{"id":8395,"date":"2019-09-18T16:14:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T16:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2019\/09\/23\/brittany-runs-a-marathon-hits-healthy-messages-about-body-image\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:29:38","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:29:38","slug":"brittany-runs-a-marathon-hits-healthy-messages-about-body-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/brittany-runs-a-marathon-hits-healthy-messages-about-body-image\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Brittany Runs a Marathon&#8217; hits healthy messages about body image"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When she saw the trailer for the movie \u201cBrittany Runs a Marathon,\u201d Kerstin Blomquist\u2019s first thought was, \u201cOh, no. They\u2019re doing it again!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/people\/kerstin-blomquist\/\">Blomquist, an associate professor of psychology at Furman University,<\/a> studies how to prevent disordered eating and how to promote a positive body image. She thought Hollywood had made another movie perpetuating negative stereotypes about people with obesity \u2014 that they\u2019re less worthy, less intelligent and less successful than people who are thin, or that their value lies in merely being funny.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Furman University || Psychology professor on body image in movies\" data-src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/360624963?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Then, she saw the movie. \u201cThe movie was surprisingly better than I expected. It dealt with obesity and weight bias in a much more nuanced way than previous movies I\u2019ve seen,\u201d Blomquist said.<\/p>\n<p>In the movie, Jillian Bell stars as a 29-year-old woman dissatisfied with life. When a doctor tells her to lose 55 pounds, she decides to run the New York City Marathon. Eventually, Brittany learns that a goal weight or shape, and even a goal event like the marathon, are not the keys to a healthy, happy life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the movie turned the corner and Brittany realized it\u2019s not about the weight, it\u2019s about holistic health, I started thinking, \u2018OK, this movie gets it\u2019,\u201d Blomquist says.<\/p>\n<p>Holistic health, Blomquist says, includes mental, social, financial, occupational and spiritual health, as well as physical health. \u201cAt first, Brittany began obsessing about her weight, exercising excessively and restricting her food, which did not turn out well for her. After she turned the corner, she seemed to start pursuing holistic health, which didn\u2019t include these unhealthy behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What the movie gets right<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Blomquist was pleasantly surprised about several healthy aspects of the movie.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eventually, Brittany threw out her scale and focused on health instead of weight. \u201cIt can be unhealthy to pursue a specific weight or shape,\u201d Blomquist says. \u201cWhen we perpetuate the notion that thin is good and fat is bad, we perpetuate weight stigma and the \u2018thin ideal\u2019 presented by the media. It\u2019s a false notion that being thin will give you all these positive things in life. Brittany tackles body image in a way that says we should embrace our bodies, whatever size or shape they are.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Brittany experiences weight bias toward herself and others. \u201cYou can clearly see that she judges herself and others based on weight,\u201d Blomquist says. While an accurate depiction, Brittany eventually learns that health isn\u2019t a certain weight or shape. \u201cHealth is not a look. It\u2019s a behavior. It\u2019s important not to assume that someone\u2019s health behaviors are based on their weight. Someone can be healthy without fitting the thin ideal.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Many women, and men, are like Brittany: they are dissatisfied with their bodies. \u201cHer struggle is very consistent with what women experience. She has this goal weight; most women have a goal weight or a particular part of their body they want to change,\u201d Blomquist says. The more we accept our bodies, the more likely we are to take care of them and engage in healthy behaviors.<\/li>\n<li>The physician in the movie presented weight in the context of health behaviors. He asks about Brittany\u2019s sleep, her eating habits and exercise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What the movie could have done better<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The physician presents a weight goal, which can be problematic. Blomquist says, \u201cUnfortunately, we see physicians putting too much emphasis on weight and BMI (body mass index), and not enough on healthy behaviors. We want to present health as what you do, a behavior, and set measurable action steps for people to pursue.\u201d Telling someone to lose 55 pounds? \u201cThat\u2019s very unhelpful.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Food shaming. Brittany stops eating foods she likes, or she eats only lettuce for lunch so she can have a higher-calorie dinner. \u201cThese are not the messages we want to send,\u201d Blomquist says. \u201cEating pizza or ice cream is not bad, just as running a marathon doesn\u2019t make someone superior.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Movie Brittany was surprised when the doctor brought up weight. Real Brittanys are aware of their weight. \u201cMost people who have struggled with weight, know,\u201d Blomquist says. It\u2019s generally unhelpful to point out someone\u2019s weight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blomquist says she hopes movie goers understand that \u201cBrittany Runs a Marathon\u201d is portraying common behaviors \u2013 like food shaming and obsessing about weight \u2013 as unhealthy and ineffective, or that running a marathon or other forms of exercise aren\u2019t the answer to life\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe takeaway is that it\u2019s not about your weight or shape \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s about valuing your body and yourself as a person so that you care for yourself, and you will likely be able to better care for others,\u201d Blomquist says.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the Hollywood ending, Brittany realizes this. She even gets the guy. \u201cShe allows herself to be vulnerable because she\u2019s begun to accept herself and believes that she can be loved,\u201d Blomquist says. \u201cAnd you can be loved at any weight, size and shape.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When she saw the trailer for the movie \u201cBrittany Runs a Marathon,\u201d Kerstin Blomquist\u2019s first thought was, \u201cOh, no. They\u2019re doing it again!\u201d Blomquist, an associate professor of psychology at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,48,7,1],"tags":[203,204,205,206],"class_list":["post-8395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-psychology","category-top-four-news-2nd-story","category-uncategorized","tag-blomquist","tag-body-image","tag-pop-culture","tag-psychology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}