Tuesday, June 15, 2010

::To Eat, or Not to Eat?::

Young teens and society are not the only ones suffering from the fashion industry’s love for their standard size zero, models are pushed to be thin for success and end up with eating disorders and sometimes even death.

According to Medical News Today, as many as 40% of models are currently suffering from some kind of eating disorder (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/76241.php). There is so much pressure to be stick thin and fit into the designer’s clothes, that most of these models will do anything for just a glimpse of success.

“Ana Carolina Reston, who weighed just 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds, when she died in São Paolo on Nov. 14, was the second model in recent months to succumb to an eating disorder. In August, Luisel Ramos of Uruguay died of heart failure during a fashion show, prompting Madrid to ban severely underweight models from the city's fashion week this autumn.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/americas/20iht-models.3604439.html



Honestly, who would want to look like this? These models look more like skeletons than real human beings. More and more cases and deaths in the fashion industry are accumulating and the move to use healthier models is the focal point to fixing this problem. Designers such as Giorgio Armani are urging designers to quite using ultra thin models in response to the recent deaths. If this is not a wake up call for the fashion industry to change its ways, I don’t know what is.

Former model Crystal Renn, author of the book ‘Hungry,’ struggled as a young model with an eating disorder. Her book ‘Hungy’ is a memoir about her life and how she learned to love herself and her curves. She hopes that with this book other models and women dealing with body issues will learn to love who they are and provide a common ground in order to help them with their issues as well.

In an excerpt from her book she states: “I was hardly alone in my descent into weight obsession and madness. Five to 10 million Americans have eating disorders. Even women without clinical eating disorders spend a heartbreaking amount of time obsessing about their weight, hating their bodies and thinking that if they were only thinner; their lives would be richer, fuller, and happier.”

Although she identifies with the people who have eating disorders and she has experienced an eating disorder herself, she came to a self actualization and fought through her tough times.

“Here's the strange part: Call it crazy or ironic or simply perfect justice, but when I stopped starving myself, my career took off. That was when I shot five international editions of Vogue and the covers of international editions of Harper's Bazaar and Elle. That was when I starred in Dolce & Gabbana's ad campaign. That was when I worked the runway as the final model in Jean Paul Gaultier's prêtà- porter show in a gauzy, breathtaking, form-fitting fairy-tale dress covered in an explosion of tissue-paper-thin silk flowers. That was when I appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show ." That was when I became the highest-paid plus-size model in America. That was when I became a favorite model of the man who took that amazing picture of Gisele in 2000: the great Steven Meisel. And I did it all at the weight my body wanted to be.”

Renn thought that to be successful she had to be stick thin and be a size zero in the fashion industry, but when she started respecting herself and loving her body her career started to blossom.
Former models that have had eating disorders need to speak out and share their stories. With so many models suffering from eating disorders and society’s want for a smaller waist, there needs to be someone out there telling them that it is unhealthy. More models and people telling younger women that it is more important to be happy with yourself is what the fashion industry needs right now.

Katherine McPhee is another celebrity that has talked about her experiences and tells that there are other ways to lost weight without the use of an eating disorder.
“The more I focused on my weight, the worse my bulimia got,” says the American Idol runner-up, 25. “Now I’m more easygoing. I stopped fighting myself and became more forgiving of my body. Ironically, the weight came off naturally through exercise but no dieting.”

The fashion industry needs to step up and start educating and making sure that their models are healthy. Not only will banning stick thin models help reduce the amount of eating disorders, personal testimonies from models who have changed their ways and became healthier will have a positive affect on the way society perceives their bodies.
“We hope that by issuing health guidelines to designers, the American fashion industry is finally beginning to acknowledge the dangers of extreme thinness in female fashion models, as well as the negative impact on perceived body image among those who look up to these models. There is still much more the American fashion industry can do to ensure the protection of young women and men who model; for example, models should be required to pass a physical examination before walking the runway to make certain they are in proper health form, while designers should include models of various weights and body types in runway shows and fashion magazines to show that different body types can look good in a variety of fashions.”

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