(Feature) On January 12, 2007, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced strict new requirements for models, which included requiring professional help for models with eating disorders. Lynn Grefe, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association applauded these efforts but also pointed out that more needed to be done. “Simply making a suggestion is a band-aid on a much larger wound. Our concern is who is going to monitor this program? What are the next steps? Eating disorders kill.”
Eating disorders are just the tip of the iceberg; a huge iceberg that no number of industry guidelines will shrink. Our young women are in crisis. They are growing up with an unhealthy body image and poor self esteem. Too many of them are attempting to fit into ideals that are not realistic.Poor body image and self esteem are the most negative issues affecting young women in today’s society Poor body image is characterized by feeling or thinking about your body and the way it looks in a negative, critical way. This negative view results in poor self esteem, and self-destructive behaviour such as binging, purging, cutting, unnecessary plastic surgery, and even suicide.
As a young woman who has struggled with weight and poor self esteem, I know what it is like to not feel “normal”. It is hard to go through life at five feet tall and 160lbs when it seems like most of my peers are five ten and 120lb. I don’t deprive myself but I look in the mirror and feel fat, I get frustrated when I try on clothes that aren’t proportioned for my size, and I look at tall thin girls walking down the street with envious eyes. I am not alone - this is the reality for most girls my age, and younger.
In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35% of girls aged six to 12 years old have been on at least one diet and that 50-70% of normal weight girls believes they are overweight. How did we get here? The blame cannot be placed on any one factor, but we can’t deny that there are industries that are major contributors to this problem, and continue to perpetuate it to their advantage.
The fashion industry: “Thin is in”
Judging by the CFDA guidelines I mentioned above, as well as charitable work in other areas, it is clear the fashion industry has a conscience. However, much of the activities of this industry are contradictory. Models featured in fashion spreads are all tall and slim with perfect complexions and features. As Geneen Roth points out in Prevention magazine: “Even fashion models don't look like their images. Their sags, blemishes, and cellulite magically disappear with a few clicks of a mouse wielded by a talented photo retoucher.”
Average women are not featured prominently on runways or in magazines, except for the occasional special issue, and size 2 is the average designer sample size when the average woman in North America is a size eight to twelve. The average model weighs 23% less than the average woman, which is ironic considering average women are the ones buying the clothes models strut down the runway. According to Kate Fox of the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, UK, fashion magazines are banned in most eating disorder clinics because of their “known negative effect on patients' body-image”.
The selection of larger sizes in most fashion retail stores is severely lacking and many stores, such as the Gap, only have plus-sizes available online. Much of the clothing featured in “14 +” stores is not on trend, and does not always take into account what flatters a larger woman. Most clothing seems to be cut straight and slim, not for curvy physiques. Not to mention, as one 20-year-old college student pointed out to me: “It doesn’t help having stores called Addition Elle with large sizes because I feel embarrassed walking into one of those stores…it makes us feel even worse about ourselves”. Most of us do not need a reminder that we are not the skinniest of girls every time we go shopping.
I am disappointed that most fashion magazines and designers pay lip service to the issue of the thin ideal in fashion, while not actually making any substantial changes or acknowledging their role in the problem. This is appalling for an industry whose foundation is built on creativity, innovation, and consciousness. I was excited when I received my latest issue of Vogue and saw that it was the “Shape Issue”. I was proud that there was an article devoted to discussing the “too thin debate”, the usual clothing spread showing how to wear the latest couture for every shape and size, and even a “fashion diary” of Ashley Graham, a size 16 model! However, my pleasure slowly dissipated as I combed through page after page of designer ads with the usual skeletal models, and read the article on cover girl, Scarlett Johansson who was described as “curvy”. Clearly, the fashion industry standard of a curvy body is frighteningly out of step with reality.
I agree with Editor Anna Wintour’s statement that “the main safeguard against developing an abnormal relationship to food is to have a healthy self-image” but I was disappointed that the magazine contained very little to help foster this healthy self-image amongst readers.
The cult of celebrity: “Poor role models”
The 2005 British Journal of Health Psychology article, “Intense personal celebrity-worship and body image” states the following: “One of the most important psychological influences of media, particularly during adolescence, is the formation of para-social relationships with media figures. These may take the form of intense attachments to celebrities where the values of the celebrity are highly influential, providing young people with attitudinal and behavioural exemplars. During adolescence, these figures may begin to usurp the role accorded to parents in earlier periods as teenagers become increasingly independent.”
The article discusses the case of 14 year-old “Kara”, who “amid some domestic unrest, latched on to fashion model Kate Moss (‘so cool, I wanted to be like her, under control’). By dieting, she strove to emulate Moss’s figure, but as with many developing girls it was not possible to remain healthy on such a diet and she was eventually diagnosed as anorexic.”Unfortunately there are countless girls like “Kara” that starve themselves in order to look like their favourite celebrity. Celebrity obsession has reached new heights and with some parents being increasingly absent and oblivious, young girls often have no better role models then Lindsay Lohan and Mary Kate Olsen (who entered rehab to treat anorexia just last year). And why wouldn’t teenage girls look up to them? They are beautiful, rich, popular, and travel the world; they seem to have it all.
Everywhere you look there are celebrities; commercials, television shows, magazine covers, billboards, websites, advertisements, videos, etc. It is impossible to escape or ignore them. You don’t even need to have talent, integrity, or intelligence to be famous anymore. You can be famous for having famous friends and rich parents, or for partying at the hottest clubs.This is especially true for young female celebrities. Not only are these young women constantly grabbing headlines, they are painfully thin. They are not only thin; they are getting breast implants, taking drugs, and starving themselves. They are drunks, drug addicts, and anorexics that are constantly in and out of rehab centres. The April 5th episode of Access Hollywood even talked about the frightening new trend of “rehab as ‘spa’” and the fact that it seems to be a “right of passage” and a way to pick up headlines for the young Hollywood beautiful.
They are not only paparazzi targets; they also sell diet products, fitness equipment, skin care products, make-up, hair dye, and model skimpy clothing on their ultra-thin frames.Young, naïve, impressionable, vulnerable women are trying desperately to measure up and are killing themselves in the process. Over 5 million girls and women in North America suffer from anorexia (of which 5-10% will die from the disease), and over 11,000 girls under 18 got breast implants in 2003 (triple the number from 2002). As Dr. Susan Sabin of the Renfrew Centre in Philadelphia says: “These glamorous teen celebrities seem to have it made…it appears that their lives are trouble-free, happy, and constantly entertaining – and the vehicle to all that is a perfect, skinny body.”What average young women don’t see is that their idols have personal trainers, make up artists and plastic surgeons on speed dial. Young female celebrities also work in an incredibly competitive and fickle industry and despite their careless behaviour, are human with the same fears and insecurities that “average” girls have. It’s too bad they have been elevated beyond human status and as such are the perfect foil for the projected anxieties of their young fans.
The image epidemic: What can we do?
Although there are many things that aren’t being done, there is a movement attempting to make positive changes and to give young girls the tools they need to develop strong self esteem.
The Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” is one of the pioneers of this movement. Their advertisements feature real, average women of all shapes, sizes, and ages and develop products that help women look and feel beautiful in their own skin. Campaignforrealbeauty.com states that the goal of the campaign is to “provoke discussion and encourage debate about the nature of beauty. Dove hopes to change the way women perceive their bodies, and their beauty, by widening the definition of what it means to be beautiful. The brand is using images of real women with real bodies and real curves to accomplish this goal.” The website also includes various tools that women and their daughters can take advantage of including a self esteem fund, beauty e-cards, films, and discussion boards.
Television shows like Ugly Betty, plus-size magazines like “Radiance”, “web rings” like Bibri.com for eating disorder sufferers, regulations like the CFDA ones mentioned above, and programs devoted to the empowerment of young girls, like the Girl Scouts are all helping to improve the body image and self esteem of young girls.
One can only hope that one day we will live in a world where young women can feel good about themselves, no matter their size, shape or appearance. There is progress being made, but we have a long way to go. To get there we all need to do our part and make small changes. For example, did you tell your daughter, sister, mother, friend, or coworker that she is beautiful today? Have you ever done this? If not, you should. It may seem like a small thing but you’d be surprised. It could make a difference not just in her day, but her life.
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