How Do Girls Develop Body Image?
A study released yesterday attempts to answer that important question, dividing adolescent girls into groups like “Jocks,” “Burnouts,” and “Alternatives,” and discovering that their peer groups are the most important deciding factor. From the press release:
The central theme of the study is that peer groups of teenage girls best determine their attitude towards their bodies, dieting and exercise. Some points to note are that athletic teens (part of the jock peer group) had the most healthy attitude, while those who were not part of any group had the most negative attitude and were the most likely to diet or over exercise.
Here’s a more sciency excerpt:
[G]irls identifying with athletic peers (‘Jocks’) were less concerned about their own weight and seemed less likely to be trying to control their weight. Girls identifying with non–conformist peers (‘Alternatives’) were more concerned about their weight and appearance and more likely to be actively trying to lose weight. The girls who identified with those who skip school and often get into trouble (‘Burnouts’) believed their peers valued thinness and dieting. Finally, girls who did not belong to any particular peer group were the most likely to use slimming strategies.
It’s kind of ironic that the non-conformists turned out to be more obsessed with weight than the other groups. So what were you: a Jock? A Burnout? An Alternative? A Vampire Groupie? (Yes, I have been reading the Twilight series. No, that’s not a real peer group. Sadly.) Do you think your peer group had any effect on your attitude towards your weight?
I personally was a Nerd, not brave enough to play sports, and all my pressure came from home and from my own brain. My peer group never pressured me, as far as I can remember. Of course I’m speaking of high school: in junior high, I simply didn’t have any friends. What about you? What about your daughters?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advocacy, Exercise, Kids, Personal, Question, Science
Email us
Mo, you are probably the first person I’ve ever known who didn’t say, “I wasn’t really part of any group, I was friends with everyone.”
I too am surprised that the “Jocks” had the best body image and most positive outlook considering how that group is portrayed in most pop culture (Heathers, anyone?). This study definitely confirms the recommendation that teenage girls be involved in sports.
I was a nerd AND a tomboy. I played sports (volleyball and ice hockey) and was also a quiz player. My friends were mostly other nerds, although I lated befriended a former dropout who came back to finish high school as well as a metalhead who also was my best friend’s friend. Yet, I was a lot more close-minded as a teen than I am now (I was kinda an intellectual snob of sorts).
I was a “drama nerd”, not to be confused with the “band nerds”, although the two groups overlapped a bit. I never officially dieted through high school, but had a subtle competition with my best friend about weight/size. We were similar sizes, but different build: I had the big butt and small(ish) waist, she had the small butt and larger waist. Funnily enough, I never properly dieted until I was 19 and in a steady relationship.
I was an outsider. I was bullied and teased a lot in middle school and high school, so I had a very small group of friends and spent a lot of time by myself, trying to fight off the bullies and survive day to day.
I imagine that the athletic girls have less to worry about in regards to gaining weight because they are athletic. It is quite difficult to gain weight when your activity level is so high so why worry about something that isn’t really a problem?
Jocks tend to be people with strong emotional support networks, which include family, friends, and acquaintances. They build social networks fairly easily because they are used to it.
People who don’t fit into a group tend to have the least amount of emotional support and the highest likelihood of believing that the only way to build a strong social network is to acquire a socially acceptable body by whatever means necessary.
The elite athletes who push to be the best by whatever means necessary are in the minority because “the best” is a very limited group by definition. Thus, most people involved in athletics tend to have a more balanced attitude towards life than their elite counterparts who get media attention for extreme behaviors.
I don’t think the weight obsession in the non-conformist girls is all that ironic. Anytime a person feels like the “other” or different from the mainstream, accepted group, there’s bound to be lots of self insecurities. Weight and more specifically weight-loss is a perfect object to fixate on because it’s so often promoted, validated and rewarded in our current culture.
I was a band nerd, but I wasn’t all that devoted of band nerd. I guess I was also one of the smart kids (academic team, anyone?) and also the quintessential fat girl. The funny thing for me is, even though I was one of just a handful of fat kids in high school, I never seriously dieted or obsessed with my weight. I felt bad about it and myself, sure, and I tried lots of times to become more active so I could lose weight, but I didn’t start my first serious diet until my early 20s.
I was a crazy person. We were the kids who would do ridiculous stuff. Some of it was funny, but we weren’t the class clowns. Sometimes we were just… weird. Creepy even. People seemed to like us all the same, though. Our closest allies seemed to be the nerd group. Oh and I think there were only 4 of us in this crazy person group. I miss high school.
Music geek – band, chorus, choral ensemble… I also went to a frou-frou private school where we were required to play at least one sport a year. I played volleyball, as that’s where all the girls who weren’t athletic enough for field hockey wound up. It was fun, even though I wasn’t even marginally good at it. I suppose I had an athletic yet curvy build – big frame (though short), solid muscle, not much jiggle.
My daughter, almost 7, is built exactly like I was. I’m thinking I’m going to encourage her to play sports. She’s a bit more naturally outgoing than I was, so it probably won’t be hard. If it promotes a healthy body image and means she won’t have to go through what I did, then I’m all for sports.
Drama nerd here, too.
And part a small, close-knit group of students who were A.Smart, B.Transfers, and C.A whole helluva lot of fun. That would be outsiders, I guess?
I was a cross between an “alternative” (hey, I thought I was really punk!) and a band nerd. I was also on the swim team, but I only had a couple of swimming friends, at least one of which I was friends with before I joined the team.
I was a cheerleader from the age of 13 to 18. I also had a terrible eating disorder from the age of 15 to 26. Nothing about being a cheerleader contributed to my image issues. there were girls on my squad much larger than I and perfectly at home in their bodies.
My problems started at home and in the faulty workings of my brain. I have parents who have their own issues with body image and the comments about weight were plentiful in my home.
In a scenario almost the polar opposite of Kristin’s, I was a dancer whose family never obsessed about weight. I definitely felt the pressure to be thinner from my peers (no matter how thin I got), but in all honesty probably would have been categorized as a “disordered eater” more than someone with an active eating disorder. (In other words, not extreme enough to qualify for ED-NOS or anorexia, but definitely FAR more disordered than any non-dancer I knew.)
And I believe it was my familial environment that kept my eating from truly blossoming into a full-on disorder.
(It’s sort of strange and educational to see your background, Kristin. Similar external circumstances, with one notable difference being the family, and presumably different internal circumstances as well.)
I was an “alternative”, I still identify myself that way. I am a true child of the 80’s and grew up on New Wave, which is now called alternative. I hung out with a group of drama, music, smart people. How I fit in I have no idea as I don’t fit into any of those categories.
The summer between 11th and 12th grade my parents sent me to a “Diet Doctor” who put me on a strict Atkins type diet. I lost a substantial amount of weight and was amazed and not quite prepared for how differently I would be treated, particularly by the boys. It went to my head a little.
Still I wish I had not gone on that diet because the weigth I was when I started it is probably a weight lower than any that I will see ever agian. I was a huge diet, loose, stop dieting, gain everything plus more yo-yo dieter.
I don’t really have fond memories of high school, but I made it through OK.
Interesting how many of us were either drama nerds or band geeks, huh? (Band geek here.) While I was actually about 10 pounds above the BOTTOM of my ideal weight range, I was tormented about being “fat” and constantly fed the “such a pretty face” line, so I started my first diet when I was 12. What a way to live a life!
Drama nerd AND United Methodist.
I was doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
I think I wasn’t really in any group (and not because I was friends with everyone, either) and I did spend a lot of time obsessing over how hideously fat I thought I was. I wore deliberately odd clothes because I thought it would distract people from my body. So I suppose I was “alternative”, but not in a cool way. I wasn’t actually particularly fat – just an early developer physically, before I knew how to dress that kind of body. Probably most of the other girls felt just as hideous.
It wasn’t until I left school that I really became comfortable with who I was, and welcomed going to university because nobody had any preconceptions of what I was like. At that point I stopped stressing (and gained 2st, but I think that was more the student lifestyle than anything else).
I would’ve liked to be a drama nerd but drama was cool at our school, so I never had a chance!
I had the dreaded “Does this make me look fat?” from my daughter today. She’s seven. I have no idea how she can think she’s fat when I can see her ribs and feel her hip bones. Any advice on how to nip this in the bud so her picky eating doesn’t slide over the edge into anorexia?
I was an obese (but very active since I had to take buses/walk/run to skip school or to cap some herb) burn-out Goth..always had a boyfriend(s), though, but that may just have been b/c I was kinda easy.
Towards the end, I got out of Goth and into other music/dress types but still a burnout (a little here and there, now, too). Funny thing is , I don’t remember being overly concerned about my weight.
Then again, I could have blocked and/or burnt a lot of it out. I just wish sooo much I had taken better care of myself as a teen, got better grades, didn’t put out so much, maybe smoke a little less weed , not stop completely b/c I lurves that stuff!!
Now, that I am the thinnest I have EVER seen (yes, while smoking weed here and there) I kinda wonder if it would have made a difference in high school. I dunno, I stuck to my own couple of friends and skipped and smoked a lot, I had a drunk, controlling and jealous step-father.
I wish more than anything I could have done a heck of a lot better academically then maybe I wouldn’t have had to cry, beg and plead to a sweet and wonderful gentleman named luis over at Comcast to give me back my ‘netz (gonna pay them thursday night).
Not to mention be able to be caught up on bills, have my car working again, etc…and no, I don’t spend NEARLY as much on weed that you may think I do or as I would like. It is my de-stressor, get a long a heck of a lot better with that than with the poison alcohol..
I was the outsider amongst the outsiders. Even if I loved punk music, I was too fat and ugly to be part of the punk gang. I was very intelligent, but the nerds found me very freaky. Even the freakiest kids in the university found me to be too fat and ugly to hang around with them. I had like five or six friends, who were only with me because nobody liked to hang around with them for whatever reason (one was gay, the other one wasn’t from here, the other one was too honest, the other one was very quiet, and the other one was a fat boy who all of a sudden went all calorie commando). The only friend I keep from that era is the honest one, who is my best friend.
mo pie, why do you read the Twilight series? It shows domestic violence and potential rape as romantic. There’s a article about it at some feminst blog. Does any of you, fellow feminist fatties, have the link somewhere?
I went to an all-girls high school, and we had the Jocks, the Drama crowd (which was further differentiated between Cast and Crew – very different cultures there), and the rest were a various amalgamation of Stuff. We didn’t really have burnouts, per se; in my graduating class, 100% graduated and 99% of us went on to college.
Just because i like to be difficult: i didn’t really fit into any of those groups. I had a few friends here and there, but i didn’t really fit in with any of their groups. I wasn’t really accepted by the alternatives, the burnouts or other social rejects. Of the three friends i had, one of them i met during freshman orientation (we were the only people who put onions on their hot dogs, and both interested in classical music), the other two transferred in during my junior and senior years. Most everyone else kind of hung out to “see what Lindsay would do next”.
I don’t recall getting much in the way of pressure due to my weight. Most of the time i got flack just for being Weird. My senior year was crazy, because someone overheard a conversation wherein a friend and i were talking about whether or not we thought we were straight… and of course, by the next day i was a rampaging lesbian who was sleeping with half the school and probably a few members of the faculty as well. So i got a lot of crap for that as well. But never really about my weight, as far as i can recall.
So i think the school groupings did make me feel incredibly isolated and lonely, but not because of how fat i was. I’m just too weird for most people; not much has changed, i’m afraid.
When I was in high school, I had a lover who thought I was beautiful. That’s who I took my cues from … not other women.
heartfire, I am not a parent so all I have is a guess as to what I would do in your situation. Perhaps try to make sure she knows that people love her for who she is and not what she looks like, and try to reinforce body-positive attitudes by not putting down your own or anyone else’s body in front of her.
And I just wanted to throw in a few words about the overly lauded and sainted institution of school sports. I really don’t deny that all those great things people say about kids in sports ever happen. In fact, I’d venture to guess they happen more often than not. But by gods, I’m so sick of sports being pushed as the goddamn be-all and end-all of things for kids to do, like it’s going to make their lives better in every way and fix all the problems and challenges of childhood and turn them into the most wonderful people in the world.
Kids can find themselves, make friends, develop body-positive habits, lift their heart rates, and learn how to work on a team throuh any number of activities and many combinations thereof. Sports could do it, sure. But so can the freakin’ drama club. Geez, my best friend was on a sports team in HS. Those magical things never happened for her. The coach had some favorites and everyone else was as good as a leper and treated accordingly.
I myself was on some sports teams. As the only girl on the teeball team, I got to pick flowers in the outfield, when all I wanted was to pitch (they let me try once and decided I wasn’t good enough and that was the last time I could even try… tee ball. kindergarten, for damnsakes). In HS was on the track team for a total of two days. I’d joined hoping to get in better shape, got ridiculed by the coach because I couldn’t quite touch my toes. Screw that noise. I never even made it to the first meet.
So. Sports. NOT the all-inclusive answer that will solve all problems for all children.
I’m sure it is great to be a jock. Given the choice, who wouldn’t pick being the holder or the puncher as opposed to the kid getting the crap knocked out of him behind the bleachers? (Can you guess which group was generally the bullies at my school? Then again, considering how hard competitiveness got pushed by our sports-worshipping curriculum, it’s a wonder they weren’t a lot worse.)
I always find the idea of the ‘alternative’ cliques hilarious. I was a true outsider – I didn’t stick to one group of friends. Those who had the confidence to dress goth, in our school, were considered cool and popular anyway – it didn’t matter how they dressed.
Non-conformists general just end up conforming to a slightly different set of ideals anyway.
I was a true social outcast. I was in the band but nobody liked me there, although I was captain of the flag squad (by the virtue that I was good, not that I was voted there), and I was academically top of my class and two years younger than everyone else. I was quite socially isolated.
And fat. And while I knew I was “different” because I was smart, and because there was something different about my brain (I later learned it was Asperger’s), I also knew I was fat, my clothes weren’t cute like everyone else’s, and I couldn’t wait to get the heck out of there.
My 20th reunion is this year. My husband wants to know why I’m not going. Why indeed…
I was a drama nerd, but I really didn’t belong to any one group. I talked to everybody, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the outcasts, you name it. That’s probably why my high school years weren’t that rough, although I did attract an enemy in the form of a blonde softball player who was also fat, and rumored to be sleeping with the coach. All for sitting in her chair during lunchtime, the typical childish crap.
I was also on prom court, which surprised me. Although at my high school, there were plenty of fat kids who were popular, the girls didn’t get nominated for queen titles. But since I was more friends with juniors and they were the ones who picked the candidates and planned the prom, I was up for queen. I didn’t win, didn’t want to win as it wasn’t imporant to me, but at least it proved that big girls can represent and can be liked in school. That was pretty body positive for me at the time.
Even if I loved punk music, I was too fat and ugly to be part of the punk gang.
I feel you on that one. A lot of my “punk” friends were the type who bought up the entire girl’s side of Hot Topic (I was a freshman in h.s. when Blink really hit it big and punk suddenly became trendy). I had to buy guys jeans and t-shirts if I wanted that style. I wasn’t as concerned about the clothing as they were, a lot of what I wore wouldn’t be considered “punk” (probably because Torrid hadn’t come out yet, lol), I was drawn to that kind of music (still am) and happened to meet people because of that. Fortunately not all of my friends were like that. My group of people was like a conglomerate of a bunch of smaller groups, so I had the handful of trendy punkettes, a lot of band geeks, several literary and art nerds (oh yeah, I was an editor of my school’s lit magazine – am I cool or what?), and others that didn’t really fit any of the molds but were just cool people.
I stayed a band geek until the day I graduated from college (seriously – we took a huge trip to China in May my senior year, so it didn’t end with football season that year). Though my college band was big enough (~400 people my last year) that there was a whole social hierarchy within the marching band itself, and I wasn’t a “cool” band kid (sounds like an oxymoron, no?), but I wasn’t on the lowest end of the totem either. I didn’t play a cool instrument (woot, piccolo) but I was in one of the music fraternities (woot, SAI). Not that I gave a crap, it’s just something I see when I look back. I made some amazing friends that I don’t think I would otherwise have met if I wasn’t in band.
I was what was referred to as an “orch dork” meaning I belonged to the orchestra and most of my friends also belonged to orchestra. I was one of the “cool” people in the orchestra (talk about an oxymoron–that’s like being the cool geek) and stayed the big fish in the guppy bowl through college. (Hey, Liza, I belonged to SAI, too!) I don’t know that it had anything to do with the way I perceived my body, though. I think my mother and grandmothers get the blame for that one. My mom was hauling me along to TOPS meetings when I was in first grade and had me enrolled for Weight Watchers the summer before fifth grade.
Ah, high school…
I was a choir person (section leader & eventually became president of our choir), drama/musical theatre person, and honors-classes girl. Which, my husband says, made me a total nerd. But I totally didn’t see it that way when I was in high school.
I wasn’t particularly outgoing, but I had a LOT of friends who were –for the most part– awesome, and made me feel great about myself.
I didn’t have the best body – I was short, “big-boned,” muscular, and big-boobed, and was perhaps a little heavier than the average girl. I would have preferred to be thinner, but it didn’t really bother me much – I don’t remember thinking about it often (I was too busy having fun!) or talking about it with friends much. It was the 90s, so alt/grunge was big and I wore lots of funky sneakers, loose jeans, t-shirts, and flannels all the time.
I never really thought I needed to diet or even watch what I ate, though every once in a while I’d try to get more exercise to see if I could get a little thinner in order to score different kinds of parts in the musicals. But I never did and so usually I was cast in the stereotypical roles for Large Black Women (we didn’t have many Large Black Women interested in doing theater in our high school, and I was the only white girl who had a strong enough singing voice to fill those roles anyway. Eh.)
I never went on a serious diet/exercise until last year at the age of 27, when I finally decided that I didn’t want to GAIN any more weight, I wanted to LOSE some. I picked up a lot of healthy habits, lost my extra weight, and now I’m thinner and healthier than I ever was in high school.
I feel great now, but I know I may never return to those happy, crazy, fun, body-image-worry-free days of high school.
I hated high school.
I don’t remember middle school being AS bad. By 7th grade, I was the only girl with C cups on my 5′ 1″ frame. It was enough to make the grade school boys who tortured me shut up for a grade or two.
I think I was either an Alternative or a Burnout, although I did well in my classes. That was just the crowd I ended up with…and I’m pretty sure I was in love with each of them, except that by the time high school started, I was once again too fat to date. I didn’t get over that mentality until a year or two into college. I really think that the hateful people in my 3rd and 4th grade classes scarred me more than anything else, and since we were a small school, they were my microcosm until graduation. Man, I really hated high school, lol.
Hey Kim — that was me too!
Though I did go to my 10-year reunion, and it was surprisingly heartwarming.
K that’s pretty cool. :) I’m proud of you! But they didn’t even invite me to the 10-year…although really, I wouldn’t, couldn’t have gone. Even though I’m not the fat nerd any more (I’m the recovering from anorexia nerd), I’m very successful in my career, extremely happily married…I’m still a social outcast because I can’t “connect” with people. I do fine in a business setting…that’s my “thing” and I’m good at it. But I am incapable of any type of friendship at all. Which I suppose might make me good at a reunion…but why chance it? They wouldn’t recognize me anyway…and that would make for a rather silly reunion…sort of like going to someone else’s reunion. And given that outside appearance seems to mean so much…even though I’m me on the inside (and a pretty neat me if I do say so)…it wouldn’t matter, because they never cared about that person. So a new outside wouldn’t matter in the least. I’d still be someone they didn’t know.
I was pretty much able to fit in anywhere, so I’m not sure what “group” I’d be in. I was a competitive swimmer, so there’s the Jock group. I was in honors and AP classes and got good grades, so there’s the “Nerd” group. I wasn’t in the most-popular group, but I was friends with some who were. (Incidentally, at my high school the popular kids were the smart kids, and most of the cheerleaders and student government were in National Honor Society.) I was friends with some of the pot-smoking, hard-drinking metal heads, too.
I think I got along with everybody because I hadn’t quite figured out myself, yet. I know myself now, but I still don’t like to pigeonhole myself. I’m a cross-stitchin’, hard rockin’, piano playin’, swimmin’, readin’, movie-goin’, history lovin’, fashion-wearin’ kinda gal.
I was and am, the comedienne. I’m a senior at a private christian high school. And most of the people there are all fake and trying to create some sort of reputation for themselves. We barely have any alternative people or burnouts. I’ve always been friends with almost everyone just because I’m myself and am geniunely nice to people. I’m lucky to have never boxed myself in, most people think I’m a bit crazy and weird but usually in a good way. I really like to mess with the people there because they just can’t seem to understand why anyone would want to legalize gay marriage or decriminalize marijuana or be a feminist. Everyone there(except for close friends of mine) is basically super conservative yet has no problem getting drunk on the weekends and hooking up with members of the opposite sex as much as they want. Kind of hypocritical to be honest.
That study would probably classify me as a burnout. I was an A and D student. If I liked the class, I aced it. If I didn’t, I blew it off. I skipped entire projects because I didn’t believe in the principles being taught. I never fit in with any group, and I almost always ate lunch entirely by myself. It was a really sucky existence and looking back, shit, no wonder I was suicidal most of the time. I was too shy for basically everything. I was a member of Health Occupations Students of America, but I wasn’t really smart enough to hold my own, nor was I that college-driven. Seriously, these were people who would blow off all social activity because they had SATs to study for… I was, and still am, the girl who just doesn’t care that much. If it weren’t for my family, I don’t know where I’d be.
And I agree: sports aren’t the end-all, be-all. One of my childhood friends was in softball her whole life, and now, years later, she can finally admit how much she hated it and how much pressure there was for her to consistently lose fat and gain muscle. I’d much rather see schools spend money on academics. In my high school, we had to drive ourselves to debate meets, but the sports teams got whatever they wanted. I call shenanigans!
Hmm, I never really saw at least in my group of alternatives, people really focusing on weight. Actually I think most of them were like the burnouts, but still no weight issues with them.
Maybe the person who did this study, should realize that most people who don’t fit in with the popular group, have alot more to deal with than just worrying about weight issues.
“I imagine that the athletic girls have less to worry about in regards to gaining weight because they are athletic. It is quite difficult to gain weight when your activity level is so high so why worry about something that isn’t really a problem?”
If you’re in a “girl-oriented” sport that focuses on either appearance — figure skating, gymnastics, or dance (mostly ballet, and to a certain extent, jazz/modern) — or speed (like swimming or track).
See, for starters, “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes” for a beginning primer on what pressures coaches, families, and the need to win can impose on girls’ body image, and the damages those pressures can wreak.
Pingback: High school label may influence body image, eating disorders » The-F-Word.org
I was a Nerd Nerd – LOL! The burnouts called us the “nerd herd”, those of us that were in Advanced Placement classes. We took the mantle proudly – at least we were all going places in life!
I was an alternative/goth/nerd hybrid. I had several band, choir, drama, and/or “gifted” nerd friends as well as punk, stoner, and/or skater friends. I didn’t think a whole lot about my weight and desirability back then. I had been in some fights and threatened people around 10th grade. I guess that scared people and I never got shit for my weight after that. Out of self-protection, I positioned myself as the tough pissed-off fat girl rather than the jolly school-spirit fat girl. I was mean to people (jocks/preps) before they could be mean to me.
I remember it being very difficult to find cool clothes in my size. I mostly wore frumpy, ripped men’s stuff and band t-shirts. I probably would’ve worn frumpy stuff even if I was able fit into short plaid skirts and fishnets.
I was and still am an angry nerd preppy Asian who speaks her mind. In other words, a nerd with a temper. And also a weird kid, because I sometimes I actually act like a kid once in a while. I’m twelve. Surprised?
My friends are a group of mostly Asians, which, oddly enough, were not chosen by race. We all just happened to clump together. They are extremely different from me. They love manga and anime and love all these indie bands. Alternative, perhaps? Or pseudo-punk?
I guess I’m extremely nerdy to the majority of my grade. I have honors classes. It isn’t a problem, though. Nobody around me gets teased for body issues because it always sparks some drama. But everyone gossips.
I guess I’m always on the defense (‘bitchy’) because of the environment I grew up in. A sister who could bully me and argue her case. A stubborn father. “Roastings” about my not-so-desirable traits in front of extended family, who were only so glad to join in.
Oh, and I have body image issues now. When I see those tiny girls walk by, I get jealous, even though I’m pretty average.
Kelly, I know how you feel weird because you act like a kid at times. I’m 26, watch cartoons, and play video games.
It’s not at all strange, for people to assume I’m at least half my age in chatrooms, because of my interests. Alot of people act as if, once you turn 18 you’re supposed to stop liking what you liked as a kid. That’s just plain BS.
Nintendo is one of the few game companies, that doesn’t ignore female gamers who for the most part, tend to like cute. I think it’s because in Japan, where Nintendo is from, their culture doesn’t put an age limit on when you should stop liking kid stuff. There’s a Anime series called Azu Manga Daioh, where the girls are in high school. It wasn’t considered weird at all that they still liked stuffed animals.
I think alot of women idealize Japan, because they don’t see being like a kid, or liking cute things as horribly childish, or immature. Perhaps you might want to get more involved with Anime, or other aspects of Japanese culture. Perhaps your friends were into Anime, because what is considered being socially immature in America, isn’t considered to be as bad in Japan.
My psychatrist said it’s because the Japanese are more socially aware than other cultures, because they’re very close to each other. I mean, living on a island in that sense.
I’m cool with whatever path you choose to take. What I’m trying to say is this is what worked for me, and made me feel less weird about liking what is considered kiddy stuff. Watching cartoons in general is a good idea too, there is alot of great adult in-jokes in them that people tend to discount.
Also if you decide to get a Nintendo DS. I’ve been hooked on playing Tamagotchi Corner Shop 3. Most people would say that game is for little kids, or repetative. It can be challenging, as well as it being extremely cute. Actually, most people who like the game say it’s relaxing because you’re not having to strain your brain to get past levels or things like that, it’s just having fun.
I was the quiet shy one throughout most of my school years, and in high school I was in the ‘reject’ crowd. You know the type, the people who don’t or won’t fit into to any other category. We were very individual. However, I was bigger than most girls my age and I was constantly taunted for it. I never had a date and I was considered a ‘smelly, fat loner’. As such my body image was, and still is, abysmal. I’ve lost weight since then because I don’t comfort eat like I used to, but I still think I look ugly and fat.
I do a strict exercise routine every day and do a 1 mile + walk every day too. Yet I still feel it’s not enough. School maybe over but the scars remain.
Great quality stuff.