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Bonnie Fuller

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Aren't You Sick of Too Skinny Girls?

Posted: 02/17/2011 7:07 pm

It's been a double hit of diet-inducing beauties in our faces this week!

First, New York Fashion Week rolled out its runways and its models who look like they barely eat morsels. Then Sports Illustrated and its bevy of perfect skinnies in swimsuits hit the newsstands and the airwaves, with not a stomach roll or dimpled thigh in sight. All week we've had to look at tight, taut tummys, stick-thin legs, arms barely bigger than insect tentacles and perky perfect cleavage. It's enough to make any normal-weight woman feel fat!

Why can't Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue have some models who have Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, or Beyonce curves? Why can't designers showcase their catwalk clothes on models who have a J.Lo pear shape or fuller figure like Christina Hendricks?

We, the women who will ultimately buy those clothes, think these women are gorgeous. We aspire to look like them, not like the androgynous sticks on the Fashion Week runways!

Click here to read more and see on skinny v. curvy celebs and models!

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patticakes350
Don't drink the Kool-Aid
09:14 AM on 02/20/2011
I spent years trying to keep my body in the right size. I was 5'4" 85lbs just so I never got larger than a 0.The smaller the size the better. When I think of all the time and energy spent keeping that unhealthy body weight.. I had to always be the smallest person in the room, That was the message I was recieving from all around me.
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Feanor
I want my jewels back.
05:42 PM on 02/19/2011
It's pretty simple: clothes look better on thin women, therefore they sell more clothes by using thin models.

Ever see a size 6 mannequin?
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writergal28
Writergal28 is a blogger and "petite activist" and
11:03 AM on 02/20/2011
Since you think clothes look better on thin women, I guess you also believe that clothes don't look that great on most actresses, since they're usually shorter than models. A 5'3" actress who wears a size 0 is going to look wider than the 6' model in the same dress size.
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Feanor
I want my jewels back.
01:50 PM on 02/20/2011
No, the fanciful products of your imagination have no relationship to my beliefs or opinions.

Have you ever seen a size 6 mannequin?
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writergal28
Writergal28 is a blogger and "petite activist" and
02:32 PM on 02/18/2011
What's very interesting is that regardless of skinny or not skinny, models are going to have good proportions. Waist-to-hip and waist-to-bust ratios as well as height are factors that make a woman look curvy or not-so-curvy. Someone who is 5'2" and 32-24-34 is going to look curvier than someone 5'9" with the exact measurements. We see that on the runway. Even if designers use larger models who're, say, size 12, they're going to have that 0.7 or thereabouts waist-to-hip ratio unless they're modelling maternity. I think it's something people forget.
02:20 PM on 02/18/2011
Beyonce did cover SI swimsuit issue in 2007...though I do agree this years models are all on the skinny side.

I actually have a bigger problem with the height requirements in modeling. I would rather see clothes modeled on a variety of heights and healthy sizes. My weight may fluctuate, having once been plus-size and now I am fit & healthy, but there is little I can do about my short stature (yes I am wearing heals right now) and I have never understood why all models must be very tall. Short is chic too!
10:58 AM on 02/18/2011
Have a look at a Cosmo. It comes out more than once a year, and its depiction of women is marketed directly at them. Your attempt to single out one magazine to be judged is inappropriate.

Men have no problem sexulizing women of any body type. Id say women are the driving factor of the inequality of base sexulization you seem to have issue with.
09:22 AM on 02/21/2011
I'll pile on here. Women's fashion and women's appearance are all about women. The social pressures BY women to force other women to look they way women want is an iron law.

Just about the ONLY mainline fashion that could even be suspected of targeting the tastes of men is the bikini model. If "fashion" gave a hoot about the tastes of men, the only clothes out there for women would be bikinis. Maybe adding the little knee high furry boots and santa hat for cold climates.

I've had innumerable conversations with women about why the architect their appearance they way they do. Clothes, makeup, breast augmentation, tummy tucks, accessories, all of it is directed like a laser at the opinions and tastes of the women with who they associate. Once or twice a year, say Valentines and a birthday, a woman might make a lingerie choice where her man is the primary consideration. But, that's it.

So women, if you are tired of the incredible social pressure to look more like "she's nothing but T&A" and less like Rosie O'Donell, then stop henpecking each other.
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Nicole Dixson
09:41 AM on 02/18/2011
Men don't sit around and lament that other men have more muscles than they do or feel bad about themselves because certain men look better than they do. Why do we have to do this as women? I say we don't. Stop worrying about the next woman and worry about yourself. Find something about you to feel good about. I don't look like a model, but I have a nice enough body for ME. Add to that, I think I am funny, smart and kind. Isn't that ENOUGH????????????
09:27 AM on 02/21/2011
YES!!!! If women would stop doing this....men would as a group would probably break down and weep for joy for weeks. We'd declare a holiday in commemoration! Really....you have no idea how absolutely bone tired men are of having to repeatedly re-assure their stay-puff-marshellow-wives that no, honey, those jeans don't make your a$$ look fat. (And we can give the proper answer honestly because of course, the jeans have nothing to do with it....)

Really, please, for the sake of the children, take the manly route: either stop thinking about it, or back away from the cream cheesery bagel and go to gym. One of the two.....really, we don't care which.
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Nicole Dixson
09:50 AM on 02/21/2011
:-) I'm willing!
05:50 AM on 02/18/2011
***Why can't designers showcase their catwalk clothes on models who have a J.Lo pear shape or fuller figure like Christina Hendricks?***

Because usually J-Lo and Christina Hendricks wear god-awful clothes.
 
 
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c-tom
Badges we don't need no stinking badges
09:59 PM on 02/17/2011
Irina Shaykhlislamova 34-23-35 and Brooklyn Decker 34-24-34 are not too skinny for women in their early twenties. Trying to look twenty when you are forty is a self defeating game.
09:11 PM on 02/17/2011
This wouldn't be a problem if women would not internalize these images. Why focus on what another woman's body is like?
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Nicole Dixson
10:52 AM on 02/19/2011
I agree. Just focus on yourself and make you the best you can be. That's my advice.