The first thought I had when hearing about the A4 waist challenge was: what the hell is it? A4 is actually a paper size and measures 8.3 x 11.7 inches. Girls are participating in this “paper challenge,” which includes measuring your waist to the width of a piece of paper…The notion of this comparison seems bizarre and retrograde in my opinion. Girls should be empowering others to embrace their body size— not perpetuate this idea that being as thin as a piece of paper is the new standard.
On March 18th, 2016 this story was picked up by major popular news sources like The Huffington Post, NY Times and an online editorial magazine Marie Claire, as well as many others. This disturbing ‘trend’ originated in Asia, where beauty standards are not flexible, from a Chinese website called Weibo. If girls are thinner than the paper, they post a picture showing it off—as if it is something to brag about? Some girls are boasting about being even smaller than A4, like achieving the size of A5, as the Huffington Post reports.
Powerful women in the media, such as supermodel Kate Moss, have helped perpetuate praising this ‘skinny is better mentality,’ as she is quoted saying, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” in 2009. This insinuates that being skinny is valued more than easting. Girls worldwide see the hundreds of magazine covers she is on, and think that being ‘pro-anorexia,’ in a sense, is correlated with beauty, success, money, love, and praise. However, celebrities are trying to combat this awful portrayal of beauty standards. Jennifer Lawrence is known to forge her own path amongst gender standards and expectations. She blatantly said, “I am never going to starve myself for a part.” This statement shows that you can achieve boundless success without being manipulated and controlled by an industry and society as a whole. The Huffington Post reports that even France, shortly after Italy and Spain, is stepping up when it comes to defeating eating disorders. They have voted to ban fashion models with an unhealthy BMI from walking in shows. Although these steps are minor and not perfect, they are starting a conversation that needs to be had.
I think most of my shock about the A4 challenge comes from the fact that it is so new in a world that has been trying to contest these issues. It is okay to be thin, skinny-shamming or fit-shamming is not the goal in these scenarios. The goal is to diminish societal pressures on women and men that make them feel like they have to be skinny in order to be accepted. People posting about this waist challenge are accompanying their picture with tags like #fit. There is a clear difference about being proud of your fitness and progress versus being conceited about your weight, or rather lack of. You can be fit without being smaller than a piece of paper—really you can! In effort to spread awareness about this revolting new trend, I have gathered statements from some collegiettes:
Sabrina Adipietro of Fairfield University: “I think it’s appalling that girls have to try to be a size of a piece of paper just to be socially accepted.”
Amelia Kaufteil of Marist College: “How can this even be a trend? I know that girls value being in shape, but this is not the way to get your message across.”
Maddie Murcko of Colorado State: “ The A4 waist challenge seems to be another opportunity for society to body shame and enforce the idea that your worth can be measured by a number. Our society is obsessed with numbers: whether that number is your weight, the inches of your waist, or the measurement of the gap between your thighs. We need to be teaching the younger generations and ourselves that we are so much more than the numbers that define out bodies.”
Allison Bellotti of Manhattanville College: “It’s making girls feel like they have to have a tiny waist in order to be pretty.”
Courtney Brown of Hamilton College: “Creating the standard of the width of a piece of paper as something pretty, institutes a dehumanizing mindset and degrades women into objects.”
Talene Sagherian of Fairfield University: “I hadn’t heard about the A4 challenge until recently. This idea is completely disturbing as well as detrimental to the self-esteem and confidence of girls all around the world. It definitely puts unrealistic and unattainable ideas into the minds of girls concerning the meaning of ‘pretty’ or ‘skinny.’”
Madison Lancaster of Villanova University: “We are HUMAN beings, NOT paper products. Aka stop comparing yourself to one.”
In order to boycott and shut down this trend before it has a mass negative impact on body perception, girls are taking it upon themselves to post pictures with things like poster boards and pizza boxes in front of them. It is our job to ban together and use our ~girl~ power!