Dying To Be Thin
Nicole Stewart Rushworth
During the 2006 Madrid fashion week, the city was flooded with designers from the likes of Gucci, Prada and Chanel. Amongst them were beautiful curvy women, with not a single size zero model in sight. This shocking statement for change, within the fashion industry, was inspired and eventually forced in place by the ban against the "super skeletal, heroin chic look". Organisers of the week stated that they wanted women who look healthy and naturally beautiful.
Is the fashion industry searching for perfect anorexic, bulimic, double size zero teens? Sadly, yes.
But why does this appeal to so many people? Most designers pick the double size zero models because of the way the clothes hang neatly and almost "perfectly" against their skeletal body. Designers choose to dress them up in the "hottest" and newest fashion, and put the pictures in magazines, because they know that their target audience aspire to look as aesthetically "perfect" as them. Thousands of teens pick up and read these magazines, which display a celebrity culture of weight issues, through photographs of celebrities who have lost, gained and skeletonised their weight. These criticisms, by journalists, convey how judgemental society is becoming, surrounding the issue of weight, making "normal" people feel the need to change.
It is clear that young girls that look up to the likes of Alexa Chung and Nadine Coyle, copying their style and haircut, may eventually feel the need to copy elements of fashion, therefore affecting their weight. Some girls that want to be like their celebrity role models will eat their tea then have "the finger" for dessert! It is sad to say that girls are looking up to these people as an inspiration to be thin, and not just thin but extremely skinny, like walking skeletons. Don't get me wrong though, it's not just young girls that this crazy celebrity culture is affecting. The newest craze in super skinny is the manorexic. These are male celebrities that are, well, just beyond tiny. Men like Colin Farrell, who are in the spot light, have been photographed looking unnaturally skinny and unhealthy. So it is clear that this is affecting not only girls, but boys as well. Society is developing a sense of aspiration and idolisation for skinny celebrities, as our magazine culture is conveying the idea that skinny is beautiful.
Did you know that an American size zero adult is approximately the same size as the average seven year old child? According to health experts and top doctors, when people go on a major diet it's not just fat they are loosing; anti-oxidants, that are important to our immune system, also die out. These anti-oxidants help our bodies to fight disease and illness, therefore if this form of dieting continues more people will become severely ill.
Science has proven that to drop from a 32 inch waist to a 24 inch waist, in a very short amount of time, you need to eat around 500 calories per day, which is 1500 less that recommended by the Government Department of Health. This adds up to:
• An apple and coffee (no sugar or milk) for breakfast.
• A small green salad (no dressing) and a coffee (no milk or sugar) for lunch.
• A small green salad or a tiny portion of meat and vegetables for dinner.
So you can forget your Cadbury's Cream Eggs and Dairy Milks! It's no wonder teens are slipping into an early grave. People that go on crash diets can become obsessed by their own and other people's weight. A program on ITV2 called Super Skinny Me, gave insight into the world of weight, diets and the extremely obsessed. It portrayed how a number of high school girls in America felt pressured, by other school students, to compete to become the skinniest and the one with the best clothes. Another diet, which has been suggested by people like Victoria Beckham and Nicole Richie, is the Lemon, Honey, Water, and Pepper Diet, where, surprisingly, you eat and drink nothing but honey, lemon, water, and pepper for a week. This is supposed to cleanse and detoxify the body, but can you imagine living without proper food for one whole week – I cannot!
In history, during the Victorian times, women wore painfully tight corsets just to make themselves more curvaceous, because bigger women were perceived as beautiful. In addition, if you look further back in history, there are pictures of Venus rising from the waves; she is radiant and beautiful and certainly not size zero.
However, there is a glimmer of hope. Magazines, like Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan, promote the idea of "real women" and have done cover shoots to celebrate the beauty of curves. The advertisers at Dove have also been running a campaign for plus size models, with their adverts containing real people, embracing their womanly curves. These adverts are now on billboards that are seen by millions, supporting the change of body image amongst many in society. Furthermore, there are programmes, such as 'How to Look Good Naked', that promote body confidence and self-satisfaction. Celebrity stylist, Gok Wan, campaigned for body confidence lessons in schools, to support the next generation with self-esteem and body confidence.
Pioneers in the fashion industry, like Marie Claire and Gok, have influence over aspects of the media industry. I hope that in a few years our culture be more accepting of different perceptions of beauty.
Will the ban of underweight models ruin model careers? Probably not. It's the models of the future that will benefit from this ban the most. I think it's important for the teens of today to look up to strong, beautiful people, not the forcefully skinny people, who carry laxatives around with them and shove their finger down their throat at any given second. Society needs to embrace their individual size, as any size can be beautiful, as sadly, at the moment, girls are literally dying to be thin.