Andreea Dobre, 15, says teenagers work out because the too-skinny look just isn’t cool anymore.
“I don’t think it is very popular,” says the Grade 10 student from Richmond, B.C., who goes to the gym as many as five times a week.
Dobre personally knows about 50 other girls — mostly 15 and 16 year olds — who work out. “Before, working out wasn’t that big of a deal,” says Dobre. “But now teenagers like it. It makes them feel good about themselves.”
Girls as young as 13 have signed up for the gym orientation class that Andrea Skinner teaches at a Toronto-area YMCA.
Skinner thinks the popularity of buff celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson is one reason the girls are coming out. “It has a lot to do with the media,” she says. “There’s more about weight training and looking good, instead of (girls) starving themselves and having that skinny, skinny look.

Full figures in

“I even had a comment on one of my evaluations from a girl who said she read in an article that more women are trying to be full-figured like (actress) Drew Barrymore.”
Teenage girls are being drawn into gyms by the powerful momentum of the fitness industry, says Wendy Rodgers, associate dean of the University of Alberta’s physical education faculty.
“Now it’s showing up more among the teenage girls and that’s probably a function of their mothers having gone through that,” she says.
It also helps that more attention is being paid to girls’ sports.
“Twenty years ago, there just weren’t (many sports),” says Rodgers.
“All opportunity just dropped right off unless they stayed in gymnastics, dance or figure skating. That’s changing.”
But increasing gym memberships aren’t necessarily an indicator that young females feel less pressure to shape their bodies a certain way, says Rodgers.
“There’s always been a concern in appearance,” she says. “I would say concerns have shifted away from being thin, to being muscular.”
Roxana Hutanu, a Vancouver-area fitness trainer, regularly meets girls who struggle with body image. “Most of them are freaking out because they want to lose that 15-20 lbs.,” says Hutanu, who works at Fitness World, one of the largest private exercise clubs in the Vancouver area.
But these girls have an advantage over teenagers 10 years ago because school staff and parents are now better equipped with information about eating disorders and body image, says Hutanu.
“Girls are being told by their counsellors, by their teachers, ‘You know, just go to the gym,’ ” she says.
Her manager was approached earlier this year by a high school guidance counsellor worried by the number of weight-obsessed girls he met.
Dobre says some of her friends are stressed out about their bodies, but not all.
“Some people are like that. But some just go there because they want to get healthy.”
Her workout partner, Izabel Steele, 15, agrees.
“I don’t think it’s all about the ‘look,’ ” she says.
She admits some girls go to the gym to “feel thinner,” but most just want to be healthy.
“I feel a lot better about myself. I have confidence. I love being physically active.”
Steele started lifting weights two years ago — much earlier than most of her friends — when she began modelling.

Doing it for themselves

Most of her friends started working out this year. “I think a lot of girls are going to the gym for themselves and not for anyone else,” she says.
It would be ideal if girls didn’t feel the need to look a certain way, but even that pressure can be converted into a positive, said Rodgers.
“In the exercise psychology world, we’d be happy if people start for any reason,” says Rodgers.
“If they persist long enough, there’s usually a motivation shifting towards liking the activity itself, the more intrinsic aspects of being active.”

July 21, 2001