Non Fiction Critical Analysis

In the book Eleanor and park, the issue of body image is apparent within the main character Eleanor. Throughout the book Eleanor struggles with her romantic life because her weight gets in the way. She believes that her boyfriend can not truly love her because of the fat that is on her body. Whenever he tries to interact with her romantically whether its hugging or kissing she thinks her fat will disgust him. This affects every aspect of her life because her self confidence is compromised.

This is the case with many young kids and teens today. The way they view their body negatively affects their mental and emotional health. Many times these body issues can lead to eating disorders (but you should head over to Sophie’s essay for more about that). The body issues with eleanor are definitely not being resolved by her absent father or abusive step father. Her siblings take her things from her and her mom is so involved in keeping herself safe that she can not take care of eleanor. All of these other conflicts are worsening her problems.

Although told that weight does not matter, she continues to doubt her relationships and self worth. Park, her boyfriend repeatedly tells her that she is beautiful exactly the way she is and the way she dresses or looks like does not affect his love for her. Still she is skeptical, but by the end of the book she accepts him loving her body. This will not eliminate threats of humiliation or being looked down upon by others in her life. For example her step dad writes perverted notes on her school text books about wanting to have sex or do other inappropriate things and that makes her feel extremely uncomfortable. This can compromise the structure of safety she has built against judgments of her weight. This happens to thousand of young adults around the world and is not just solvable by losing the weight.

Overall, Eleanor had many body image issues surrounding her relationship with park, but in the end accepted her weight and learned that he loved her regardless. Body image issues are a common problem and live past weight loss, with their emotional and mental toll. This issue is not easily solvable but can still be fixed by learning to love your body.