As the former beauty pageant winner ominously read from her script that “young girls want to be like” runway models (serious journalism alert!), I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of message it sends to the more ambitious young girls, who might dream of a career spent interviewing some of the world’s most influential people for decades, that a woman with such an impressive CV must still be a beauty queen in her twilight years in order to keep her TV job. The implications of that are more disturbing, in my view; adhering to an incredibly rare standard of body image is an explicit criterion for the job of a fashion model, but not for that of a journalist. And while high fashion, by its very nature, represents the excessive and unattainable, we’d rather not think that the same can be said for television “news.” 

Other observation: the reporter spoke with exaggerated incredulity as she noted that models are getting smaller while the average woman is getting bigger. But what on earth is exceptional about that? The ideals associated with unattainable luxury and privilege (the obvious domain of fashion marketing) universally tend to be an exaggeration of what is rare. Where fuller figures are increasingly common, one would expect thinness to become as exotic and idealized as a curvy physique is in countries with low food security, or as suntans are in Scandinavia. 

The industry does women no favours, and in terms of this idea of “plus size” models presenting a better image – this is no better.  Many people will never be healthy at the size of many of the plus sizes.  The whole notion of a “modelling industry” negates any celebration of individuality as women are being told about an ideal.  No matter what that ideal is, people (not just women) are different and diverse, and presenting an ideal is problematic.

As a recovered anorexic, I know that I sometimes have to fight the ugly thoughts that are sometimes triggered by discussion of, or images of, underweight women, eating disorders, etc., lest I slip back into my disorder and start restricting again.

And once again, while focusing on the fact that the arbitrary “average woman” might be sad to see skinny models, very little is focused on the fact that the model is inherently not an average woman….because she’s a girl in her mid teens.  The average model is not only a size zero and five nine, but is also between 14 and 16 years old.  Even if the presentation of fashion models was of a healthy body, there would still be no reason to compare a 14, 15, or 16 year old girl to the “average” American woman, because an average American teenage girls is WAY smaller that an adult woman.  I think this is a bigger issue, honestly, for two reasons.  One, because I think there should be a lot more concern with the “average woman” comparing herself to a teenager of any size than there is for the “average woman” comparing herself to a different adult woman who is thin.  There is more than just the issue of weight there, it is turning 15 year old girls into the height of what women should aspire to be.  Second, the focus seems to be the bad self-esteem of adult women who consume this media, but very little care is given to the fact that the runway models are not only in danger of eating disorders, but are young teens exposed to the vices that used to be reserved for “industry people” in their twenties and older, such as alcohol abuse, drug use, and hypersexualization both in and out of the spotlight.  Very little concern is given in regards to these girls, and in fact, they’re usually that target of acidic, vitriolic rage.  Because the self-esteem of the “average woman” is much, much more important than the physical safety of possibly exploited children.