Dr. Davide Dragone & Dr. Luca Savorelli Claim Plus-Size Models Make Women Fat

A new study out of the University of Bologna suggests that using plus-size models on the catwalk and in advertisements could make women fat.

In their paper "Thinness and Obesity: A Model of Food Consumption, Health Concerns, and Social Pressure," Dr. Davide Dragone and Dr. Luca Savorelli cite the relationships between Italy, Germany and Spain and their respective fashion communities to produce more plus-sized clothes and uphold a minimum size for models. They write:

When reading the content of the agreements, it is clear that both the government and the fashion industry agree that fashion is a powerful trend-setter. It not only influences what clothes, styles and colors are trendy, but also determines how a person should appear to be desirable.

Okay, so fashion is apparently super-influential. Dragone and Savorelli add:

If people are underweight and stay on a diet, increasing the ideal body weight allows both aggregate welfare and health to be improved. If people are overweight and on a diet, however, increasing the ideal body weight can improve overall utility, but it worsens health because it induces people to become even more overweight.

And, "Given that in the US and in Europe people are on average overweight, we conclude that these policies, even when are welfare improving, may foster the obesity epidemic."

The pair also said, according to the Daily Mail, in plain language, "To promote chubby fashion models when obesity is one of the major problems of industrialised countries seems to be a paradox. Everyone has to trade off in life a number of things like the pleasure of eating and going to the gym or something as a cost. So if you just fix the average healthy weight then maybe you will throw up some incentives to be thin."

Um, so far, seeing plus-size models hasn't made us any bigger. And watching size zero models lurch down the catwalk hasn't made us any skinnier, either -- if anything it's made us simultaneously revolted and ravenous.

What do you think?

Quick Poll

This study:

IS DEFINITELY TRUE!

IS A BUNCH OF B.S.!

Confuses me and I'm not sure.

Share your vote on Facebook so your friends can take this poll

(Via Marie Claire UK)

Comments

[Sherry Sanders113]

11:22 AM on 06/03/2011

What nonsense. In the first place, economists have no business doing a study on obesity, they are clueless to the social dynamics involved. If anything, it works in reverse. Giving women realistic role models helps them stick to goals. Unrealistic images make people drop out of the game entirely. And I am really sick of anger at discrimination being pegged as "defensive." Any woman who is over the bizarre and draconian standards this misogynistic society arbitrarily sets for her is subject to lifelong abuse. The most natural thing in the world is to fight back and only the most simplistic of folk would perceive righteous anger as defensive!

[L Anne Enke]

09:12 AM on 05/16/2011

If you bothered to actually read the study front to back --- which is difficult because it's so mathematical coming out of the London School of Economics -- it concludes that the optimal solution for governments and society is to pressure for a healthy BMI in advertising & other media. I would add 'achievable' BMI, as was the case with the size 4-6 Supermodels of the 80s and early 90s. The authors do say that increasing the models' body sizes to a healthy weight COULD promote the view that obesity -- which a 23 BMI model is not -- is NOT a health hazard for societies. The focus of the study is the ultimate cost to society, taxpapers and healthcare systems over obesity, as well as the individuals' lost contributions to society. (We know that the critical thinking parts of the brain are reduced with obesity, for example -- unless you reject all brain scan research.) The authors conclude the best strategy carries a risk, but the use of unhealthy models carries the biggest risk of all. The authors recommend using healthy 18-25 BMI models. They do not refute those who say BMI is hogwash.

[ECBA88]

12:40 PM on 04/26/2011

I'm somewhat surprised that nobody commenting here believes that social pressures and constructed ideals affect behavior.

Being overweight is a stigmatized status in our society, and that stigma is one of the factors that pushes people to be healthy and maintain their bodies within the range that they consider reasonable. The more we widen that range or reduce the stigma of living outside of it, the smaller that particular incentive gets. When incentives change, behavior does as well. This is a simple fact.

Note that I'm not putting a moral judgment on this one way or the other, nor, as far as I can tell, are the authors of the study. They simply address both physical health and overall happiness as separate measures that aren't always in lockstep, and comment on the factors that affect them differently.

There are a variety of viewpoints on the best way to promote health and positive body image, and as a somewhat overweight young man myself, I am often torn about the respective values of promoting the beauty of diverse bodies and encouraging healthy decisionmaking. But recognizing that the same actions don't always fulfill both goals is an important step, and that's what this study does.

The issue isn't plus size models per se, but the general "big is beautiful" trend that, at its worst, promotes admiration of (and thereby incentivizes maintenance of) bodies that are rationally understood to be unhealthy. Whether or not you see that as a problem, it clearly does happen.

[luvobama]

05:33 PM on 04/26/2011

Thank you for that comment and the one you replied to me.

I don't know why people are so defensive when it comes to this issue.

I liken it to any other part of life's struggles.  The answers are right in front of our eyes, yet addi ction and self medicating put people into a very strong denail.

People here actually went after me for having cancer, as though I brought it on myself because i truly believe in eating less and moving more.  Wow.

[Sherry Sanders113]

11:24 AM on 06/03/2011

Studies have found just the opposite. In the case of weight, stigma is counterproductive. In causes people to gain weight in the long run, NOT lose it. We have had stigma against fat people for over 50 years. If stigma made people thin, why are people allegedly getting fatter!

[Melanie226]

01:26 AM on 04/26/2011

Oh, so it isn't the deluge of high fructose corn syrup, readily available 24/7 fast food, bleached flour and sugar, and the rising price of fruits and veggies, it's those darn Size 12 models.

[PaddockGirl]

04:52 PM on 04/25/2011

So do ultra thin models make women anorexic..oh wait...

[BittyBittyChangChang]

02:52 PM on 04/25/2011

If by "fat" they mean a size 12, then girls have another cupcake and rejoice!

[MtnGeek]

01:26 PM on 04/25/2011

So how do the researchers explain why decades of skinny models haven't made people thinner? If plus-size models make people fat, why don't skinny models make people thin?

[ECBA88]

12:51 PM on 04/26/2011

Isn't there evidence that people try to attain model-like body types, often with disastrous results? I mean, the entire thesis of the "big is beautiful" paradigm is that seeing idealized skinny body types makes people want to be skinny. You sort of have to accept, then, that seeing idealized less-skinny body types will make people aim for less skinny, and seeing idealized overweight body types (which does not generally include plus-sized models, most of them are at healthy weight) will shift the ideal in that direction.

The fact is, though, that most Americans (myself included) are fatter than their ideal, both in terms of personal goals and objective health. Clearly, waving bony-armed, 6 foot runway models shaped like the clothes hangers they serve to replace at people doesn't fix that, and maintaining that as a beauty ideal doesn't put us anywhere good. But if we idealize people in the top range of healthy weight and most people remain somewhat heavier than that ideal, then yes, we actually have made many people a little fatter.

The confusing part to me is the slow, upward shift in the actual size expressed by clothing sizes. My girlfriend is a naturally petite young lady, and she's gone from a 0 to a 00 or out of fitting range entirely in many brands over the past few years, while staying the same size. If we want to destigmatize overweightness, lying to ourselves about clothing sizes isn't the way to do it.

[mmgbizgirl]

10:18 AM on 04/25/2011

The guy who funded the ridiculous research sits front row at fashions shows and ain't with the curves.

[Diver992]

06:30 PM on 04/24/2011

These researchers are mor*ns. What's wrong with plus size?

[Connie Markley Boppre]

08:27 AM on 04/23/2011

"plus-size" models are rarely seen in the mainstream. and it's ice cream that makes us fat !

[kaykaythere]

10:37 PM on 04/22/2011

Oh yeah. Like so many of us have dreamed our whole lives for an excuse to wear awful unflattering polyester tent dresses made at the local awning company. And why even somewhat larger woman cannot get a decent looking professional suit, or much else unless we have huge bucks to go with.

And a note that the Plus Size models are a whopping size 8 or 10. I guess that is what makes the average American woman a size 14.

[longbongsilver]

07:05 PM on 04/22/2011

Sounds to me like, if this study is even remotely accurate, the real problem is in women assigning so much meaning to what they see on those catwalks in the first place.

[Konnie]

03:16 PM on 04/22/2011

are you kidding? italians only allow their overweight woman out of their houses dressed as american tourists. its some kind of law..............

[Katie Schulz]

11:09 AM on 04/22/2011

Right, because all of these years of super skinny models has affected and effected the obesity epidemic. Give me a break.

[bolmah]

09:07 AM on 04/22/2011

They must've been very hungry when they wrote this.