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Lethal fashion trend of skinny models-- Should it change?
- Thread starter Chou Toshio
- Start date
Influence in the media changes depending on some things. Smoking is highly frowned upon in the UK, all pupils in state schools have pd lessons telling them that smoking is awful. However Peer pressure still gets people to smoke.
In terms of eating disorders and body image issues, the media is sort of the peer pressure. Being told by parents and school that smoking is really bad, people I know who are quite strong willed, have been pressured into smoking.
I don't agree with what UD is saying however, I can see how that viewpoint can be arrived at. I've always been told when I'm looking unhealthy, at either end of the spectrum, as my weight yo-yos because of my hyperactive thyroid gland. I've always been told to love myself. However things like eating disorders are rarely things that get discussed in families unless someone close, or in the family has developed one. I've had discussions about it, because friends have eating disorders, and we watch Supersize v Superskinny occasionally.
However, I can appreciate that it's not the norm. Plus when I've been quite overweight. I've felt incredibly negative about myself. You get into a mindset where you don't believe people are really complimenting you, or telling the truth. You end up purely thinking that you have to change, and become more beautiful. Even if it's totally irrational. The reason, I've never dieted is because I like food too much, I'm too lazy and because eventually, my metabolism will flip and change from underactive to overactive and I'll start to lose weight again.
In terms of eating disorders and body image issues, the media is sort of the peer pressure. Being told by parents and school that smoking is really bad, people I know who are quite strong willed, have been pressured into smoking.
I don't agree with what UD is saying however, I can see how that viewpoint can be arrived at. I've always been told when I'm looking unhealthy, at either end of the spectrum, as my weight yo-yos because of my hyperactive thyroid gland. I've always been told to love myself. However things like eating disorders are rarely things that get discussed in families unless someone close, or in the family has developed one. I've had discussions about it, because friends have eating disorders, and we watch Supersize v Superskinny occasionally.
However, I can appreciate that it's not the norm. Plus when I've been quite overweight. I've felt incredibly negative about myself. You get into a mindset where you don't believe people are really complimenting you, or telling the truth. You end up purely thinking that you have to change, and become more beautiful. Even if it's totally irrational. The reason, I've never dieted is because I like food too much, I'm too lazy and because eventually, my metabolism will flip and change from underactive to overactive and I'll start to lose weight again.
BMI is a really shitty indicator of body type. All this ban will do is bias the modeling industry towards hiring tall skinny women instead of shorter skinny women.
That said, the concept of this ban...well, it could go either way. I agree with restrictions on smoking advertisements and representations of smoking in media (and even fast food advertisements but that's a different debate) so I can conceptually understand why this may be a good idea. That said, I feel like the best way to engineer social change when it comes to this is to attack the root cause instead of the symptom. As Chou said, eating disorders aren't necessarily about wanting to be skinnier - they are about wanting control. The psychological pressure behind eating disorders won't be particularly alleviated if girls don't see skinny women in media; boys are still going to find skinny women attractive, after all, and girls are still going to want to emulate their friends who are naturally skinny and gain male attention. If you want to fix this problem, do so through education and through attacking social notions of attractiveness, not media notions of the same.
That said, the concept of this ban...well, it could go either way. I agree with restrictions on smoking advertisements and representations of smoking in media (and even fast food advertisements but that's a different debate) so I can conceptually understand why this may be a good idea. That said, I feel like the best way to engineer social change when it comes to this is to attack the root cause instead of the symptom. As Chou said, eating disorders aren't necessarily about wanting to be skinnier - they are about wanting control. The psychological pressure behind eating disorders won't be particularly alleviated if girls don't see skinny women in media; boys are still going to find skinny women attractive, after all, and girls are still going to want to emulate their friends who are naturally skinny and gain male attention. If you want to fix this problem, do so through education and through attacking social notions of attractiveness, not media notions of the same.
It will move to shorter skinny women. BMI is Mass/height so taller, skinny women have lower BMIs. Shorter women would save on cost of materials.
anyway, every argument that I agree with has been stated already. Even some by Chou
Flareblitz-- the only thing I'll point out is that generally "male pressure" is not at the root of a woman's self-perception. Ever heard the phrase, girls dress for girls-- not men?
The vast majority of men don't notice or give a damn about this or that hair thingie, make-up change, hair curl, and a loss of 2 or 3 or even 7 or 8 lbs is often totally off our radar (which is why women get pissed, lol).
If it were all about men's perceptions, fashion would be much similar-- women tend to do this to themselves (each other).
Otherwise I agree.
The vast majority of men don't notice or give a damn about this or that hair thingie, make-up change, hair curl, and a loss of 2 or 3 or even 7 or 8 lbs is often totally off our radar (which is why women get pissed, lol).
If it were all about men's perceptions, fashion would be much similar-- women tend to do this to themselves (each other).
Otherwise I agree.
this is a type of subject where it's more so detrimental than beneficial to use sweeping generalizations, especially when it comes to either sex
nowhere in flareblitz's post did he mention "male pressure," chou, so I'm not sure why you're drawing those two words together out of thin air and then building on it by talking about why women like to dress themselves nicely -- for a man, you sure seem to know a lot about how women think.
while a lot of men may truly not give a damn about scrunchies, pounds lost (what about gained?) or different make up, that's certainly not a universal truth. perhaps you're comfortable in adhering to very base male stereotypes, but that's no good reason for your tangential logic.
although, I do agree that anything a girl gets upset about with her body is entirely due to comparing herself to her fellow girlfriends and those model women glamorized in magazines - they're not beating themselves up after panning through images of women in PLAYBOY, an obviously male audience-focused magazine.
still, it irks me that you're so confident in your beliefs to say that there is absolutely no male pressure or perception that factors into the fashion industry, or a girl's mind at all for how she wants to present herself. until you either gain telekinesis, or star as mel gibson in a late "what women want" sequel, I doubt you can speak with any clarity on the subject!
it's actually this type of idealism that makes me buy cosmo magazine less for the articles and moreso for the gushy embarrassing tell alls and the latest make up trends, sating my girly desires but also annoying me about cosmo "figuring out men." it's definitely a two-way street, and I think either sex thinking they can perfectly analyze and predict the other is forfeiting their own humanity as they try and strip the other sex of theirs, trying to find the knobs and dials hidden away in their junk that TRULY operate how they tick.
I'm not sure where I was exactly going with this post, but I just wanted to express my opinion about the great male and female divide when it comes to fashion and perception. you're really kidding yourself if you think it's as black and white as "men can't notice shit, girls notice all the shit, they're all going nuts because they're constantly trying to better themselves while others get worse due to eating disorders etc vicious cycle."
yeah all right, there are VERY true examples of what I said in quotations above, but to take an idea like that at face value and automatically apply it to "how men think" or "how women think" is too unfair! I hate believing the notion of anyone suffering certain problems by being a victim of their sex - it's just not that simple.
nowhere in flareblitz's post did he mention "male pressure," chou, so I'm not sure why you're drawing those two words together out of thin air and then building on it by talking about why women like to dress themselves nicely -- for a man, you sure seem to know a lot about how women think.
while a lot of men may truly not give a damn about scrunchies, pounds lost (what about gained?) or different make up, that's certainly not a universal truth. perhaps you're comfortable in adhering to very base male stereotypes, but that's no good reason for your tangential logic.
although, I do agree that anything a girl gets upset about with her body is entirely due to comparing herself to her fellow girlfriends and those model women glamorized in magazines - they're not beating themselves up after panning through images of women in PLAYBOY, an obviously male audience-focused magazine.
still, it irks me that you're so confident in your beliefs to say that there is absolutely no male pressure or perception that factors into the fashion industry, or a girl's mind at all for how she wants to present herself. until you either gain telekinesis, or star as mel gibson in a late "what women want" sequel, I doubt you can speak with any clarity on the subject!
it's actually this type of idealism that makes me buy cosmo magazine less for the articles and moreso for the gushy embarrassing tell alls and the latest make up trends, sating my girly desires but also annoying me about cosmo "figuring out men." it's definitely a two-way street, and I think either sex thinking they can perfectly analyze and predict the other is forfeiting their own humanity as they try and strip the other sex of theirs, trying to find the knobs and dials hidden away in their junk that TRULY operate how they tick.
I'm not sure where I was exactly going with this post, but I just wanted to express my opinion about the great male and female divide when it comes to fashion and perception. you're really kidding yourself if you think it's as black and white as "men can't notice shit, girls notice all the shit, they're all going nuts because they're constantly trying to better themselves while others get worse due to eating disorders etc vicious cycle."
yeah all right, there are VERY true examples of what I said in quotations above, but to take an idea like that at face value and automatically apply it to "how men think" or "how women think" is too unfair! I hate believing the notion of anyone suffering certain problems by being a victim of their sex - it's just not that simple.
Realistically, women are pressured to be skinnier because society finds skinny women attractive. Note that by "society" I don't necessarily just mean men; women compliment other women on how skinny they are all the time. It's viewed as a desirable thing, and I would argue that it's not viewed as a desirable thing because of media, but rather the other way around - modeling agencies hire skinny women because society views them as more appealing.
I don't see eating disorders as a problem that need large scale social engineering to fix. I see them as something personal that women should seek therapy and support for. Eating disorders occur for reasons that are only mildly related to the media portrayal of women, so it only makes sense to take them on a case-by-case basis. If we want to reduce the impact of eating disorders on our women, we would do so by taking the funding that would go towards enforcing this frivolous law and instead ensure that every post-pubescent girl is inundated with education on it and access to free counseling.
Besides that, the only real solution is to convince girls not to be catty towards each other, which...well, good luck.
Ahh, yes, you are correct. Either way, the policy would not accomplish the desired goal, it would just bias the selection process towards shorter models
I haven't had the opportunity to watch the video in the OP, but I did read the article about it (from the same site), which has made me a lot more skeptical about this ban than when I first read about it. Apparently, the ban "requires that agencies tell their audience if they've digitally altered pictures to make models look thinner." I was under the impression that most people were already aware of Photoshop being used to touch up advertisements; furthermore, fine print at the corner of a full-page magazine ad isn't going to indicate which parts of the model were touched up and how. And what about the photos that are digitally edited to remove blemishes (or kneecaps) and the like, which don't appear to fall under this ban in its current wording? I don't see this part of this law accomplishing much, unless the article's author has omitted certain details regarding its regulation.
Furthermore, this law "has no criminal consequences" and will be "enforced only through civil litigation." I'm not too familiar with Israel's court system, but I find it difficult to believe that an anorexic girl would be able to sue an advertiser for placing out an ad that influenced her to lose excessive amounts of weight.
All this, and as has been mentioned before, BMI isn't a completely accurate determinate of a healthy body type.
That being said, I also don't think that it's philosophically right to discriminate against a certain model of beauty, as this ban is doing. In the same vein, I don't necessarily agree that it's right for media to promote a specific model of beauty as superior to all others; however, it sells and is therefore pretty much unavoidable. Thus, I believe the conception of beauty promoted by the media might as well be any healthy one. It's not ideal, but on principle, it's no better or worse than promoting unhealthier models of body type. I see this ban as an attempt at doing just that, albeit a flawed one.
I am interested if anyone can offer a better alternative to this ban that either promotes the diversity of different body types as "beautiful" or promotes all healthy body types as "beautiful." Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty comes to mind as a similar attempt to promote "natural beauty," but it definitely had flaws as well. Ignoring its weaknesses, one advantage this ban has over such campaigns, in terms of effectiveness, is its scope, a country compared to a single agency.
Furthermore, this law "has no criminal consequences" and will be "enforced only through civil litigation." I'm not too familiar with Israel's court system, but I find it difficult to believe that an anorexic girl would be able to sue an advertiser for placing out an ad that influenced her to lose excessive amounts of weight.
All this, and as has been mentioned before, BMI isn't a completely accurate determinate of a healthy body type.
That being said, I also don't think that it's philosophically right to discriminate against a certain model of beauty, as this ban is doing. In the same vein, I don't necessarily agree that it's right for media to promote a specific model of beauty as superior to all others; however, it sells and is therefore pretty much unavoidable. Thus, I believe the conception of beauty promoted by the media might as well be any healthy one. It's not ideal, but on principle, it's no better or worse than promoting unhealthier models of body type. I see this ban as an attempt at doing just that, albeit a flawed one.
I am interested if anyone can offer a better alternative to this ban that either promotes the diversity of different body types as "beautiful" or promotes all healthy body types as "beautiful." Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty comes to mind as a similar attempt to promote "natural beauty," but it definitely had flaws as well. Ignoring its weaknesses, one advantage this ban has over such campaigns, in terms of effectiveness, is its scope, a country compared to a single agency.
