Media exposure among to youth

Media exposure among to youth

Media exposure among to youth

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Although the relationship between media exposure and risk behavior among youth is established at a population level, the specific psychological and social mecha- nisms mediating the adverse effects of media on youth remain poorly understood. This study reports on an investigation of the impact of the introduction of television to a rural community in Western Fiji on adolescent ethnic Fijian girls in a setting of rapid social and economic change. Narrative data were collected from 30 purposively selected ethnic Fijian secondary school girls via semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Interviews were conducted in 1998, 3 years after television was first broadcast to this region of Fiji. Nar- rative data were analyzed for content relating to response to television and mechanisms that mediate self and body image in Fijian adolescents. Data in this sample suggest that media imagery is used in both creative and destructive ways by adolescent Fijian girls to navigate opportunities and conflicts posed by the rapidly changing social environment. Study respondents indicated their explicit modeling of the perceived positive attributes of characters presented in television dramas, but also the beginnings of weight and body shape preoccupation, purging behavior to control weight, and body disparagement. Response to television appeared to be shaped by a desire for competitive social positioning during a period of rapid social transition. Understanding vulnerability to images and values imported with media will be critical to preventing disordered eating and, potentially, other youth risk behaviors in this population, as well as other populations at risk.

KEY WORDS: body image, eating disorders, Fiji, modernization

INTRODUCTION

Eating disorders—once more prevalent in postindustrialized and Westernized societies—now have global distribution. Moreover, population studies demon- strate that transnational migration, modernization, and urbanization are associated with elevated risk of disordered eating among girls and young women (Anderson- Fye and Becker 2004). Despite advances in treatment, up to 50% of individuals with eating disorders do not recover fully (Keel and Mitchell 1997). Similarly, primary prevention programs have not yet yielded strategies for achieving sus- tained behavioral change in young women that would protect them from an eating disorder. This is undoubtedly tied to the complex and multitiered ways in which the social environment underpins the values and behaviors that contribute to risk. On the other hand, there has been great interest in how media imagery may be one means by which sociocultural context impacts risk. To this end, a more nuanced understanding of the pernicious nature of the impact of media exposure and its

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28: 533–559, 2004. ©C 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. DOI: 10.1007/s11013-004-1067-5

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integration into adolescent and young adult identity is a critical intermediary step in developing effective therapeutic and preventive strategies for eating disorders across diverse populations.

The present study examines the impact of the introduction of television on ethnic Fijian adolescent girls’ identity and body image in rural Fiji through nar- rative data collected from 30 schoolgirls in 1998, 3 years after the introduction of television to their community. A previously described cross-sectional, two-wave study demonstrated a dramatic increase in indicators of disordered eating during the 3 years following the introduction of broadcast television with Western pro- gramming to this community, a period which was also a time of rapid social and economic transition (Becker et al. 2002).

Media, teens, identity, and risk

Exposure to media imagery is known to affect adolescents and young adults profoundly; indeed, this principle is the foundation for billions of dollars invest- ment in marketing products to these demographic groups. Part of the success of marketing to youth lies in stimulating a desire to develop—and project— a particular identity. A remunerative strategy for marketing health, beauty, and fashion products, for example, is to create an awareness of a “gap” between the consumer and the ideal, and then to promise (and sell) the solution in a product (O’Connor 2000; see also Mazzarella 2003). This strategy has become especially powerful against the backdrop of the American ethos and predilec- tion for reshaping and cultivating the body (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg 1996). Whereas the producers of such media imagery and messages have ar- gued that their products are meant as “entertainment,” vulnerable individuals unequivocally incur unintended serious adverse consequences through exposure to these images. Examples of this include the routine and gratuitous violence depicted in film, television, and music, and their amply documented effects on children (Black and Newman 1995). In addition, a growing literature sug- gests that media exposure has adverse effects on body image for some young women.

The complex ways in which American adolescent girls and young women embrace or resist media imagery and creatively use other cultural resources to construct their social identities are not well understood. The published medical literature on media and body image, with few exceptions (Becker et al. 2002; Richins 1991), is based on quantitative survey data. Moreover, and also with few exceptions (e.g., Rubin et al. 2003), there are almost no data available on the impact of media exposure on how girls and young women of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds construct and represent their identities. Finally, because American youth generally have had chronic and unremitting exposure to media imagery by

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adolescence, conventional quantitative methodology has been unable to unpack the complex ways in which media imagery permeates identity in Western contexts.

For American youth, a distinctively postmodern ideology supports the notion that identity is created and achieved, as opposed to fixed and given. The resources for developing such an identity have increasingly shifted to extrafamilial sources, such as peer groups and media imagery. Moreover, the means of projecting per- sonal identity have gradually shifted from mind and character to an increasingly visual and consumeristic focus (Lasch 1979). Indeed, young women (and likely young men) learn at an early age that identity can be projected through visual props and thus manipulated in a variety of ways, so that identity representation is more likely to be directed at “seeming” rather than “being” (Bourdieu 1984). Clinical experience suggests that young women may be especially vulnerable to the illusion that the self can be reshaped and remade. Unfortunately, the conse- quences of this culturally sanctioned illusion include body and self-disparagement, poor self-esteem, and the demoralization of women (Becker and Hamburg 1996). Moreover, there may be a serious adverse impact on mental and physical health, potentially resulting in risk-taking behavior (Klein et al. 1993) and eating disorder symptoms.

Identity, body image, and consumer culture

Consumer culture and media imagery have a pervasive and powerful influence on girls at a critical developmental stage; American girls are socialized to cement and signal identity through visual symbols that include visible consumption of prestige goods or a particular body presentation that conforms to cultural aesthetic ideals. The concept of identity used here is not a developmental one, but rather follows the social constructionist conceptualization of identity being “something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual” (Giddens 1991). Put another way, identity in this sense is “co-constructed” by the local social world in such a way that individuals draw heavily on cultural resources and symbols to construct, understand, and represent who they are (McKinley 1997). The project of defining and depicting an identity in contemporary Western culture has increasingly centered on a visual focus that depends on the use of material props. This, in turn, provides much of the standard fuel driving consumer culture, wherein status is conflated with possessing and displaying prestige goods (Featherstone 1991). The Western, postmodern “self-identity” is then arguably very much constructed as a process of competitively positioning oneself through the savvy manipulation of cultural symbols—e.g., by displaying consumption of material goods or inscribing or adorning the body in culturally salient ways. Examples of this span many ages and include the increasing use of tattooing and body-piercing as markers of personal identity (Sweetman 2000) and the 1980s and

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1990s phenomenon of constructing a professional self through “power dressing” (Entwhistle 1997).

There are several reasons to believe that adolescence places girls at particu- lar risk as participants in consumer culture. For instance, many have suggested that adolescence is a time when American girls are challenged by simultaneous conflicting cultural demands to maintain both a trajectory of achievement and the requirements of female roles; such conflict, if severe and unresolved, may mani- fest in a variety of difficulties, including an eating disorder (Gordon 2000; Pipher 1994). When girls entering adolescence experience the prevailing cultural pressure to please and to seem (Pipher 1994), they look to the media as a guide to their self-presentation. In distinction to societies in which status is overtly ascribed, the freewheeling license to create and/or remake the self is especially appealing within the American frame of opportunity and achievement. The popular illu- sion of equal economic and social opportunity has attached itself to the culturally peculiar notion of the body’s plasticity as well. That is, girls are socialized to believe that they can reconfigure their bodies (with enough “hard work”) in ways that invariably lead to disappointment and all too often, self-loathing (Becker and Hamburg 1996).

Media exposure and risk for violent and risky behaviors

The association between media exposure and violence is unequivocal. Numerous studies have documented the relationship between violence viewed on television and aggressive behavior (Paik and Comstock 1994; Wood and Wong 1991), which may have socially hazardous (Centerwall 1992) as well as psychologically harm- ful consequences. This impact on children is believed to be mediated in part by imitation of what is depicted on television (Black and Newman 1995). In addi- tion, substantial evidence links television viewing (as well as radio, movies, music videos) to adolescent engagement in risky behaviors (e.g., sexual activity, alco- hol use, cannabis use, and tobacco use) (Altman et al. 1996; Anonymous 1995; Centerwall 1992). Similarly, the mechanism by which media encourage risky be- haviors is thought to be the provision of “culturally normative behavioral models” that justify the behaviors (Klein et al. 1993).

Media exposure and risk for disordered eating and poor body image

Media exposure has also been implicated in enhancing risk for the development of an eating disorder, although this has received far less attention in the pediatric and public health literature. Much of the literature and theory on how cultural context promotes risk for disordered eating and poor body image has emphasized how so- cial pressures to be thin (generated and sustained in large part via media imagery) are internalized and thereby contribute to body dissatisfaction and, ultimately,

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disordered eating in vulnerable individuals (Garner et al. 1980; Stice et al. 1996; Striegel-Moore et al. 1986). One means by which exposure to idealized images of beauty has an impact on body image is through stimulating social compari- son (Festinger 1954) and body dissatisfaction (Heinberg and Thompson 1992). Indeed, numerous observational and experimental studies have demonstrated an association between reported media exposure and changes in body image (e.g., Abramson and Valene 1991; Field et al. 1999; Harrison and Cantor 1997; Irving 1990; Richins 1991; Stice and Shaw 1994; Tiggemann and Pickering 1996). How- ever, there is little understanding of what renders media images so compelling a model for vulnerable individuals (Becker and Hamburg 1996), and the actual ways girls experience and use media images (and the ultimate impact on body image and dissatisfaction or disordered eating) are not yet sufficiently well understood for potentially effective interventions to be developed. Finally, the ways in which girls and women might respond to media images and media-promulgated values in diverse social contexts are inadequately understood. However, Western-identified images and products may be especially powerful in non-Western contexts precisely because of their perceived “exclusivity” (Mazzarella 2003).

METHODS

Study design and data collection

The impact of television exposure and social transition on body image and so- cial identity among ethnic Fijian schoolgirls was investigated with open-ended, semi-structured interviews via a cross-sectional design. A sample of 30 subjects was purposively selected (for maximal variety) from a study population of 65 self- identified ethnic Fijian adolescent girls enrolled in forms five through seven (mean age 16.9 years) in two secondary schools in Nadroga, Fiji, from July to August of 1998. Nadroga is a province in Western Viti Levu, the largest island of the Fiji group. The schools are both located within a 15–20 minute drive from a town with a population of approximately 8000, and also include boarders from more rural ar- eas. This cohort of schoolgirls had already been recruited for the second wave of a two-wave cohort study assessing the impact of television exposure on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors in Nadroga, Fiji, after they had been exposed to television for 3 years. Specific research questions centered on whether (and how) exposure to Western television in the context of concomitant rapid social and economic transition has stimulated changes in body image and disordered eating despite local cultural practices that have traditionally supported robust appetites and body shapes. Interviews were conducted in English (the formal language of instruction since the third grade) by an American research assistant experi- enced in assessing disordered eating symptoms and facilitated by a Fijian research

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assistant from the Nadroga area. Written assent was obtained from subjects and a written informed consent obtained from a corresponding parent or guardian. Interviews were audiotaped, subsequently transcribed, and analyzed to extract il- lustrations of the ways identity and body image were being shaped by television viewing as well as ways in which girls appeared to be integrating images, ideas, and values introduced by television into their strategies for managing social change. The research was approved by both the Harvard Medical School Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects and the Fiji Research Committee.

Study site

Fiji is an archipelago of over 300 islands on the geographic and cultural border of Melanesia and Polynesia. Slightly greater than half of the population (393,000) is of ethnic Fijian (indigenous Pacific Islander) origin. Fiji was selected as a study site because of the recent (1995) introduction of television to this relatively media-naı̈ve population. Moreover, a variety of traditional cultural norms and so- cial mechanisms strongly support robust appetites and body shapes in the ethnic Fijian population. For instance, the importance of food presentation and feasts as facilitators of social exchange and networks supports consumption of relatively calorie-dense foods. Even routine meals are accompanied by somewhat extraor- dinary efforts by hosts or family to encourage appetites, including a noteworthy frequency of pro forma and quite genuine entreaties to eat heartily (e.g., “kana, mo urouro,” or, “eat, so you will become fat”) (Becker 1995). In addition, similar to other Pacific Island populations (Gill et al. 2002; Pollock 1995), robust bodies were traditionally considered aesthetically pleasing. In Fiji, this was in part be- cause a large body reflected both the capability for hard work and also indexed care and nurturing from a dense social network (Becker 1994).

Finally, there is no indigenous illness category in Fiji corresponding to any eating disorder described in the DSM-IV. Moreover, prior to the 1990s, anorexia and bulimia nervosa were thought to be rare or nonexistent among ethnic Fijians (Becker 1995), However, two locally defined syndromes among the indigenous population, macake (a syndrome chiefly characterized by appetite loss) and ‘go- ing thin’—both without a Western nosologic correlate—reflect an enormous social concern with appetite and a fear of weight loss. Thus, in contrast to societies in which pressures to slim are perceived to be an important context for disordered eating behavior, Fijian girls have not conventionally been motivated to reshape their bodies through diet or exercise (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg 1996). Possibly more protective against eating disorders than the absence of social pres- sure to be thin in Fiji was the fact that Fijians traditionally were not motivated to reshape their bodies. That is, whereas they expressed admiration for the aesthetic appeal of certain body features (most notably, large calves and a body that is jubu

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vina, or robust), they did not typically express interest in nor focus efforts toward attaining the culturally ideal shape (Becker 1995; Becker and Hamburg 1996).

Notwithstanding this traditional context, previously reported data from a cross- sectional, two-wave cohort study demonstrated an increase in disordered eating attitudes and behaviors among ethnic Fijian schoolgirls between 1995 (when television was introduced) and 1998 (Becker et al. 2002). Analysis of the narrative data from this study revealed that a majority of study subjects felt that television had influenced attitudes toward body shape and weight in this peer group. Many subjects explicitly indicated a desire to emulate television characters; for some individuals, this appeared to be related to the perception that career goals could be enhanced by this route (Becker et al. 2002). This was a somewhat unexpected finding, given the traditional Fijian disinterest in personal investment in reshaping the body. Hence, the present study seeks to explore in greater detail the ways in which the girls responded to television in the context of rapid economic and social change in Fiji through a secondary data analysis.

The observed changes likely have many antecedents, which include concrete and ideological ramifications of modernization throughout the Pacific. For example, obesity is becoming increasingly prevalent across Pacific populations (Gill et al. 2002). In Fiji, this is in part likely due to increased consumption of processed foods (National Food and Nutrition Centre 2001) and availability of motorized transportation. As obesity has begun to be identified as a serious public health issue in Fiji and throughout the Pacific, new attention has been drawn to medical risks associated with overweight and personal responsibility for controlling it (Snowden and Schultz 2001). This indeed may have influenced the shift away from a relatively passive and self-accepting stance toward body shape (Becker et al. in press.).

The partial electrification of rural Fiji that began in the mid-1980s has been accompanied by relatively rapid economic, political, and social changes. For ex- ample, as a cash economy has gradually replaced the preexisting subsistence agriculture economy (with extended families growing the root crops that are the dietary staple), there has been increasing pressure for youth to find wage- earning jobs, in distinction to the recent past, when the expectation was that youth would either be engaged in domestic duties and/or work on the family plantation. With increasing opportunities for wage-earning and the stimulation of consumerism by advertising and other exposure to Western lifestyles through television, the acquisition of prestige consumer goods (mostly electric appliances such as refrigerators, television sets, and radios) is now becoming more pos- sible and common in Fiji. With the traditional economy fairly dependent on informal and formal distribution of resources, the current generation finds it- self without consumer-experienced role models for navigating this new social environment.

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RESULTS

Televised imagery appears to have engaged the imagination of Fijian youth at mul- tiple levels, apparently operating synergistically with the sweeping and rapid social changes taking place in Fiji over the past two decades. The ensuing changes in self and body image were multifaceted. On the most superficial and concrete level, tele- vision appeared to redefine local aesthetic ideals for bodily appearance and presen- tation. Television scenarios also appeared to stimulate desire to acquire elements of the lifestyles portrayed, including the body shape perceived to be best suited for obtaining a job. Subjects explicitly reported modeling behavior and appearance on television characters. Indeed, role modeling of television characters appeared to conflate moral virtues, success in job opportunities, and appearance. On a subtle but palpable level, study subjects indicated that television characters, appearances, and values portrayed on television provided an anchor for identity as well as com- petitive social positioning in a rapidly evolving social landscape. For some of the subjects, the newly introduced pressures to reshape their bodies and compete for employment appear to have fostered disordered eating. Excerpted interview data that follow illustrate major themes concerning subjects’ responses to television.

Redefinition of body ideals and development of an ethos of body cultivation

“I see the ads in the television, and I admire their fitness, their sizes.”(S-61)1

“[N]owadays we watch TV, and some creams [are advertised . . . ]. We can change, change our body.”(S-16)

Frequent comments admiring the appearance of television characters centered on their thinness and their apparel (see Becker et al. 2002). Especially striking were the comments that reflected the girls’ motivation to reshape their bodies and the acceptance that individuals have the ability to pursue this—not at all indigenous concepts. Specifically, the notion of increasing physical activity for weight control was linked to television commercials advertising exercise equipment. In addition, the concept of modifying diet gained unprecedented popularity in this community. These changes are particularly notable given the stability of previous traditions concerning bodily aesthetics (Becker 1995). The following excerpts from inter- views illustrate the validation of imported body ideals and the emerging Fijian adolescent endorsement of remaking the body. For example, one young woman remarked, “[I like how] they look nice, the way they always have the figure and all. I mean, they look a bit tall and thin, not that very fat” (S-48). Another respondent said,

Some of my friends, when they watch TV2 , when they see one actor, they want to look like that actor. They lose weight, and um some of them gain more weight. And that’s how my friends are affected by watching the TV. (S-59)

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Several other respondents reflected on how visual images on television motivated girls in their peer group to reshape themselves.

S: [TV influenced] Fijians into trying to change their body. And they, they’re doing things to make their body look attractive, especially getting slim.

I: Do you think television has affected your attitudes about your body or how much you care about your body?

S: It has led me to try to get slim also and watching the type of food I eat. (S-46) I: Do you ever wish that you could be more like them [television characters]? S: Yes very much, [laughs] because they look so sexy, and I know they look nice. I: What makes them sexy? S: The way they, the way they act in the television, I like it. I: Have you ever done anything to be more like them? S: Uh-huh. [laughs] I think so. [laughs] Well ah, I used to go into the town and look for

some clothes that fits me that I think they, which I can compare to the ones I see on television, you know, and I take them home. [ . . . ] I have to act like them, and I have to see myself in the mirror, that’s all. That’s how I do it.

I: Do you ever, do you think that watching TV or videos has affected how you feel about the way you look?

S: Yes, I think so. Well ah, I just see those ones who are on the television, and the way that they look, I want to be like them.

I: Do you think that watching TV or videos has affected the way you feel about your body or your weight?

S: Yes, very much. I have, ah, you know, when I see them I think that I have to lose weight. (S-20)

There was also evidence that the redefined aesthetic ideals were embodied and identified in peers they wished to emulate:

I: How do [your parents] want you to look? S: Um, they want me to look like um some attractive women nowadays. That they dressed,

dress beautiful, that they dress very nice, and beautiful for their hair cuts and their weight. They’re so slim and tall from having, they just imagine that I look like I can be like them. So they are very possibly, like, looking at my weight.

I: They hope you will become like those women? S: Yes. I: And how about you? Do you want to become like those women or do you want to become

different? S: I want to become those women. That they are very slim and tall, that I’m losing my

weight, that I’m trying to be like them. (S-24)

In addition, interview data were noteworthy for multiple references to televi- sion commercials that featured exercise equipment. It appears that the aggressive marketing of fitness equipment promoted an ethos of body cultivation among the respondents. The following interview excerpts illustrate the effects of such advertising.

Well, American television, I think that is, I mean they are the best, cause they are intro- ducing [ . . . ] a modern technology in order to lose our weight, and also I think they give

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modern advertisements on how we should lose our weight, like exercising and all those, and the type of food that they introduce on the advertisements. I think that is good. (S-62)

This study participant also observed that exercise equipment was increasingly popular among her peers: “Well, most of the women, most of the Fijian houses I’ve been visiting, they got that kind of equipment that they’re introducing, like Fast Track and Fast Rider.” All this resulted in her wishing to join in, as evidenced in her comment: “I really just want myself to be like that. I feel like owning one equipment like that.”

Other comments resonated with the desire to purchase exercise equipment advertised on television.

I mean [TV] has shown how to become thin [ . . . ] I mean the machines and all how to get thin. They always show in the TV and I always see. (S-48)

When they, when they show exercising [on TV], I mean exercising shows, and then I feel that I should be like that, I should lose my weight. (S-16)

On the subject of exercise equipment, another young woman noted her motivation to obtain exercise equipment, inspired by television:

[TV] affect[s] me because sometimes I feel fat, and I usually encourage my mom to buy, I should, at this point every day, I should be at home and use the Power Rider for losing some weight at home. (S-34)3

The eagerness to acquire a piece of exercise equipment for the household—an obvious parallel to the enthusiastic purchase of television sets during the same period—is in one respect remarkable, given the cost relative to the disposable income, but in another respect a completely predictable response to the desire that the ads stimulated.

Identity and roadmaps: Navigating unfamiliar social terrain

“I have to look at what they’re doing and cram so that I can become one of them.” (S-26)

“[C]ulture in Fiji normally accepts women here as big, heavy. In the TV, the women are thin, so it has [affected cultural traditions in Fiji].” (S-58)

Generally, adolescent respondents in this study were quite forthcoming about their admiration for and desire to emulate characters portrayed on television. In some surprising ways, they frequently appeared to identify with characters on television. Although their expressed admiration was not restricted to appearance, commentary about thinness, hairstyles, and dress was the most prominent. In addition, however, respondents noted other characteristics of television characters that they admired or wished to emulate. For example, several indicated an interest in the character Xena from the show Xena, Warrior Princess, because of her physical strength and embodiment of female ability to equal men. Others singled

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out characters who were focused on helping others—a trait very much related to more traditional Fijian values. Frequently, respondents made clear their strategy to model themselves on television characters. They referred to their changing local world and benefits to learning about global culture from these characters. Indeed, it became clear from these interview data that adolescent girls were using television to map out pathways to employment.

The following interview excerpt illustrates this point:

I: What do you think of American TV? S: I uh, in the American TV, I think it’s good because it give us uh, information and uh, it

always [helps] us to, to see what [things are going on] around in our, in our world today. I think it’s good to watch American TV.

I: What show or shows do you like the best? S: Uh, only the uh, Shortland Street and uh, and uh, and news that come in the world. World

news. I: Why do you like these shows? S: Uh, because us, it help me in my, it help me in my future and it always it almost

help me to know what it’s going on around the world ‘cause [ . . . ] in the TV so we can see what it is happening around the world and it can teach us uh, many lesson. (S-23)

Yes. It’s really affects the way that I look. Sometimes we copy the, like for example on the TV, we are copying what, what is being advertised, we copy it and try to show it to our friends. (S-24)

Others further indicated that television was having a sweeping and generally positive effect on ethnic Fijians.

S: [TV] teaches us, uh it teaches us some kind of, of the other worlds that we don’t know about America.

I: Which shows do you like the best? What programs do you like the best? S: Beverly Hills. I: Why do you like that show? S: Because it teaches me what I should do, and what I should not do. I: In what terms? In what ways, what you should do how? [. . . In what way] do you mean

that? S: Ah, about my future, life, what is good and what is bad about [the] future. (S-26)

[The characters on television,] they’re very marvelous. They’re very nice. They really look good. They very, they showing us [. . . ] the way, they’re very happy. They’re helping me, and they’re helping other people as well. They change our lifestyle. (S-64)

In addition to indicating their use of television as a general guide to life, subjects frequently expressed concrete admiration for the appearance of specific television characters. Perhaps this is best expressed in the latter respondent’s explanation for the impact of television characters on her feelings about her appearance: “[ . . . ] I want to be like them. I want to be just like those people.” The dimensions most important to her centered on appearance, weight, and self-presentation as

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she listed “[t]heir weight, the way they dress up, the way they eat, and the way they talk” as the aspects that she perceived had most affected her. Another subject commented that the widespread emulation of television characters’ “eating habits and styles, of clothing styles” stemmed from the girls “trying to practice what they see on TV and videos” (S-61).

Interestingly, character and physical qualities of television characters were sometimes conflated, as in the following two excerpts:

Well, I just want to be like her [Xena]. Like the actions that she takes, and also sometimes she makes decisions. I mean, even the old man and the adults have to lis- ten to her, so I really want myself to be like that. And also, I like the look of her body, the shape of her body sometimes I really want myself to be like her [ . . . ]. (S-62)

[I admire] Xena cause she’s a woman, and she can fight more with a–especially with the tall, the giants, you know? And she killed a man, like in some of the men, they come in and try to make uh, to fight against her, but she is Xena. She tried her best to kill them, cause she is a woman and she’s, but you know like that is, men, they think that they do things, but look what the men can do, girls can do too. (S-50)

Whereas the latter study participant reported her friends’ admiration for the “Xena” character based on her modeling of gender parity, she indicated that the television show motivated her to emulate Xena’s figure: “when Xena started, from there I started to change my, I lose weight” (S-50).

Competitive social positioning

“And those kinds of [fat and short] people too, they are not, they don’t have jobs because of their weight, and I mean the way they ate and all.” (S-48)

Interview respondents often intimated that their emulation of television characters was strategically motivated by a desire to position themselves competitively vis-à-vis their peers. It is noteworthy here that competition and achievement are not traditionally sanctioned values among ethnic Fijians, although explicit references to competition were made by some of the subjects. Indeed, traditional Fijian cul- ture has not supported upward social mobility, and aspirations to higher education and social pretensions were often actively criticized and discouraged. Thus, it ap- pears that television content as well as new opportunities for social and economic advancement may have stimulated this discourse. It is also possible that the ques- tions posed precipitated—or at least brought to a more explicit level—the desire to reposition themselves. This competitive ethos was often embedded in concerns ar- ticulated about securing a good job. Related to this, several respondents indicated their perception that overeating or overweight promoted laziness—something they wished to avoid in conventional domestic responsibilities in their homes.