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PrintScary-thin models banned
You know the old saying: Everybody talks about frighteningly skinny models, but nobody does anything about them. Well, finally somebody did. Next week's big-time fashion show in Madrid has banned overly thin models in response to protests that girls and young women are aping their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders. Organizers say they want to project an image of beauty and health, not a waif-like or heroin chic look. But Cathy Gould, of New York's Elite modeling agency, complained that the fashion industry is being made the scapegoat for anorexia and bulimia. What's more, she told Reuters, the ban compromises the freedom of the designer and discriminates against models who have a death wish or a drug problem -- I mean, who are extremely thin by nature. But the ban is a budding trend. The mayor of fashion hot-spot Milan told an Italian newspaper she would seek a similar ban for her city's show if it used "sick" looking models.
A model commentary
"Anyone keen to see flesh -- rather than just bones -- after watching rake-thin models strutting the catwalks of New York during this week's autumn fashion shows could hop on an aircraft to Madrid. The Spanish capital's government has decided spectacles of emaciation are bad for public health and banned ultra-skinny models from the city's fashion bonanza. Any model with a body mass index of less than 18 -- a score of 18.5 is technically underweight -- will not be welcome. The decision affected one-third of the women due to take part. Observer wonders whether they might get a second chance to weigh in before next week. Given that if you are 6-foot, you'd have to weigh a paltry 135 pounds to have a BMI of 18, a Mars Bar might do the trick."
The skinny
The average woman is approximately 5'-5" and 150 pounds. Fashion models, on average, are close to 6 feet tall and barely 120 pounds. More than three-fourths have body weights below normal, according to Women's Health Weekly, which says that a quarter of them meet the criteria for anorexia nervosa.
Female body shape timeline
(Source: thesite.org/about_us)
1800s: The ideal was plump, fleshy, full-figured. Corsets made waists artificially tiny while accentuating hips and buttocks and making for digestive tract problems.
1900s-1950s: Thinner became more fashionable. By the 1920s, the Victorian hourglass gave way to the flapper, who bound her breasts to achieve a washboard profile. By the 1950s, a thin woman with a large bust was considered most attractive, thanks largely to Marilyn Monroe. Women now needed to rebuild the curves they had tried to bind and restrain.
1960s: For the first time in history, a severely underweight woman became the female ideal with the arrival of model Twiggy. Weighing in at a shapeless 91 pounds on a 5-foot-6 frame, she had the look of a prepubescent boy.
1970 to today: As the average American got heavier, Playboy magazine promoted slimness through 1978. Miss America winners after 1970 weighed less than the other contestants. The 1980s beauty ideal remained slim but required a more toned and fit look. The 1990s body ideal was Pamela "Baywatch" Anderson, an almost impossible combination of anorexia with gravity-defying breasts.
Today: Thin is in, as is artificial means such as liposuction lessen hips, buttocks and fat in general. In 1975 top models and beauty queens weighed only 8 percent less than the average women. Today they weigh 23 percent less. Both eating disorders and obesity are on the rise.
The answer: belly-dancing
In April, Joan Smith praised belly-dancing in The Independent (London):
"Belly-dancing requires a voluptuous body shape quite distinct from that of the anorexic models and half-starved celebrities who dominate Western culture. Think about it. Could Kate Hudson belly-dance? Nicole Kidman? Cameron Diaz? You can try imagining Victoria Beckham gyrating seductively in a tasselled bra and diaphanous trousers, but the effort is beyond me.
"The author J. K. Rowling complained about the impact on adolescent girls of stick-thin models, saying she did not want her daughters to grow up as 'empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones.' She's right to highlight the paradox, in societies where huge numbers of people are overweight and obese, that the desirable shape for a woman is becoming ever more insubstantial -- it's a denial of femininity as well as a health problem. Apart from cellulite, there is no bigger sin in London, Paris, New York or Hollywood than having a belly."
