Le sigh.
Is there anything that doesn't make us women feel like monstrous, overstuffed cows?
We know pictures like this and this do the trick.
High school cliques bulldoze body image, sororities are breeding grounds for anorexia and billboards like this throw us into a fat-and-calorie tizzy. Friends make us cry fat tears, too.
But thanks to inane new Italian research, we now know that the real danger lies in images of women that resemble anything other than human praying mantises.
Yes, a new University of Bologna study suggests that being exposed to plus-size models could fuel rampant weight gain among everyday women, and that eradicating rail-thin, emaciated models could actually worsen our obesity crisis. In their paper, Drs. Davide Dragone and Luca Savorelli write:
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.
They also concede that while plus models might make women feel better inside, they'll make us fat on the outside -- i.e., where it matters most.
My immediate thought: If these doctors think women are such blind sheep, susceptible to imitating any weight-related image placed before us, then what are they doing working for a university named after one of the fattiest lunch meats of all time?
I immediately dialed plus-sized model (aka a size 8) Katie Halchishick for her take on this whole model debacle. At 5'9" and a size 6, Halchishick was deemed "plus sized" by the modeling industry and asked to "just shave two inches" off her bony hips. At size 14 and 200 pounds, she was earning six figures as the face of Torrid but didn't feel healthy. This year, the 25-year-old Hollywood-based bombshell co-founded Natural Model Management, an LA-based modeling created by models for models, with a laser focus on encouraging health and embracing models at their "happy" size. (Their models range in size from a 4/6 to a 10 -- sizes considered too big for straight size modeling but too small for plus.)
"There's this notion that a size 0 is inspiring," she said, her anger barely containable. "These researchers are saying 'We would much rather support eating disorders over a girl with a little bit of weight on her.' They use the word 'chubby' -- who are they referring to? Plus models range from a size 6 to 16, with an average height 5'10", maybe 6'. That's 'chubby'?!"
In fact, the vast majority of plus-sized models would actually be considered thin by most of our standards. Earlier this week, I sat on a body image-and-fashion panel with Ford model Andrea Wozniak - a striking brunette with a killer figure (I'm estimating 5'11" and 130 pounds) who was recently booked for a plus-sized photo shoot. And a few months ago, I appeared on the Today Show with modeling It-Girl Crystal Renn, where I was whomped upside the head with the realization that this plus-size model was not big in any way, shape or form. If you ever saw her shopping in the Plus department of a clothing store, you'd think she was picking up a gift for a friend.
So clearly, the fashion industry's standards are wildly inappropriate and totally off-base. But more to the point, these Italian researchers and their dangerous conclusion is incredibly insulting and shaming. We know, both from anecdotal and scientific evidence, that looking at skinny models makes women feel horrible about ourselves. It drives us to starve our bodies, throw up our food, exercise for hours on end, slice open our bodies and have the fat vacuumed out.
But judging by the massively positive response to images such as "The Woman on Page 194" in Glamour magazine, seeing images of women that resemble our own, real physiques makes us feel encouraged and body-positive.
"Women are starting to call bullshit," Halchishick said. "People were appalled by the Ralph Lauren photoshop disaster. Women spend the money so if we're not happy with how we're being advertised to, we can voice our opinions and make a change. We're not saying only use big models. But the industry's perception of "big" is wrong. They're 5'10" and a size 6. In the real world, you would consider them thin. Our mission is to change that."
One way she's making that change: Her "Healthy is the New Skinny" campaign and Perfectly UnPerfected (P.U.P.) program for high school students. Katie, along with her boyfriend (former model Brad Wilcox) and Dr. Hugo Schwyzer, a professor of gender studies at Pasadena Community College.
We survey these girls and 95% of them admit to throwing up or restricting their food to lose weight. They all want to be a size 0 or 1. They hate their bodies and wish they could be skinny with bigger boobs and perfect hair. Teenagers already feel so horrible about their bodies. This new research tells them 'You need to look up to rail thin models so you don't become fat, worthless women.'
Maybe Drs Dragone and Savorelli need to check out this P.U.P. video interviewing high school women about their before-and-after responses to hearing Halchishick and her crew speak:
Before: "I woke up every morning hating myself [after seeing] constantly viewing petite women on the screen, perfect bodies."
After: "It helped me realize there are a lot of different kinds of beauty and everyone can embrace their own. I feel a lot better about who I am."
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rebecca
www.theMEmovement.com
Human bodies don't like to lose weight. Period. The human body evolved to hold on to the weight it has and regain any weight that's lost - and then some - as a protection against future lean times; but except for starving third-world countries, we all face a never-ending glut of food.
If one starts dieting in adolescence, losing weight and then regaining it plus a bit more, losing and gaining, losing and gaining, by the time one reaches middle age the extra weight becomes harder and harder to lose and the rebound weight gain faster and greater. Diets are destined to fail and leave their victims unable to relate to food in a healthy way.
Until our ideal is to be healthy, regardless of weight, we are doomed to be a nation - a planet - of hefty people. Only a tiny fraction of people can look like Twiggy (or Kate Moss or whatever other ultra-thin model is held up as ideal) and maintain health.
I love the fact these smart young women are standing firm, starting their own businesses and promoting health. As a 51 year old who makes it a priority to exercise and lift weights - nothing beats the mental hit from sweat and being strong. I am still a plus size gal and probably considered obese but my Dr. told me my "numbers" are like a young persons: I love my curves. When I hear a young girlfriend (I have friends of all ages, sizes) talk down on herself - I then call her on it!
The focus needs to be on wellness - it is the foundation. I feel sorry for young people who were raised without a strong sense of self-esteem from within and let the external images of a highly glamorized youth culture be a compass for happiness, acceptance.
So in reading this, it appears women are being led to starve themselves, or agonize over their bodies, by other women (the models) and the “fashion industry”. Of course the fashion industry caters almost exclusively to women, and the magazines mentioned are exclusively women’s magazines. I’ve yet to meet a man who can name the type of handbag, shoes or dress a woman is wearing. For the most part (and I speak from experience), the women I know buy these things to impress other women.
As long as women buy the products that promote these images, these images will persist. So again, who’s the villain?
It seems inconsistent to me to hold up as role models women like Helen Gurley Brown who, through their work, perpetuate the anxieties women face. If, as you seem to agree, this is mostly a problem by women inflicted on women, won't women have to be the ones to solve it? How about boycotting magazines that feature these models? Or boycotting what they sell?
For women that stay stuck in body image there must be an underlying mental health issue or refuse to grow up. Wisdom comes with age and experience. Most of the women I hang with of all ages are not obsessed with body image but rather wellness, strength. They are advocates for change, tolerance and acceptance.
William Anderson, LMHC, Licensed Psychotherapist, author of 'The Anderson Method'.
That's completely anecdotal, and there is no reason to think that is a representative sample. In fact, scientific study suggest the opposite tends to occur for average weight women: To quote a summary of a groundbreaking international study involving ASU* that is among the first to compare the effects of the sizes of models on female viewers of ads, "..normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to moderately heavy models, such as those in Dove soap’s ‘Real Women’ campaign, than after exposure to moderately thin models.”
Of course both underweight and plus-sized models in ads tend to negatively affect self esteem in average weight women, but to assume that underweight models have a worse affect just based on intuition and fan mail is not helpful those who actually want to minimize harm to self esteem, rather than just rant about skinny models.
This whole article seemed primarily focused on not rejecting the study because of the conclusion rather than whether it was true or false (there were no methodological concerns raised,) just: this is offensive, so it must be wrong. That's not how science works!
* "Study: Ads with plus-size models unlikely to work" by Debbie Freeman