Remember When Kate Moss Was Skinny?

Well she's not now. Don't get your Calvin Klein's in a bunch, it's not like anyone is calling K. Mo. fat. (Hmm... K.Mo. Yeah, okay, I can see why that never caught on.) But in today's game of anorexic roulette, the Waif herself comes out looking rather... normal.

Take Kate in the '90s. Not even any visible ribs! And real breasts!! And yet every major publication hailed her as the malnourished poster child for Heroin Chic.

And who can forget her famous CK undies ad? Sure, you can see her hip bones. And her thighs probably wouldn't touch if she put her foot down. (What exactly is she doing there? Checking for plantar warts?) But her arms have meat on them and you can't count the sinews in her knees.

Then there is this magazine cover - beautiful in the simple way that she made famous - from 2001 (as far as I can tell). No model these days would go out with those collar bones! Where is the pop? The shoulder nub? Her cheeks even lack their signature sunken appearance (probably because she is, for once, posing with her mouth closed).

Even today, as evidenced by her current reign as October's Vogue cover girl, she's thin but, admit it, looks kinda normal - at least by media standards.

See, Kate just isn't serious enough about continuing this Auschwitz chic that she started. If she were, she'd be doing the "banana bag" diet which is neither as porny nor as healthy as it sounds. The awkward moniker comes from the yellow color of the fluid in the IV bags. The fluid that starlets are mainline-ing in an effort to get their vital nutrients without the calories.

According to the Daily Mail, "Designed as IV drips for alcoholic patients in hospitals (who are undernourished from drinking more than they eat), this yellow-coloured liquid is being snapped up by those who opt out of eating in order to fit into their Kova & T Latex leggings."

Why would anyone feel the need to be so skinny that they would choose to get their multivitamin via a saline drip? Because they're competing with this:

And this:

Like I said, remember when Kate Moss was skinny?

Comments

[vain jane]

agyness is not too thin. she's in a weird position in this picture. plus, there is a sneer about kate moss's beauty in this article. how is this related to making your (reasonable) point?

[withcheese]

Um she is still tiny. Not even close to normal or average. Don't kid yourself. She has just cut back a little on the cigarettes and cocaine.

[chroma601]

Right on the home page of HuffPost as I type this is an ad showing a very thin woman encouraging others to lose 25 pounds. There is some sort of mindset that you can't be too thin. Jennifer Love Hewitt just lost a bunch of weight, looks like a rail, and is being praised by the media. She looked a lot better before. The idea seems to be to create an unattainable body image so consumers spend and spend trying to get to it. But to my eyes this concept of so-called "beauty" is anything but.

[azusmom]

It's a scary, scary day when Kate Moss is the picture of health compared to other young women.

[AtomiClash]

Nobody discounting the cocaine abuse?

[mollyccampbell]

American models are all waifs. European models are far more likely to have meat on their bodies...you know, curves, like women actually have. And real body parts - what an idea! Of course, those women in the US are considering overweight, or some such bs, so we'll never see one of them in the American Vogue.

[strawberryjulius]

Not true. It's not only a problem in the U.S., Ana Carolina Reston, Eliana Ramos and Luisa Ramos were South American models who died of malnutrition. Fashion week in Paris is no better. An anorexic on youtube even made a "thinspiration" video of the skeletons on the Parisian catwalk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHfDlfRXfr0

[LeftRight]

I thank god every day that my two daughters (aged 14 and 16) are not competing to become non-existent! I don't know if they follow fashion (both being rather tomboy-ish...) but I DO know that both are skinny, and yet both are still HEALTHY!!! I can't count ribs, I don't see everything under the skin, and I love that they are both self-assured enough to be HAPPY with who they are!

[Fudgefase]

I despair.

[chroma601]

And they keep saying the models are healthier this year. Ugh!