It was way back in the late 16th century that the tale of Faust emerged – the legend tells the story of a scholar who strikes a deal with the devil and exchanges his soul in return for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.
However, it was earlier this year that The Succeed Foundation, a charity specialising in eating disorders, conducted research into the importance female university students place on appearances and in a modern-day Faustian tale, discovered that 30% of women would trade at least one year of their life to achieve their ideal body weight and shape.
Furthermore, of all the students polled 10% would trade 2-5 years of their life, 2% would trade 6-10 years and 1% would trade 21 years or more to achieve their perfect body weight and shape.
Whilst comic images of back room deals with the Grim Reaper immediately spring to mind, these stats depict a shocking insight into society’s view of beauty in the 21st century.
The misrepresentation of idealised body images compared to healthy body images is clear to see in the fact that 79% said they would like to lose weight, despite the comments made by researchers that the majority of respondents were either of average weight or underweight for their age group. Only 3% of these women said they would like to gain weight. Furthermore, 93% said had had negative thoughts about their bodies over the past week; 31% admitted they had several negative thoughts per day.
Other interesting statistics the research unearthed was that 39% of those polled said the only thing holding them back from cosmetic intervention was the issue of money, of this 39%, 76% wanted multiple surgeries.
