During a recent shopping trip, Ann Shoket found herself in a dressing room next to two teenage girls. As the Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen magazine, she couldn't help but listen in as the girls began discussing how their clothing selections made their, respectively, butt and stomach look fat. "That kind of negative bonding broke my heart," says Shoket. "Instead of saying, 'You're being ridiculous, let's focus on the clothes,' the girls were chiming in about what they didn't like about their bodies. I left the store without buying anything because I was so upset."
Determined to help crack the body image puzzle, Shoket teamed up with Dove to launch the "Seventeen Body Peace Project," a year-long campaign to help girls appreciate their natural shape. Anchored by the online Body Peace Treaty, which went live October 16, the site has already attracted over 5,000 signees, including celebs Carrie Underwood, Pink, and Heroes' Hayden Panettiere. But according to Shoket, that's just the beginning.
The issue of teen body image has been escalating of late. Was there a specific incident that triggered the creation of this campaign and pledge?
I've been working in teen magazines for more than 10 years now and teen body image is one issue that's always in your peripheral vision. For a long time, there was this idea that we needed to push girls to love their bodies, and they're obviously not loving their bodies. We did this survey with the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and discovered that 91 percent of girls feel anxiety when they look in the mirror in the morning, and that is earth-shattering. So if "Love Your Body" isn't working, what do we need to do to make the message more accessible to girls? To me, the idea is that you may never love everything about your body, but have to make peace with it. You just have to appreciate it for what it can do rather than obsess over what it looks like. You have to stop blaming it, stop abusing it, stop treating it badly. That's all we're asking. To just stop hurting yourself.
With all the mixed messages being distributed by the media, there's something very appealing about the simplicity of the message.
It's a first step. It would be amazing if we could get to a place of peace and acceptance, and to eventually reach a level of love for your body, but I want the first step to be accessible for our girls, to feel as if it is in their reach. It's not hard to go sign the body peace treaty. It's just something to put in your mind, to get you thinking about the topic.
Do you think the constant deluge of news stories about Americans being the most overweight in the world is a significant factor in determining body image?
We certain have an epic of obesity, but that is not the focus of the Body Peace Project. This is about the idea of, no matter what your shape, how to feel good in your mind. This is about how you perceive yourself. There are other ways that the magazine talks about fitness and health to teenage girls, but I very purposefully separated the two ideas because this is about your perception of your figure regardless of what it looks like.
How's the response been?
It's been amazing. I blogged about it and got a lot of really personal letters. I also wrote about my own teenage life in my editor's letter, and I've gotten a ton of really special, personal letters from girls. I mean, I would love to see a million girls sign this peace pledge. I think that would be a very powerful statement.
One of the stats in the November issue which I was so encouraged by, is that 88 percent of girls feel as if it's their responsibility to help other girls feel better about their bodies. 88 percent. That's such a special idea, and that's really where the Seventeen family comes together. That this isn't a big magazine telling teen girls what to do, this is about girls helping each other.