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Dressing rooms cause you to be more judgmental of your figure, as do good-looking mannequins and Helen Mirren
By Sean MorrowApril 26th, 2012, 12:15 pmComments (3)
New research in body-image science (which exists) says that women are more judgmental of their figures when trying on bathing suits in a store fitting room, than they are "while walking past others on a public beach at midday." But women are more likely to feel "ashamed" of their bodies if they feel "watched by others," regardless of how they're dressed.
The researcher-psychologists say that to solve this problem, clothing stores should avoid “displaying mannequins and posters of only very thin women," to help deter the stress women feel in "harshly lit" dressing rooms.
It's an odd issue. Though they're ostensibly in the business of making people look good, the stores have no obligation to make people feel good about themselves — they're not running Free Confidence Emporiums. You can't expect the Gap to solve your body-image problems and provide you with blandly tasteful vintage-inspired jeans. But should stores take this to heart and try to create a more comforting fitting-room experience? Granted, the harsh lighting in a lot of those places throws me off, but it doesn't make me feel more judgmental about myself. But then again, I'm a dude, and I usually just grab things off the rack, so maybe I'm not fully empathetic to everyone else's fitting-room experience. I have found that some stores play loud, obnoxious music, but that makes me judge them, not myself.
I've thought about this issue a bit, and I think I can agree with this study. I don't necessarily think it's the mirrors or harsh lighting that causes an increase in judgmental thinking in dressing rooms; I think it's the isolation. Generally, when I'm left alone with introspection as my only entertainment, that's when the true self-loathing occurs. So while I don't go bikini shopping (anymore), I can totally empathize with this.
Commentarium (3 Comments)
As a woman, the harsh lighting tends to highlight/intensify every flaw on your body (ex: if you have lines or cellulite on the backs of your legs and so on). It makes you look worse than you actually do, which of course, is hard to deal with when you're looking in the mirror and can't help but notice what you don't like about your body. Logically, you may know dressing rooms aren't the best environment for judging your body, but emotionally, it's difficult to keep a confident or non-scrutinizing attitude.
I personally think that the rail thin mannequins perpetuate the idea that women need to be a certain weight. I am actually kind of thin/below average..whatever you want to call it.. but I often still find myself wondering if I need to be thinner or in better shape because the media and the fashion world give off this idea that beauty is a 5'10 model that's a size 0. No matter what size a woman is, it is hard to feel 100% happy because of what we see all around us in society; ads telling us that skinny = the prettiest. I actually do think it would be a step in the right direction if mannequins better represented what woman truly look like. Even if the mannequins are just a little bit bigger than they are now (as in, not adorned with toothpicks for legs) I think it would help. I don't think stores should be forced to do this, but I think it would be (not to sound like I'm on rant about morals) the "right thing" to do. The idea of what a woman's body should look like is never going to change unless people with power (people in the media, clothing stores, etc) start making changes.
I would be surprised if the stores didn't do something about this. Women feeling better about themselves while trying on clothes means women spending more time and money at the stores.
I once tried on lingerie in a dressing room that had one overhead spotlight. The lighting creatd shadows that made my lumps and bumps look a lot bigger than they were and it made me feel unattractive. I was working really hard to lose weight at the time and the lingerie was going to be a reward to myself. I didn't end up buying anything. Proper lighting should be taken into consideration, especially if stores want people to spend money.