Normalizing body image

[Fundamental Law 2,903]

A piece in today's NY Times illustrates a different approach to normalizing body image. It's remarkable that this approach is being tried. Unlikely to gain traction in the USA, where prudity and probity are asserted to be congruent, but there is an opportunity to learn whether the approach is effective. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/world/europe/denmark-children-nudity-sex-education.html

[adamgunn 1,461]

Not everyone has access to the Times. Care to summarize it?

[PeterJ 960]

Here’s a portion of the article, less the accompanying PG photos:

A Danish Children’s TV Show Has This Message: ‘Normal Bodies Look Like This’

The program aims to counter social media that bombards young people with images of perfect bodies.

By Thomas Erdbrink and Martin Selsoe Sorensen

Sept. 18, 2020

COPENHAGEN — “OK, children, does anyone have a question?” the TV show’s host, Jannik Schow, asked. Only a few in the audience of 11- to 13-year-olds raised their hands. “Remember, you can’t do anything wrong,” he said. “There are no bad questions.”

You can’t blame the children if their thoughts were elsewhere. On a stage before them in a heated studio in Copenhagen stood five adults in bathrobes. There was a brief moment of silence, as faces turned serious. Having discussed it for days before in school, the children knew what was coming next. Mr. Schow gave a little nod, and the adults cast off their robes.

Facing the children, and the cameras, they stood completely naked, like statues, with their hands and arms folded behind their backs.

And so began a recording of the latest episode of an award-winning Danish children’s program, “Ultra Strips Down,” which is shown on Ultra, the on-demand children’s channel of the national broadcaster, DR. The topic today: skin and hair.

The show’s producers say the program is meant as an educational tool to fight body shaming and encourage body positivity. And so first reluctantly, later enthusiastically, the children from the Orestad School in Copenhagen asked the adults questions like: “At what age did you grow hair on the lower part of your body?” “Do you consider removing your tattoos?” “Are you pleased with your private parts?”

 

more

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/world/europe/denmark-children-nudity-sex-education.html

[adamgunn 1,461]

Thanks.

 

I certainly agree that if people were taught that other people are just normal, life could be better . . .

[lcmim 1,086]

Demystification is a powerful tool.

In this case these children will , I think, be all the better for it.

 

When I think of of how long it to to mostly recover from going through childhood and adolescence in the 50's and early 60's  and the different but still toxic legacy we have passed on because of my generations over reaction to that rearing , it makes me angry.

 

We went from rejection and obfuscation to over glorifying in just a decade.

For the most part we rejected  normal as "normal". 

[njbm 2,901]

Americans have hostile ideas towards body acceptance, nudity and sex. The Europeans seem to be on a better track.

[Fundamental Law 2,903]

The interesting question is not *that* the Americans have been so resistant to body acceptance and nudity (set aside sex for the moment) but rather *why* and *how* we came to this situation.  This not to say that Europeans and Asians are completely casual, but rather there is broader acceptance in context. 

 

It's interesting to look at the etymology of "gym" and "gymnasium" : derived from the common Greek adjective γυμνός (gymnos)  --"naked", by way of the related verb γυμνάζω (gymnazo) : "to train naked."

 

Nudity in sport and recreation goes back millenia. Germans in particular embraced "FKK" public nudity as ordinary and healthy--right up to the point that Adolf Hitler banned public nudity. (There is some irony: German immigrants to the US in the early 1930's trying to escape Hitler wanted to continue their nudist traditions, only to have that practice convolved with 'Germanic ideals' with perhaps inevitable suppression in the US as it entered WW2.)  While this was not the first politicization of the human form, it was among the most impactful. Europeans have recovered, though. The US, not so much. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[adamgunn 1,461]

10 hours ago, Fundamental Law said:

"There is some irony: German immigrants to the US in the early 1930's trying to escape Hitler wanted to continue their nudist traditions, only to have that practice convolved with 'Germanic ideals' with perhaps inevitable suppression in the US as it entered WW2."

Not saying you're wrong (in fact, it makes sense to me,) but I'd love to know your source.

 

[njbm 2,901]

The nudist resort to which we belong was founded by German immigrants. When we first joined, we met descendants of the founders. 

[Fundamental Law 2,903]

2 hours ago, adamgunn said:

 

There are other sources,  but see for example the wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturism_in_Germany for some insight as to politicization of nudity.

 

Some of the post-Nazi era repudiation is found in the fashion revolution of the late Rudi Gernreich who made the cover of Time magazine after designing the (bare-breasted) monokini.

 

In Japan, the custom of the communal (mixed) baths persist. It's a cultural, ritualized experience. As is the sauna in Scandinavian countries. One might assert that the custom of covering up is also a cultural, ritualized experience here in the USA. 

 

As a practical matter, soaps and contaminants carried into swim spas and hot tubs are a nuisance managing water chemistry and quality. This is why we follow the Japanese practice of asking  guests to shower, rinse completely, and join us nude in their use. 

[cplnuswing 4,713]

I don't think it coincidence that the greater the percentage of the population that are active and strident adherents (or at least tacit supporters) of the more fundamentalist flavors of religion, the more threatened that society is by nudity and sex.

 

Scroll down past the raw number data, which is really sort of meaningless given the vast size differences from country to country, and get to the unimportant vs important % and that pretty much explains it in this case.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/United-States/Religion