Seventeen Magazine Promotes Body Hatred

In unsurprising but nonetheless saddening news, Seventeen Magazine undermined the entire notion of a "Body Peace Project" by partnering with the Biggest Loser in order to encourage girls to learn to love their bodies. Sound contradictory? That's because it is. 

Nina Bahadur calls Seventeen out in her article for Huffington Post. Excerpt below. 

The Seventeen blog features Chandrasekar's "Biggest Loser" audition video, in which the 16-year-old from New York tells viewers: "I want to love myself... which is something I find hard to do at times, at this weight. Secondly, I want to look fabulous for prom." The tape also features Chandrasekar's mother, who states, "It is really my greatest regret in life... that my daughter has gotten into the vicious cycle of weight gain." 

Meanwhile, Seventeen's Body Peace Pledge, signed by almost 90,000 young women to date, invites them to vow to "know that I'm already beautiful just the way I am" and "not let my size define me."

Seventeen introduces the "Biggest Loser" partnership in the wake of other recent body image controversies. In late 2012, the magazine came under fire for featuring a BMI calculator on its website. The aforementioned calculator indicated that a girl with a BMI of 14.8 was "healthy," when, according to the Center for Disease Control, such a BMI renders a person "underweight." Seventeen took down the BMI calculator from their website after 3,000 individuals signed a Proud2BeMe petition demanding its removal.