Sure, the editors and publishers ought to care about crass circulation numbers, because higher circulation often yields more advertisers and more profit. Furthermore, editors and publishers can easily justify what outsiders might view as pandering to the thinness obsession across American society by stating, “Hey, nobody forces anybody to buy our magazines.”

But magazine editors and publishers who trained as journalists in school–and that’s a huge percentage–almost certainly heard plenty of informed classroom talk about professional responsibility. Too often, those editors and publishers choose to forget about professional responsibility while pursuing profit.

I have taught journalism at a highly ranked school for 32 years off and on. I know hundreds of editors and publishers who control the content of sometimes exploitative magazines. I have taught some of them in classrooms.

A lot of those editors and publishers are highly intelligent, sensitive human beings who seem to lose their moral bearings while residing in their editorial offices. I can only hope that someday, somehow, some of them will begin to realize how much damage they can do when their magazines fall into the hands of impressionable readers.

And yes, listen to that latter voice. She’s right.

I completely agree with Katie on her viewpoint. It is such a shame that a celebrity who could have been a huge ally and role model for young women suffering from eating disorders has instead become a symbol of diseased behavior and thinking at its worst. What happened to being okay with her body exactly the way it was? What does it teach women – young and old – about where there value lies by posing on the cover of a magazine OBSESSED with perfecting our outsides?

Part of my recovery has been about accepting my body EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS, regardless of the fact that my abusive disease would tell me otherwise. My recovery has been about letting go of that image of perfection that will supposedly make all my problems go away. I can tell you this much – when I was at my thinnest – which was not far from what Katharine McPhee looks like on the cover of this magazine – I was the most unhealthy and unhappy I have ever been in my entire life. I will gladly take a little extra “ab flab”, as the cover of the magazine calls it, if it means I can be happy joyous and free.

After looking at the cover of this issue of SHAPE, my disease is saying, “See Shaune, you aren’t good enough the way you are. You need to look like this woman in order to be good. It’s obvious that you are far less than perfect.”

And then the resounding voice of my recovery responds with “Nope. There is no such thing as perfect. You are perfect just the way you are, and don’t need to look like this airbrushed nonsense to be happy. Your worth comes from the inside, not the out.” I think I’ll listen to the latter today.

S

I absolutely agree, though, that giving up that “need” for control – over food, exercise, body shape – is paramount. I know many women who didn’t so much “give up” the control, but transferred it to other, less physically damaging outlets. One has taken up a rigorous yoga-meditation practice, I think she finds that needed sense of discipline there.

Personally, I’m all about the therapy. Having someone else call me out on my insane/damaging bullshit has been invaluable. I haven’t “fully” recovered – but when I do something disordered, I know that it’s problematic, and I work hard not to repeat it.

I’m not sure what kinds of experiences men have dealing with this, but as a woman, I often find it downright impossible to say “fuck it” to the ongoing physical examination/scrutiny I feel like I’m undergoing. I recently joined an uptown gym, and the goings-on around there are, simply put, insane. I wish there was some gym dedicated to people with muscle mass and size that was proportionate to their activity level.

But I digress. Thank you for your very insightful commentary.