Lose Weight, Win A Self Internship!

“Are you a college girl looking to slim down after putting on the ‘freshman 15‘?” Why then you could become Self magazine’s next intern — as long as you have a lot of friends.

In partnership with HerCampus, Self has launched a weight-loss blogging competition (spotted by an eagle-eyed reader) — three college students will be chosen to publicly chronicle their efforts to drop pounds, with the “best” one winning an internship at the magazine. I assume that “best” won’t necessarily mean “the one who loses the most pounds” — but applicants do have to agree to document their changing weight publicly on their blogs. They also have to answer a bunch of questions about their social and virtual lives — the application asks things like, “How many Facebook friends do you have,” “How many Twitter followers do you have,” and “Are you in a sorority?”

Clearly Self‘s hoping to find some well-connected young women who will publicize their weight-loss blogs to a wide fan base, which isn’t, on the face of it, that strange. And since fitness magazines do frequently feature women’s weight-loss diaries, SELF‘s idea for the new blogs isn’t particularly surprising. What’s upsetting is the combination of messages — lose weight, tell all your friends, win a job — along with the fact that the contest specifically targets young women. Stress about the “freshman 15” can be a trigger for disordered eating, and while the three chosen bloggers will have access to Self‘s diet and exercise experts, their many Twitter and Facebook followers won’t necessarily have the same resources to make sure they stay healthy. To expect SELF to promote Health At Every Size is probably too much to ask — but their decision to present public weight loss as a path to career success is more than a little creepy.