As skinny has been considered the norm for the fashion world for the last four decades, and the cause of an epidemic for women around the world, Spain’s top fashion show has banned all models that do not have a body mass index over 20. The organizers of Pasarela Cibeles (the top fashion show) are part of a larger movement to stop the worldwide trend of women being emaciated and thin, but instead projecting a look of heath and beauty.
Thank you Spain for finally taking a stand!!
And, according to several sources, the trend is not likely to happen in the US or Italy, unfortunately. But, this new revolt against skinny models can only give the rest of the world’s women hope for a brighter world where the full-figured woman is celebrated.
Being 21, I have been a part of the American confusion to eat whatever you want and still weigh 125 lbs. I, along with every woman that has been a teen since 1986, have dealt with an eating disorder. From counting every calorie I consume in a day to seeing how long I can go without eating, my body has endured my ridiculousness.
Several of my friends have gone off the deep end. In high school, I remember a good friend of mine who was a cheerleader- perhaps a bit chubbier than the others, but still a beautiful girl- telling me that she was going on a soup diet. In a month, she went from a normal looking 130 to 87 lbs. She had to go to the hospital because her heart was stopping… and it was the desire to be thin that almost killed her.
Currently, I have a friend that has fought her weight for several years before I knew her in college. She has always just eaten healthy and exercised until last May, when she started to go overboard with dieting and running. Now when I see her sunken cheekbones and her troubled confidence, I wish I could somehow stop her pain.
It is amazing what the fashion world can do to society, especially when joined with Hollywood. From the age of 13 until I was 17, I was a student fashion reporter for a syndicated newspaper, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I wrote fashion stories, and, yes, I modeled for the publication. People, especially photographers, always applauded the work we did in the paper because we never used agency models, but we used typical high school kids in DFW to model in the “Back to School” and “Prom Season” spreads.
After being set on writing for a fashion magazine, I was astounded at the stories from friends who interned at large magazines in New York that said that they were expected to be as thin as the models that they were writing about.
My family has always valued the ability to be thin. My oldest sister is a healthy 97 lbs. and looks a bit like a Bosnian refugee in a bikini. My middle sister was a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, so naturally she was always on a diet. Not being able to compete with either of my sisters on weight, I learned to just give up on trying to be super thin. But it would always be shoved in my face by my parents who would tell me when I looked like I had gained weight and would always make me buy the largest size in old women’s clothing because they said that I could not wear the “teeny bopper” styles since I was not skinny enough.
Although I learned to brush off this criticism of my weight from family and school mates by being very successful in my studies, it scares me how many girls face this analysis daily and take extreme measures to lose the weight. Again, I strongly believe that it is another mechanism of our society that holds women back from their full potential.
Next summer I plan to intern in Los Angeles, and I am scared that my weight will be an issue. Thanks to the insanity of anorexia and cocaine in Hollywood, the standard for women’s appearance on the West Coast is impossible. I fear that my struggle to fit in New York will be minimal compared to image-obsessed public of LA.
My hopes are that this new health movement in Spain will transfer to the United States. Consumers will revolt and no longer want to look at emaciated models, the epidemic of anorexia and bulimia will end because girls will realize that skinny is ugly, and some Marilyn Monroe icon will arise and set the standard for sexiness.
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