There has been quite a bit of talk about regulating the
fashion runways over the past two years, after a young
Brazilian model died of causes directly tied to her
anorexia. In other words, she starved herself to death due
to pressures she probably partially felt from the field she
was in, modeling, and also most likely societal pressures
that are put on women to have very little body fat, here in
the US and abroad.
Eating disorders have gained an all time high over the past
4 decades, and it's not likely to get any better as long as
the industries that typically promote extreme skinniness
such as modeling, acting, and also any type of career where
your body is your life line. France has taken steps to
actually enforce these ideals in these industries, in a
landmark piece of legislation that's up for approval in the
French government prohibiting the promotion of extreme
dieting and weight loss.
This would apply to magazines, websites, and the runways as
well as television ads. They are basically trying to
protect young, impressionable girls from being brainwashed
into thinking this type of extreme weight is attractive,
desirable, or at it's worst, a new "acceptable" standard.
There are actually such serious offenders as websites that
have the gall to promote thinness and anorexia as well as
the eating disorder bulimia by offering tips and hints to
those that suffer these horrible, life destroying disease,
to get themselves into smaller sizes and get their weight
down.
Spain has actually already banned ultra thin models from
the runways after they became concerned that models in
Spain, where models were traditionally envied for their
more curvy, healthy bodies started shrinking more and more.
They instituted the ban on especially skinny models by
saying that you had to have a certain BMI, or body fat mass
index, in order to be able to strut your stuff on the
professional fashion runways.
I've actually seen some of the pictures of the models that
were able to walk the runways prior to this issue being
brought to the national forefront, and they really do look
sickly. It's hard to imagine that any of them ate more
than 800 calories per day, which is well below the standard
accepted 1500 or so, especially for these women who
typically must be five foot nine or taller to model
clothes, that's well under the calorie allowance they
should be consuming.
I'm usually against government interference in issues that
seem they should be privately regulated by the proprietors
of businesses such as written and print publications,
websites, and fashion shows. However, in this case, I
think it's clearly a case of the government stepping in
where needed, since these institutions are clearly not
governing themselves properly and are openly promoting an
image of sexiness and desirability and equating it with
being severely underweight, to the point of ribs stick out
and body fat being at dangerous lows.
As I talked about earlier, the death of a young Brazilian
model was what really prompted this awareness that the
fashion industry was essentially partially responsible for
the way women like her torture themselves to attain a
certain body type.
Attaining and maintaining weights that were severely under
the recommended weight and height chart certainly isn't
something that is all the fashion and beauty industry's
fault, but it certainly has added fuel to the fire for the
perfectionist personality types that tend to take these
types of ideals to extremes and resort to extreme measures
to conform to this supposed "ideal".
Some psychologists argue that women who tend to starve
themselves and succumb to eating disorders such as
anorexia, bulimia and body dysmorphic disorder would have
had these torturous diseases whether the fashion industry
promoted thinness as fashionable and sexy or not, but I
disagree. I think that the fashion industry has greatly
contributed to this false ideal.
I'm all for eating healthy and maintaining an active
lifestyle, but there comes a point when this just becomes a
sick obsession where the victim feels they have to resort
to starvation and extreme measures to get unnaturally thin
for their body frame.
I'm glad, along with countless other normal sized women
(I'm a healthy build and size, nothing too skinny), that
there are measures being taken to help end this trend of
extremity and save women and especially younger girls from
a lifetime of low self worth and esteem, and torturing
themselves to stay too thin.
----------------------------------------------------
Danna Schneider is the founder of the online source for
healthy, long term and effective dieting, including popular
diet reviews at http://www.dietingmagazine.com , where you
can also find information on weightloss products and
fitness equipment. She also founded
http://www.fitnessnewsmagazine.com , an online help site
dedicated to the latest offerings and breakthroughs in
physical fitness, reviews of exercise equipment and
workouts and more.
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