause I’m,
I’m the only girl at home. I can help my mom. [ . . . ] My mom can’t do everything at home
because she is very old so they tell me that I am heavy enough to do the job at home so I
can take a lot of more food at home. (S-34)

Finally, another respondent also expressed approval of an intermediate size in
describing why she wishes to resemble Xena:

Before when I, you know when I was a lot bigger and fat, you know, we can’t do what
Xena can do. Like, Xena, she’s usually flying away. I mean, then doing some things when
she goes through the air and doing such [ . . . ] like that. I just, myself, I want to be like that
too. You know, like be, but not like a piece of paper, you know, like when the wind comes
it just float away? So I just want to be like that. (S-50)

Connection to disordered eating

“I think [TV] is bad because most girls take the dieting.
They end up being sick.” (S-58)

Although the implications of changes in body ideals, an emerging legitimation of
reshaping the body, and an influx of images and values that stimulate consumerism
for fostering the emergence of body image concerns and disordered eating may
be intuitive from a clinical perspective, it is by no means clear that subjects were

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 549

all explicitly aware of their use of television characters as role models. Having
said that, however, the openly expressed admiration of lifestyles and body shapes
portrayed on television appeared quite prevalent, and some subjects did actually
connect the dots between transitioning body ideals, values, and eating pathology.
Moreover, it is quite likely that some, if not much, of the interest, valuation, and
admiration for characters may have been diffused throughout the peer group inde-
pendently of television exposure (Becker et al. 2002) and thus affected schoolgirls
both directly and indirectly. In any case, the apparent connection between compar-
ison with television characters and a new standard they set, self-disparagement,
misplaced efforts to reshape the body, and disordered eating attitudes and behav-
iors is a serious public health concern.

The following respondent immediately associated weight concerns and un-
healthy dieting with television in the following interview excerpt:

I: What do you think of American television?
S: Um, uh about weight?
I: In general, or whatever you would like to talk about.
S: I think that they portray a lot of skinny girls and very bad, you know, a very bad eating,

especially [in] Fiji.
I: Can you tell me how?
S: Uh, they tend to say that being skinny is the in thing.
I: That being skinny is the in thing?
S: Yeah.
I: Are there other ways that you think it’s bad?
S: I think it’s bad because most girls take the dieting. They end up being sick.
I: How, how does that happen?
S: Uh, [ . . . ] the diet gets uncontrollable.
I: How does a diet get uncontrollable?
S: They can’t, they cannot eat, they have no appetite for eating anymore.
I: Has that happened to people you know here in Fiji?
S: Yes.
I: Are they people your age, in the schools, things like that?
S: Yeah.
I: And what happens with them. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
S: Uh, they don’t know that they start on a diet, they keep on going on a diet and they just

lose their appetite and they just get really skinny and they can’t get back to their normal
weight. (S-58)

These comments somewhat reflect a traditional ethnic Fijian concern about ap-
petite loss (manifest in the syndrome macake). This informant’s model concerning
the slippery slope of dieting leading to uncontrolled weight loss could as easily
reflect macake as an eating disorder in this case.

Another respondent who discussed taking diet pills as well as restrictive eating
tied her desire to lose weight to peer opinion and role models on television:

I: What do you think influences how you feel about your weight? What sort of things make
you want to be thinner or like your weight? What sort of things do that? Friends, or
family, or television? What sort of things?

S: My friends. They tell them that I too fat, so I want to make myself fit, slim.

550 A.E. BECKER

I: How about your family? Does that influence how you feel about your body and your
weight?

S: Yes. They encourage me to take a diet so that I can have less weight than I have now,
and uh make my body slim.

I: How about television? Do you think that influences how you feel about your body?
S: Yes
I: Yeah?
S: I see ads in the television, and I admire their fitness, their sizes. (S-61)

One of the respondents who reported purging commented on how she tried to
lose weight:

Most of the times when I eat, I sometimes want to vomit it out. But, most of the times I
miss my meals. And sometimes I walk in the farm, very heavy walk, so I can know for
myself that I am losing my weight. (S-62)

This study participant emphasized that her information on weight control came
from viewing television: “I learn a lot from television. Doing those exercises, and
the equipments that are being introduced” (S-62). Another respondent’s comments
suggested how the body disparagement so entwined with eating disorders in the
West can also creep into Fijian girls’ discourse.

I: Does you family ever comment on your weight?
S: Yes, when I’m too fat they comment about my weight.
I: What do they say?
S: They say that uh I’m eating too much food, and it makes me look like overweight.

I: How does it make you feel when they say that?

S: I feel like, I feel sad, and I want to cry sometimes. And uh, I don’t want to feel like

overweight [ . . . ]. (S-59)

She evidently felt demoralized by critical comments by both her family and her
peers:

They [my friends] say that um I’m like an old woman, and I’m too big. [ . . . ] I feel sad
[ . . . ] and um sometimes I feel like to cry because the way they talk about my weight.
(S-59)

Another respondent, who said, “I think ah all those actors and actresses that
they show on TV, they have a good figure and so I, I would like to be like them,”
also made the following comments in her interview about perceived peer pressure
to lose weight:

I: Do your friends ever comment on your weight?
S: Um yeah.
I: What do they say?
S: Ah, when I wear clothes that um, that, when I wear clothes that makes me look fat, I

already say that I’m fat, and they say that I should do something in order to lose weight
so that I can get a slimmer figure.

I: How does it make you feel when they say that?

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 551

S: I lose hope. I lose hope when they say that.
I: Why do you lose hope?
S: Cause I always been thinking about getting slimmer and when they say that, it really

makes me hopeless. (S-46)

Finally, a respondent who acknowledged having induced vomiting to lose weight
described her observations on the effects of television on Fijian body image.

I: Do you think that television is making Fijians ashamed of their bodies?
S: Yeah, very much. Because Fijians are, most of us Fijians are, many of us, most, I can

say most, we are brought up with those heavy foods, and our bodies are, we are getting
fat. And now, we are feeling, we feel that it is bad to have this huge body. We have to
have those thin, slim bodies. (S-64)

DISCUSSION

Minimally, and at the most superficial level, narrative data reflect a shift in fashion
among the adolescent ethnic Fijian population studied. A shift in aesthetic ideals
is remarkable in and of itself given the numerous social mechanisms that have
long supported the preference for large bodies. Moreover, this change reflects a
disruption of both apparently stable traditional preference for a robust body shape
and the traditional disinterest in reshaping the body (Becker 1995).

Subjects’ responses to television in this study also reflect a more complicated
reshaping of personal and cultural identities inherent in their endeavors to reshape
their bodies. Traditionally for Fijians, identity had been fixed not so much in
the body as in family, community, and relationships with others, in contrast to
Western-cultural models that firmly fix identity in the body/self. Comparatively
speaking, social identity is manipulated and projected through personal, visual
props in many Western social contexts, whereas this was less true in Fiji. Instead,
Fijians have traditionally invested themselves in nurturing others—efforts that are
then concretized in the bodies that one cares for and feeds. Hence, identity is
represented (and experienced) individually and collectively through the well-fed
bodies of others, not through one’s own body (again, comparatively speaking)
(Becker 1995). In addition, since Fiji’s economy has until recently been based in
subsistence agriculture, and since multiple cultural practices encourage distribu-
tion of material resources, traditional Fijian identity has also not been represented
through the ability to purchase and accumulate material goods.

More broadly than interest in body shape, however, the qualitative data demon-
strate a rather concrete identification with television characters as role models of
successful engagement in Western, consumeristic lifestyles. Admiration and em-
ulation of television characters appears to stem from recognition that traditional
channels are ill-equipped to assist Fijian adolescents in navigating the landscape

552 A.E. BECKER

of rapid social change in Fiji. Unfortunately, while affording an opportunity to
develop identities syntonic with the shifting social context, the behavioral mod-
eling on Western appearance and customs appears to have undercut traditional
cultural resources for identity-making (Becker et al. 2002). Specifically, narrative
data reveal here that traditional sources of information about self-presentation
and public comportment have been supplanted by captivating and convincing role
models depicted in televised programming and commercials.

It is noteworthy that the interest in reshaping the body differs in subtle but
important ways from the drive for thinness observed in other social contexts. The
discourse on reshaping the body is, indeed, quite explicitly and pragmatically fo-
cused on competitive social positioning—for both employment opportunities and
peer approval. This discourse on weight and body shape is suffused with moral
as well as material associations (i.e., that appear to be commentary on the social
body). That is, repeatedly expressed sentiment that excessive weight results in
laziness and undermines domestic productivity may reflect a concern about how
Fijians will “measure up” in the global economy. The juxtaposition of extreme
affluence depicted on most television programs against the materially impover-
ished Fijians associates the nearly uniformly thin bodies and restrained appetites
of television characters with the (illusory) promise of economic opportunity and
success. Each child’s future, as well as the fitness of the social body, seems to be
at stake.

In this sense, disordered eating among the Fijian schoolgirls in this study appears
to be primarily an instrumental means of reshaping body and identity to enhance
social and economic opportunities. From this perspective, it may be premature to
comment on whether or not disordered eating behaviors share the same meaning
as similar behaviors in other cultural contexts. It is also premature to say whether
these behaviors correspond well to Western nosologic categories describing eat-
ing disorders. Regardless of any differences in psychological significance of the
behaviors, however, physiologic risks will be the same. Quite possibly—and this
remains to be studied in further detail—disordered eating may also be a symbolic
embodiment of the anxiety and conflict the youth experience on the threshold
of rapid social change in Fiji and during their personal and collective navigation
through it. Moreover, there is some preliminary evidence that the disordered eating
is accompanied by clinical features associated with the illnesses elsewhere and
eating disorders may be emerging in this context. Finally, television has certainly
imported more than just images associating appearance with material success; it
has arguably enhanced reflexivity about the possibility of reshaping one’s body
and life trajectory and popularized the notion of competitive social positioning.

The impact of imported media in societies undergoing transition on local
values has been demonstrated in multiple societies (e.g., Cheung and Chan
1996; Granzberg 1985; Miller 1998; Reis 1998; Tan et al. 1987; Wu 1990). As

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 553

others have argued in other contexts, ideas from imported media can be used
to negotiate “hybrid identities” (Barker 1997) and otherwise incorporated into
various strategies for social positioning (Mazzarella 2003) and coping with
modernization (Varan 1998). Likewise and ironically, here as in elsewhere in the
world (see Anderson-Fye 2004, this issue), Fijian youth must craft an identity
which adopts Western values about productivity and efficiency in the workplace
while simultaneously selling their Fijian-ness (an essential asset to their role in the
tourist industry). Self-presentation is thus carefully constructed so as to bridge and
integrate dual identities. That these identities are not consistently smoothly fused
is evidenced in the ambivalence in the narratives about how thin a body is actually
ideal.

The source of the emerging disordered eating among ethnic Fijian girls thus
appears multifactorial and multidetermined. Media images that associate thinness
with material success and marketing that promotes the possibility of reshaping
the body have supported a perceived nexus between diligence (work on the body),
appearance (thinness), and social and material success (material possessions, eco-
nomic opportunities, and popularity with peers). Fijian self-presentation has ab-
sorbed new dimensions related to buying into Western styles of appearance and the
ethos of work on the body. A less articulated parallel to admiration for characters,
bodies, and lifestyles portrayed on imported television is the demoralizing percep-
tion of not comparing favorably as a population. It is as though a mirror was held
up to these girls in which they perhaps saw themselves as poor and overweight.
The eagerness they express in grooming themselves to be hard workers or perhaps
obtain competitive jobs perhaps reflects their collective energy and anxiety about
how they, as individuals, and as a Fijian people, are going to fare in a globalizing
world. Thus preoccupation with weight loss and the restrictive eating and purging
certainly reflect pragmatic strategies to optimize social and economic success. At
the same time, they surely contribute to body- and self-disparagement and reflect
an embodied distress about the uncertainty of personal future and the social body.

Epidemiologic data from other populations confirm an association between
social transition (e.g., transnational migration, modernization, urbanization) and
disordered eating among vulnerable groups (Anderson-Fye and Becker 2003). In
particular, the association between upward mobility and disordered eating across
diverse populations has relevance here (Anderson-Fye 2000; Buchan and Gregory
1984; Silber 1986; Soomro et al. 1995; Yates 1989). Exposure to Western media
images and ideas may further contribute to disordered eating by first promoting
comparisons that result in perceived economic and social disadvantage and then
promoting the notion that efforts to reshape the body will enhance social status.
It can be argued that girls and young women undergoing social transition may
perceive that social status is enhanced by positioning oneself competitively through
the informed use of cultural symbols—e.g., by bodily appearance and thinness

554 A.E. BECKER

(Becker and Hamburg 1996). This is comparable to observations that children
of immigrants to the U.S. (for whom the usual parental “map of experience” is
lacking) substitute alternative “cultural guides” from the media as resources for
negotiating successful social strategies (Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco 2001).
In both scenarios, adolescent girls and young women assimilating to new cultural
standards encounter a ready cultural script for comportment and appearance in the
media.

CONCLUSIONS

“I’ve wondered how television is made and how the actress and actors, I always
wondered how television, how people acted on it, and I’m kind of wondering

whether it’s true or not.”(S-48)

The increased prevalence of disordered eating in ethnic Fijian schoolgirls is not
the only story—or even the most important one—that can be pieced together from
the respondents’ narratives on television and its impact.4 Nor are images and
values transmitted through televised media singular forces in the chain of events
that has led to an apparent increase in disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.
The impact of media coupled with other sweeping economic and social change
is likely to affect Fijian youth and adults in many ways. On the other hand, this
particular story allows a window into the powerful impact and vulnerability of
this adolescent female population. This story also allows a frame for exploring
resilience and suggesting interventions for future research.

In some important ways, Fiji is a unique context for investigating the impact of
media imagery on adolescents. In Fiji in particular, the evolving and multiple—
and potentially overlapping or dissonant—social terrain presents novel challenges
and opportunities for adolescents navigating their way in the absence of guidance
from “conventional” wisdom and social hierarchies that may have grown obsolete
in some respects. Doubtless the profound ways in which adolescent girls are
influenced by media imagery extend beyond the borders of Fiji and the ways
in which young women in Fiji consume and reflect on televised media may
suggest mechanisms for its impact on youth in other social contexts. This study,
therefore, allows insight into the ways in which social change intersects with the
developmental tasks of adolescence to pose the risk of eating disorders and other
youth risk behaviors.

Adolescent girls and young women in this and other indigenous, small-scale
societies may also be especially vulnerable to the effects of media exposure for
several key reasons. For example, in the context of rapid social change, these
girls and young women may lack traditional role models for how to successfully
maneuver in a shifting economic and political environment. Moreover, in societies

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 555

in which status is traditionally ascribed rather than achieved, girls and women
may feel more compelled to secure their social position through a mastery of self-
presentation that draws heavily from imported media. It is a logical and frightening
conclusion that vulnerable girls and women across diverse populations who feel
marginalized from the locally dominant culture’s sources of prestige and status
may anchor their identities in widely recognized cultural symbols of prestige
popularized by media-imported ideas, values, and images. Further, these girls and
women have no reference for comparison of the televised images to the “realities”
they portray and thus to critique and deconstruct the images they see compared
with girls and women who are “socialized” into a culture of viewership. Without
thoughtful interventions5 —yet to be explored with the affected communities—
the unfortunate outcome is likely to be continued increasing rates of disordered
eating and other youth risk behaviors in vulnerable populations undergoing rapid
modernization and social transition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the Tui Sigatoka for her gracious assistance with all aspects of data
collection in Fiji, and the Fiji Ministry of Education for assistance in identifying
schools at which to interview subjects. I am also indebted to Kesaia Navara and
Rebecca Burwell for interviewing subjects, as well as Erin Roland, Alexandra
Speck, and Allison Van Fleet for their help with transcription. Finally, I thank
Paul Hamburg for the mentorship that laid the foundation for much of this work.
Funding for this study was provided in part by The Irene Pollin Fellowship in
Memory of Cherry Adler and the Milton Fund, both of Harvard Medical School.

NOTES

1. Narrative excerpts are identified by subject number to preserve anonymity. In some
excerpts, the interviewer’s words are included to give a context for the response. In such
cases, the interviewer’s comments follow an “I” and the subject’s comments follow an “S.”

2. When television was first introduced to Fiji in 1995, the programming was chiefly
situation comedies, dramatic series, and news imported from the US, Australia, and
New Zealand. With the exception of some sports events, locally produced programming
was limited to one 20-minute news segment aired twice daily. Study respondents favored
Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Xena, Warrior Princess (New Zealand-produced), and
Shortland Street (an Australian-produced dramatic series).

3. Some of the interview quotes were published previously in Becker AE, Burwell RA,
Gilman SE, Herzog DB, Hamburg P. Eating behaviours and attitudes following prolonged
television exposure among ethnic Fijian adolescent girls. The British Journal of Psychiatry
2002, 180: 509–14.

4. For example, the increased incidence of suicide and other self-injury in Fiji (Pridmore
et al. 1995) may index social distress related to rapid social change.

556 A.E. BECKER

5. Prevention efforts that might be useful include psychoeducational information about
the psychological and medical risks associated with bingeing, purging, and self-starvation
as well as media literacy programs that assist youth in critical and informed viewing of
televised programming and commercials.

REFERENCES

Abramson, E., and P. Valene
1991 Media Use, Dietary Restraint, Bulimia, and Attitudes Towards Obesity: A

Preliminary Study. British Review of Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa 5: 73–
76.

Altman, D.G., D.W. Levine, R. Coeytaux, J. Slade, and R. Jaffe
1996 Tobacco Promotion and Susceptibility to Tobacco Use Among Adolescents Aged

12 Through 17 Years in a Nationally Representative Sample. American Journal of
Public Health 86: 1590–1593.

Anderson-Fye, E.P.
2000 Self-Reported Eating Attitudes Among High School Girls in Belize: A Quantitative

Survey. Unpublished Qualifying Paper. Department of Human Development and
Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Anderson-Fye, E., and A.E. Becker
2004 Socio-Cultural Aspects of Eating Disorders. In Handbook of Eating Disorders and

Obesity. J.K. Thompson, ed., pp. 565–589. Wiley.
Anonymous

1995 Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media. Committee on Communications,
American Academy of Pediatrics 95: 298–300.

Barker, C.
1997 Television and the Reflexive Project of the Self: Soaps, Teenage Talk and Hybrid

Identities. British Journal of Sociology 48: 611–628.
Becker, A.E.

1994 Nurturing and Negligence: Working on Others’ Bodies in Fiji. In Embodiment and
Experience. T. Csordas, ed., pp.100–115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Becker, A.E.
1995 Body, Self, Society: The View from Fiji. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press.
Becker, A.E., and P. Hamburg

1996 Culture, the Media, and Eating Disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 4: 163–
167.

Becker, A.E., R.A. Burwell, S.E. Gilman, D.B. Herzog, and P. Hamburg
2002 Eating Behaviors and Attitudes Following Prolonged Television Exposure Among

Ethnic Fijian Adolescent Girls. The British Journal of Psychiatry 180: 509–
514.

Becker, A.E., S.E. Gilman, and R.A. Burwell
in press Changes in Prevalence of Overweight and Body Image among Fijian Women

Between 1989 and 1998. Obesity Research.
Black, D., and M. Newman

1995 Television Violence and Children. British Medical Journal 310: 273–274.
Bourdieu, P.

1984 Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buchan, T., and L.D. Gregory

1984 Anorexia Nervosa in a Black Zimbabwean. British Journal of Psychiatry 145:
326–330.

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 557

Centerwall, B.S.
1992 Television and Violence: The Scale of the Problem and Where to Go from Here.

Journal of the American Medical Association 267: 3059–3063.
Cheung, C.K., and C.F. Chan

1996 Television Viewing and Mean World Value in Hong Kong’s Adolescents. Social
Behavior and Personality 24: 351–364.

Entwistle, J.
1997 ‘Power Dressing’ and the Construction of the Career Woman. In Buy this Book:

Studies in Advertising and Consumption. M. Nava, A. Blake, L. MacRury, and B.
Richards, eds., pp. 311–323. London: Routledge.

Featherstone, M.
1991 Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage Publications.

Festinger, L.
1954 A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations 7: 117–140.

Field, A.E., L. Cheung, A.M. Wolf, D.B. Herzog, S.L. Gortmaker, and G.A. Colditz
1999 Exposure to the Mass Media and Weight Concerns Among Girls. Pediatrics 103:

e36.
Garner, D.M., P.E. Garfinkel, D. Schwartz, and M. Thompson

1980 Cultural Expectations of Thinness in Women. Psychological Reports 47: 483–491.
Giddens, A.

1991 Modernity and Self-Identity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gill, T., R. Hughes, J. Tunidau-Schultz, C. Nishida, G. Galea, and L. Cavalli-Sforza

2002 Obesity in the Pacific: Too Big to Ignore. Noumea, New Caledonia: Secretariat of
the Pacific Community.

Gordon, R.A.
2000 Eating Disorders: Anatomy of a Social Epidemic, 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishers.
Granzberg, G.

1985 Television and Self-Concept Formation in Developing Areas. Journal of Cross-
Cultural Psychology 16: 313–328.

Harrison, K., and J. Cantor
1997 The Relationship Between Media Consumption and Eating Disorders. Journal of

Communication 47: 40–67.
Heinberg, L.J., and J.K. Thompson

1992 Social Comparison: Gender, Target Importance Ratings, and Relation to Body
Image Disturbance. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 7: 335–344.

Irving, L.
1990 Mirror Images: Effects of the Standard of Beauty on the Self- and Body-Esteem

of Women Exhibiting Varying Levels of Bulimic Symptoms. Journal of Social and
Clinical Psychology 9: 230–242.

Lasch, C.
1979 The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Warner Books.

Keel, P.K., and J.E. Mitchell
1997 Outcome in Bulimia Nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry 154: 313–

321.
Klein, J.D., J.D. Brown, K.W. Childers, J. Oliveri, C. Porter, and C. Dykers

1993 Adolescents’ Risky Behavior and Mass Media Use. Pediatrics 92: 24–31.
Mazzarella, W.

2003 Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.

McKinley, E.G.
1997 Beverly Hills 90210: Television, Gender, and Identity. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press.

558 A.E. BECKER

Miller, C.J.
1994 The Social Impacts of Televised Media Among the Yucatec Maya. Human Orga-

nization. 57: 307–314.
National Food and Nutrition Centre

2001 Fiji Food Balance Sheet. Suva, Fiji: National Food and Nutrition Centre.
O’Connor, A.

2000, May 5 Media Exposure and Eating Disorders: Current Knowledge and Implica-
tions for Prevention. Presentation at Ninth New York International Conference on
Eating Disorders. New York, NY.

Paik, H., and G. Comstock
1994 The Effects of Television Violence on Antisocial Behavior: A Meta-Analysis.

Community Research 21: 516–546.
Pipher, M.

1994 Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine
Books.

Pollock, N.
1995 Cultural Elaboration of Obesity—Fattening Practices in Pacific Societies. Asian

Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 14: 357–360.
Pridmore, S., K. Ryan, and L. Blizzard

1995 Victims of Violence in Fiji. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 29:
666–670.

Reis R.
1998 The Impact of Television Viewing in the Brazilian Amazon. Human Organization

57: 300–306.
Richins, M.L.

1991 Social Comparison and the Idealized Images of Advertising. Journal of Consumer
Research 18: 71–83.

Rubin, L.R., M.L. Fitts, and A.E. Becker
2003 “Whatever feels good in my soul”: Body Ethics and Aesthetics Among African

American and Latina Women. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 27(1): 49–75.
Silber, T.J.

1986 Anorexia Nervosa in Blacks and Hispanics. International Journal of Eating
Disorders 5: 121–128.

Snowden, W., and J.T. Schultz
2001 Cultural Attitudes and Perceptions of Selected Issues and Practices Related to

Health and NDCs in the Pacific. Noumea, New Caledonia: Secretariat of the Pacific
Community.

Soomro, G.M., A.H. Crisp, D. Lynch, D. Tran, and N. Joughin
1995 Anorexia Nervosa in ‘Non-White’ Populations. British Journal of Psychiatry 167:

385–389.
Stice, E., and H. Shaw

1994 Adverse Effects of the Media Portrayed Thin-Ideal on Women and Linkages to
Bulimic Symptomatology. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 13: 288–308.

Stice, E., C. Ziemba, J. Margolis, and P. Flick
1996 The Dual Pathway Model Differentiates Bulimics, Subclinical Bulimics, and Con-

trols: Testing the Continuity Hypothesis. Behavior Therapy 27: 531–549.
Striegel-Moore, R.H., L.R. Silberstein, and J. Rodin

1986 Toward an Understanding of Risk Factors for Bulimia. American Psychologist 41:
246–263.

Suarez-Orozco, C., and M.M. Suarez-Orozco
2001 Children of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

TELEVISION, DISORDERED EATING, AND YOUNG WOMEN IN FIJI 559

Sweetman, P.
2000 Anchoring the (Postmodern) Self? Body Modification, Fashion, and Identity. In

Body Modification. M. Featherstone, ed., pp. 51–76. London: Sage Publications.
Tan, A.S., G.K. Tan, and A.S. Tan

1987 American TV in the Philippines: A Test of Cultural Impact. Journalism Quarterly
64: 65–72, 144.

Tiggemann, M., and A.S. Pickering
1996 Role of Television in Adolescent Women’s Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for

Thinness. International Journal of Eating Disorders 20: 199–203.
Varan, D.

1998 The Cultural Erosion Metaphor and the Transcultural Impact of Media Systems.
Journal of Communication 48: 58–85.

Wood, W., and F.Y. Wong
1991 Effects of Media Violence on Viewer’s Aggression in Unconstrained Social Inter-

action. Psychological Bulletin 109:371–383.
Wu, Y.K.

1990 Television and the Value Systems of Taiwan’s Adolescents: A Cultivation Analysis.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50: 3783A.

Yates, A.
1989 Current Perspectives on the Eating Disorders: I. History, Psychological and Bi-

ological Aspects. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry 28(6): 813–828.

ANNE E. BECKER MD, PhD
Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
and Adult Eating and Weight Disorders Program
Department of Psychiatry
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA, USA
E-mail: anne becker@hms.harvard.edu

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.