Does This Make Me Look Fat?
Way to get my attention. It was a typical summer night, I had just gotten back from work and we were watching Hannah Montana on the Disney Chanel.
“I’m fat.” Excuse me? I turn around and see her looking at herself in the mirror. Moving from one side to the other, telling me she needs to eat less. Now where did you get an idea like that? She shows me a magazine. This was my six year old niece. She also happens to be nowhere near fat, and I am not just saying that because I'm her aunti. Nonetheless, I sigh. I fully understand and relate to her feelings, but I also want to be mindful about the best way to cut the vicious cycle of low self-esteem at an early stage of her life.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America published new guidelines for fashion industries, but it doesn't feel like it's enough. First, I will discuss some of the reasons that led to this policy to appear and why not having it fully enforced or incorporated is creating more problems, second, I will tell you what I think the best solution is which will include, third, the benefits of having it in the fashion world.
This is an important topic, because it is a dangerous one. It has a great influence on us today, as it effects most models in general and many teenagers in particular.
We realize how great the influence is when we see people we know attempting to look like models using any means necessary.
I am credible to talk about this because I am a girl myself, and when I was younger I once looked upon these images as the standard of beauty: There is a certain look and weight I have to maintain if I want to be beautiful, and it didn’t matter whether my body type could handle it or not.
A few examples of super model names I have taken from the New York times and the AFP news agency:
Ana Carolina Reston, 21. A Brazilian model that lived off apples and tomatoes died the evening of an international photo shoot. Luusel Ramos, South American super model. Pretty, yet stick thin, died right after walking out of a runway. She was living off a diet of lettuce leaves and diet coke. 6 months later, her sister, Elianna Ramos, also a super model, followed in her sister's footsteps when she wouldn’t wake up one morning. The person waking her up was her grandma. Imagine that. Her father says ever since she found out she has been chosen to model for fashion, she had stopped eating all together. She was only 18.
while all the female models were too busy shrinking themselves, male models were also on the rise to shrinking! It first began with Dior when they replaced the runway from the buff six footer, six pack abs, with models like Stas Svetlichnyy, 28, who is six feet tall and 145 pounds. Although one out of ten anorexics are men, rail thin models might not be gender-specific in the long-run.
These are just mere examples out of hundreds that led the Council of Fashion Designers of America to piece-in some new guildlines to help solve this growing problem. The CFDA (who’s current president is Diane Von) is a not-for-profit trade association that has a membership with 350 of America’s women and men’s’ wear designers. In January 2007, they formed a health initiative to address the concern about whether or not models are unhealthy-thin. One of their recommendations was to “Educate the industry to identify the early warning signs in an individual at risk of developing an eating disorder.”
Solution:
Better education. The solution is not easy, but it is simple and enforceable through better company policies and industry standards, especially for leaders who claim there is nothing unhealthy about thin models with BMIs less than 18. BMI stands for Body Mass Index, the normal BMI falls above 18.5; you can find many models today with a BMI below 16.
If employers don’t demand skeleton models, the market demand will shift for a different need. Why don't we plug something better for customers to want? As long as the fashion industries have the complete freedom to keep hiring skinny models, and abandon diverse bodies, models will continue to maintain their rail- thin figures because it’s what the designers want, it’s what their clothes look good in. And over the years our eyes have adjusted to this new definition of thin, which transformed from curvy and sexy, into toothpick and invisible.
“I’m fat.” Excuse me? I turn around and see her looking at herself in the mirror. Moving from one side to the other, telling me she needs to eat less. Now where did you get an idea like that? She shows me a magazine. This was my six year old niece. She also happens to be nowhere near fat, and I am not just saying that because I'm her aunti. Nonetheless, I sigh. I fully understand and relate to her feelings, but I also want to be mindful about the best way to cut the vicious cycle of low self-esteem at an early stage of her life.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America published new guidelines for fashion industries, but it doesn't feel like it's enough. First, I will discuss some of the reasons that led to this policy to appear and why not having it fully enforced or incorporated is creating more problems, second, I will tell you what I think the best solution is which will include, third, the benefits of having it in the fashion world.
This is an important topic, because it is a dangerous one. It has a great influence on us today, as it effects most models in general and many teenagers in particular.
Personally, I've lived with parents who always had an opinion on how I looked, with friends whose number one concern was dieting, and in a society that cared more about how thin you were above anything else. And what first begins as an appearance issue, soon turns into an eating disorder. Imagine this: your best friend is starving to look pretty. Puking their food out from guilt. hurting their organs, one at a time. Imagine you had a family member like that, and you had to watch them slowly kill themselves everyday and you couldn’t d anything about it. Imagine if YOU were like that. You go to the modeling agency, and they turn you down because you were over the weight limit capacity. Basically, you're too fat even though you're already 5 pounds under weight due to an ongoing 100-calories-a-day starvation diet you read about online from like-minded diet lovers who swear by its success. The unfortunate reality is that you lost that audition to someone even thinner than you, and you will end up blaming yourself even more for sneaking in that extra piece of lettuce two nights ago.
We realize how great the influence is when we see people we know attempting to look like models using any means necessary.
I am credible to talk about this because I am a girl myself, and when I was younger I once looked upon these images as the standard of beauty: There is a certain look and weight I have to maintain if I want to be beautiful, and it didn’t matter whether my body type could handle it or not.
A few examples of super model names I have taken from the New York times and the AFP news agency:
Ana Carolina Reston, 21. A Brazilian model that lived off apples and tomatoes died the evening of an international photo shoot. Luusel Ramos, South American super model. Pretty, yet stick thin, died right after walking out of a runway. She was living off a diet of lettuce leaves and diet coke. 6 months later, her sister, Elianna Ramos, also a super model, followed in her sister's footsteps when she wouldn’t wake up one morning. The person waking her up was her grandma. Imagine that. Her father says ever since she found out she has been chosen to model for fashion, she had stopped eating all together. She was only 18.
while all the female models were too busy shrinking themselves, male models were also on the rise to shrinking! It first began with Dior when they replaced the runway from the buff six footer, six pack abs, with models like Stas Svetlichnyy, 28, who is six feet tall and 145 pounds. Although one out of ten anorexics are men, rail thin models might not be gender-specific in the long-run.
The famous Flippa Hamilton, who worked in Ralph Lauren for two years, was fired because she was “too fat” and couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore. This gorgeous model is five foot ten inches and weighs 120 pounds. What Ralph Lauren did to her body using Photoshop when they were done is hideous. It is very obvious to anyone who’s seen a human being to know that your head should never look bigger than your waist.
These are just mere examples out of hundreds that led the Council of Fashion Designers of America to piece-in some new guildlines to help solve this growing problem. The CFDA (who’s current president is Diane Von) is a not-for-profit trade association that has a membership with 350 of America’s women and men’s’ wear designers. In January 2007, they formed a health initiative to address the concern about whether or not models are unhealthy-thin. One of their recommendations was to “Educate the industry to identify the early warning signs in an individual at risk of developing an eating disorder.”
How can this recommendation play out in a weight-hostile environment? Fashion designers send magazines small size samples, therefore magazines are forced to hire skinny models to fit into them. This leaves no choice for the other models but to compete and get skinnier, resulting in having designers acknowledging the fact that models are getting thinner, so they send out even smaller samples. Magazines get frustrated because they have to spend more money to air brush all the disgusting bones out of the models so that the clothes can actually look presentable. The fashion industries trigger the problem, and magazine companies enable its growth as a generally acceptable practice. The CFDA guidlines alone can't elevate these pain points.
Solution:
Better education. The solution is not easy, but it is simple and enforceable through better company policies and industry standards, especially for leaders who claim there is nothing unhealthy about thin models with BMIs less than 18. BMI stands for Body Mass Index, the normal BMI falls above 18.5; you can find many models today with a BMI below 16.
Benefits:
1. First of all, it's safe to say models will stop dying, or at least stop starving themselves, because they won’t feel the need to compete with the other models to be thinner, and can actually start focusing on being happy and living a fulfilling life as they pursue their passion of modeling. Maybe even see a life past 30.
2. A better perception of body image will be the new normal, instead of a look that is impossible to reach because it could almost kill you before you achieve it.
1. First of all, it's safe to say models will stop dying, or at least stop starving themselves, because they won’t feel the need to compete with the other models to be thinner, and can actually start focusing on being happy and living a fulfilling life as they pursue their passion of modeling. Maybe even see a life past 30.
2. A better perception of body image will be the new normal, instead of a look that is impossible to reach because it could almost kill you before you achieve it.
I don't want my niece to worry about how fat she is when she is just six years old, there are more important things to worry about when you're six, like ice cream flacour choices at the parlor or learning that new jump on rollerblades. I don’t want her to live a life where weight will be all she sees when she looks at herself in the mirror.
If employers don’t demand skeleton models, the market demand will shift for a different need. Why don't we plug something better for customers to want? As long as the fashion industries have the complete freedom to keep hiring skinny models, and abandon diverse bodies, models will continue to maintain their rail- thin figures because it’s what the designers want, it’s what their clothes look good in. And over the years our eyes have adjusted to this new definition of thin, which transformed from curvy and sexy, into toothpick and invisible.
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