Also this issue: Icepack -A.D. Amorosi

November 7-13, 2002

naked city

Mirror Image

Shirt tales: Emily Goodwin models one of cybelleâs positive-body-image tees. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Body image takes center stage for two local organizations.

by Debra Auspitz

If you’re in a room with 100 women in their teens and 20s, statistically speaking, one woman suffers from anorexia, and four are afflicted with bulimia. The numbers for men are lower, but growing. But then, you probably already knew all of that. It’s the kind of statistic that’s thrown around constantly on college campuses, news programs and, ironically, in women’s magazines.

The real question is, what are you going to do about it?

Two very different local organizations -- a nearly two-decade-old eating disorders treatment center and a fledgling urban gear company -- have answered that challenge, and they come together this week at a conference organized by the former.

In 2000, local designer Emily Goodwin and her partner in San Francisco, Gabriella Davi, created cybelle, an urban clothing and accessory company. Some of their work caters to female DJs and breakdancers, and all of it has a strong girl-power vibe. This past summer, Goodwin and Davi created a pair of T-shirts to raise money and awareness for eating disorder treatment. One features a range of women's silhouettes in varying shapes and sizes, cast in pink and purple hues, with the word "beautiful" across the bottom. The second design is more blunt -- an outline of a woman, hands defiantly on her hips, is surrounded by the words "Binge no more. Purge no more. Starve no more." Goodwin says the designs are meant to show women "determining their own relationships with their bodies, instead of being dictated to by the fashion or diet industries." The shirts cost $20, with all but a $2 production fee donated to Philadelphia's Renfrew Center Foundation.

"They've been really successful," Goodwin says. "We've done three different printings, and we get e-mails every day from all over the country asking about them."

The Renfrew Center Foundation was created out of the Renfrew Center, which, when founded in Philadelphia in 1985, was the first independent facility for the treatment of eating disorders. Until then, anorexics and bulimics were relegated to the psych wards of hospitals. Renfrew expanded over the years and there are now seven locations across the U.S. The nonprofit foundation sponsors education and research for eating disorder specialists, and funds patients who can't afford a stay at Renfrew. The foundation is hosting its 12th annual conference this week in Philadelphia, with the topic "Feminist Perspectives on Body Image, Trauma and Healing."

Foundation President Jane Fleming says "it's about how women can get their voice back." Fleming says that for many women, an eating disorder starts as "something very protective for the individual, that obviously very quickly turns into something very destructive. [Women] are using their voice through their eating disorder rather than using their voice through healthy means."

This year's conference features a wide range of speakers, many touching on the role that race plays in the development of eating disorders. One conference leader, Dr. Gayle Brooks, who works at the Florida chapter of the Renfrew Center, will be arguing at the conference that racism can seriously damage a woman's body image. Brooks says she will be addressing "some of the racial bias in the field of eating disorders." Many of the early theories on eating disorders were researched in the mid-1960s, when, Brooks says, "they first looked and said it was young, white affluent girls" affected by anorexia and bulimia. This led to a common and dangerous assumption that African-American women were somehow immune to body image issues. "Women of color and African-American women do suffer from eating disorders, and at suprisingly similar levels [to white women]," Brooks says. "And, unfortunately, [many women of color] end up being more advanced in their illness before they're correctly diagnosed." Brooks will speak about the effect of living in a bicultural society on body image in women of color. These women are "inundated with messages from the white culture about how they're supposed to look and what beauty is." Brooks says this year's conference is the first time the question of diversity will not be relegated to the fringes of the agenda.

The conference will also address the hotly contested question of the media's role. Two of the conference's most high-profile guests are outspoken on the evils of advertising and other media. Model Carré Otis (yes, of Wild Orchid fame), has gone public with her struggles with both drugs and anorexia, and has recently made a small comeback as a "plus-size model," even though the 5-foot-10 Otis is only a size 12. Dr. Jean Kilbourne, author of the new book Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, is adamant about the negative impact that advertising has on everyone, especially young women.

Renfrew's Fleming is not quite as convinced. "It's an ongoing dialogue in the eating disorder community," she says. "The media definitely has an impact on women and an increasing number of men, no one can doubt that. But we would never say that the media could solely cause an eating disorder." Fleming says media sources are often used as part of a treatment program for anorexia or bulimia.

Fleming also makes recommendations for fashion mags that are more conscious of the impact they could have on young women and men (Cosmo does not get high marks). Glamour has improved, Fleming says, and there are lesser-known publications, like Grace for older women and New Moon for teens that promote a more realistic body image.

Or there's always Goodwin and Davi's example, making their own fashion statement out of a positive message. They will be selling their T-shirts at the conference, and the shirts are always available on the company's website (www.cybellegear.com), on Renfrew's website (www.renfrew.org) and in local shop Scarlett (104 S. 13th St.).

"We wanted the designs to reflect a strong, positive body image to counteract those unrealistic bodies in magazines and movies," Goodwin says. "But we also wanted them to be cute, graphic and feminine, so they would be shirts people would want to wear and feel good in."

Twelfth Annual Renfrew Center Foundation Conference, Nov. 7-10, Philadelphia Airport Marriott Hotel, 1-877-367-3383.