Considering The Blue Dress with Statistics of Body Images and Eating Disorder

Meet our Contributor: Lesley Roessing

​ A middle and high school teacher for twenty years, Lesley Roessing was the Founding Director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project at Georgia Southern University (formerly Armstrong State University) where she was also a Senior Lecturer in the College of Education. In 2018-19 she served as a Literacy Consultant with a K-8 school. Lesley served as past editor of Connections, the award-winning journal of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English. As a columnist for AMLE Magazine, she shared before, during, and after-reading response strategies across the curriculum through ten “Writing to Learn” columns. She has written articles on literacy for NWP Quarterly, English Journal, Voices from the Middle, The ALAN Review, AMLE Magazine, and Middle School Journal. She now works independently—writing, providing professional development in literacy to schools, visiting classrooms to facilitate book club reading activities and lessons, and posting Facebook strategies, lessons, and book reviews to support educators on https://www.facebook.com/lesley.roessing.

Considering The Blue Dress with Statistics of Body Images and Eating Disorder by Lesley Roessing

“Once I taste the crumbly sweetness of the cookie, I decide to have another. I feel the panic rise up in my body. Three cookies! I’ve messed everything up. My brain says stop but I can’t. Something inside me has to keep going. I’ll be better tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ve already been bad, so I might as well eat whatever I want today.” (28)

According to research, approximately 6-8% of adolescents have an eating disorder. In addition, a survey found an incredible 90% of teenagers have some level of body image concern, with more than one in three (38%) very or extremely concerned; females, gender-diverse youth and those in the LGBTQIA+ community reported the highest levels of body dissatisfaction. These statistics show this is a vital topic be addressed with students. One of the most effective ways is through reading novels in which characters experience these issues. It is easier for students to examine how characters handle or mishandle challenges than to discuss their own behaviors. Through novels, readers not only can see their lives reflected, but they can understand challenges faced by their peers and, thereby, acquire empathy for others. 

The world of friendship and social status can be complex and difficult for adolescents to navigate. THE BLUE DRESS presents many of the challenges that middle-school/ high school girls face on a daily basis: friendships, popularity, mean girls and bullying, mother-daughter relationships, body image, and, more frequently now, disordered eating (which is affecting adolescent males in increasing numbers).

Yasmin moved from Iran—where everyone looked like her and she was surrounded by friends and supportive relatives—to the United States a year and a half before. She was friendless until Carmen immigrated from Mexico, and the two became best friends. Both are bullied by kids at their middle school, Yasmin even more because they see her as the enemy and even a “terrorist.” The popular, mean girls make fun of her clothes, her curly hair, and her bushy eyebrows. “I sometimes think about what it would be like to not have to wonder if people in my school or in my neighborhood are staring at me because I’m from an enemy country. How amazing it would be to know this was your place and no one could question you about where you’re from and what you’re doing here. No one could make you feel like you were somehow an intruder in their land.” (111)

In addition, puberty has caused Yasmin’s body to change and, as she gets larger, her mother becomes obsessed with her weight. It seems to culminate when she sews Yasmin a beautiful blue dress for the Persian New Year, a dress she knows will not fit unless Yasmin loses weight. Maman subjects Yasmin to weekly weigh-ins and packs lunches of celery sticks and turkey sandwiches, and, when Yasmin starts skipping dinner to try harder to lose weight, her mother actually is proud of her. Her dieting backfires when she is alone with snacks or at Carmen’s house where Carmen’s loving mother encourages eating. 

To become accepted by the popular Zoe, Yasmin thins her eyebrows, straightens her hair, and really tries to lose weight, even throwing up when she feels she overeats. When she dumps Carmen for Zoe—and a chance at popularity, she finds out that Zoe may not be only another mother-daughter relationship victim and even though they seem to have become friends, Zoe does not stand up for her. 

Despite how she was treated, when Carmen finds out that Yasmin is self-harming, she tells their beloved art teacher who involves the school counselor, and family secrets emerge.

This is an essential novel for today’s adolescents to read and discuss, possibly in small groups that provide the safety for sensitive conversations about fitting in and fulfilling expectations. Based on the author’s life, this is above all a story of acceptance. #TalkingTexts

Some more novels/memoirs on Body Image & Disordered Eating to read and discuss together in Book Clubs are 

Middle-Level:
LOUDER THAN HUNGER by John Schu
ALL OF ME by Chris Baron
A WORK IN PROGRESS by Jarrett Lerner
SMALLER SISTER by Maggie Edkins Willis
STARFISH by Lisa Fipps
TAKING UP SPACE by Alyson Gerber

Young Adult: 
SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT by Deborah Hautzig
PERFECT by Natasha Friend
PERFECT by Ellen Hopkins
WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson
THE SKIN I'M IN by Sharon Flake

>See other recommendations and reviews of novels and memoirs about “The Immigrant/Refugee Experience” at https://www.literacywithlesley.com/immigrantrefugee-experience.html.