Body Image & Govt Initiatives

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

After seeing an entry on my blog, panookah suggested I posted it here with some additional commentary. At first I wasn't sure there would be any political ties to it, but then something came to me, so here goes nothing.

Yesterday, a 15-year-old from Sweden named Julia Schneider won the Elite Model Look contest in Shanghai. This is her at the competition:



When I was about 5 years old, my mother was both anorexic AND bulimic. There was a Polaroid picture of her that somehow ended up in my possession of her standing next to my grandparent's avocado-colored fridge in 1986 and she was so thin, her clothes were hanging off her body. She wasn't as skeletal as young Julia, but the picture still makes me cry every time I see it. The reason being is because by the time my mother was 33, she was diagnosed with a heart condition. She'd caught a virus and it weakened her heart muscle. Her doctors told her they suspected her eating disorder caused her heart to be weak enough for the virus to damage it further.

On the other side of that coin is me. I promised my mother I'd never take the same road she took. For most of my youth, I was a skinny kid. I was at my skinniest during my mother's second marriage, one of the worst times in my life due to abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual). After that, I chunked out. I put up a wall of fat to keep myself from every being touched again. It took me years to figure that out. Now I'm working hard to correct a problem that took years to develop.

I have two 14-year-old cousins whom I adore. I would hate for them to look at a magazine and think that a woman who looks the way Julia does is something to strive for. There are websites all over devoted to "thinspiration" photos, pictures of woman who are literally skin & bones and little else.

As far as government intervention, I'm not talking about legislation or anything like that. Right now, the First Lady has a "Let's Move" initiative and I took a look at the website. It's great that they're trying to encourage kids to eat healthier, but I think something should be done in that program to also promote a healthy body image. Nearly 2 out of 100 teens in the U.S. has an eating disorder, and eating disorders mainly affect women due to social and societal pressures.

I brought up in my post that I think the fashion industry and magazine publishers should be ashamed of themselves and do something to change the problem. But I also think since the people in this community are so politically inclined, we should do more to encourage our legislators to use their platform of power wisely. We have Congress members who stand up during session to recognize marshmallow Peeps or a sports team victory. I'd personally like to see someone bring this up in Congress.

Comments

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

On oter boards the appropriate response to that picture would be "I can't fap to that".

Better:

To me at least.

Better perhaps?



And of course:

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

I wasn't trying to take your post unseriously, I just think that model looks gross. It reaffirms my belief that the fashion industry is infested with heroin addicts, I don't see how any normal guy could think she looks attractive.

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

I find it intriguing that in addition to posting videos by a man extolling the virtues of a "thicker" frame, you posted a video of a girl who is, max, a size 2, apparently as an example of what you consider to be a fuller and more robust body.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

i have no been introduced to melanie iglesias and i think i am in love.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

And then one of the girls behind her bumped her stand and she fell over with a clatter.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

I am also not trying to make light of it, I mean that literally looks like a horror story to me.

[di-glossia.livejournal.com]

I suffer from an ED, and I think this is a terrible idea. How could you possibly support the proposition that private businesses should adhere to an idea of a healthy body image because 2% of the population of American children has an eating disorder? And using an athletic, fifteen-year-old from another country who won a foreign contest as a model for what's wrong with the fashion industry?

Anorexia in particular has strong ties to heritability, while bulimia tends to coincide with affective disorders. The modeling industry should be able to do as it pleases in regards to choosing its employees. The true issue is society's acceptance of these employees and their body types, as well as pressure from peers and family. Eating disorders are not caused solely by the fashion industry or the media. They are the result of societal pressures being introduced to an individual who already suffers from cognitive distortion and control issues.

Why should industries be punished by law for choosing a particular look to their models? There are modeling agencies that deal in fuller figured women and plus size women. Would you then turn to them and say that they are influencing young women to be overweight or even obese? The problem is not the industry: it is the perception some children receive that certain body types are the ideal. Either these children are too exposed to the media or live in a toxic environment that causes them to believe so.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Why should industries be punished by law for choosing a particular look to their models?

As I've said below, I don't think regulation would be the answer here, but there is an argument that can be made that it's an occupational health and safety issue and that modelling agencies are promoting an unhealthy work environment.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

So media and industry aren't the problem, but if they are having a negative effect it's because the kids are too exposed to it?

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

That's... not really athletic.

I mean this. It isn't. It's not just her paleness, I'm sure that's mostly makeup, or the lifelessness in her pose. She's got no discernible muscle tone (the only bicep definition I see there is near the bone, not on the upper side) and I don't expect her to have much endurance. Maybe she tries to work out and such, I'm not trying to say she isn't, but it's not building her up.

More on topic, "fuller figured" is pretty much closer to what your average woman looks like, so if modelling agencies worked more with that it actually might be a bit better. Even more so, though, we're in an artificial loop; Photoshop is done on all cover images to make them look thinner, models need to have a bit of fantasy for the product to sell, the extreme just gets pushed out further.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

The problem is not the industry: it is the perception some children receive that certain body types are the ideal. Either these children are too exposed to the media or live in a toxic environment that causes them to believe so.

I think you just counted a forest and no trees.
'The [fashion] Industry', and more generally the industry of image which encompasses most visual marketing in most consumer businesses, constitutes a toxic environment. You can't say an industry deserves impunity for the cultural environment it contributes to perpetuating, and then just say the kids are too "exposed" to it. Exposure is normal now, it's just what we ought to expect of kids raised in this culture.

It's typical, at this point, to ask "Where are the parents, to come and provide teachings which immunize their child against harmful cultural norms?" as if, since that's the way parenting's always worked, that's where the blame continues to belong. But parents didn't always have to deal with modern technological civilization, and they certainly haven't always had to clean up after this ever-escalating beauty arms-race which has swept up the image industries. Time and time again, we've shunted the burden of these (psychologically) toxic industrial byproducts onto the parents. Just how good are parents gonna have to be?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I never said industries should be punished by law. If you read my post, you would have seen I specifically said As far as government intervention, I'm not talking about legislation or anything like that. It's in the second to last paragraph, in fact.

And I know PLENTY of people who have very high metabolism to where they seem to have to eat CONSTANTLY. Not one of them looks as gaunt and skeletal as Julia does.

So in other words you're saying that MY perception is off and she looks healthy to you?

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly with you that legislation is not the answer, and that EDs are complex illnesses with complex causes. But this sentence of yours threw me:

The problem is not the industry: it is the perception some children receive that certain body types are the ideal.

So how is the problem NOT the industry again? The fashion industry, along with mainstream media, is where kids GET the perception that certain body types are the ideal. If not from fashion and media and advertising, where do you think they're getting these messages?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I agree that this isn't a regulation thing, but it is the perfect topic for things like education programmes; whether that be through the media or the education system.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

It's all that bad Swedish food making her anemic, clearly.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

what exactly does sweden have to do with anything?

[brockulfsen.livejournal.com]

I become increasingly convinced that some of the leading fashion houses are headed by freaks who want to put 12 year old boys in their frocks, and that being unacceptable, bully and starve young women to the same figure and get some sadistic pleasure from telling them they are fat.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

What you've missed in this it that people on both ends of the weight spectrum can suffer from body image issues.

I've been underweight my whole life due to a very high metabolism and the tendency to eat less when I'm stressed. I lose weight very easily but to gain I have to eat roughly 4000 calories a day and then I can gain about a pound a week. And since I was a teenager I've been dealing with the judgment of society on that. Speculations that I have an eating disorder, 'jokes' to eat a sandwich, comments like the ones in this very post about how a girl who probably weighs the same amount as me is gross and unattractive.

I'm not saying this is an ideal to look up to, or that teenage girls shouldn't be discouraged to try and look like this because of course they should. I'm saying that in this, like everything else, you should not rush to judge this girl without knowing how or why she is at that weight. And you should try to understand that people other than those who are overweight also struggle with their body image and the judging of us hurts just as much as that an overweight person feels.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

This, and that she isn't even a woman yet, she's only 15.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

There's a significantly higher rate of suicides for models, like Ambrose Olsen, who committed suicide last year at the age of 24:



Model industry is hard as hell on people.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

Deprivation and Dehydration Standard for Male Models. (http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2010/05/deprivation-and-dehydration-standard-for-male-models/)

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I may get flak for this, but I think politicizing and legislating about these types of things is a terrible idea in a country that has so many graver issues that can't be covered even halfassedly. Young boys die in gang initiations en masse, drugs and single parents living in misery carrying 4 jobs and much more.

The type of body image you're describing is not good, but it is a *very mild* symptom generally accumulated in upper to upper middle class families where the burden is on the parents to inform and support their child, and in an age where histrionic attention seeking behavior is common and should be dealt with in an engaged way (or don't have children).

If indeed this little 15 yr old modellette is sickly, the biggest blame is not society, but the parents. Just like parents in the US are to blame when they fuck up little girls by starting them on beauty pageant tracks before they're even 5 years old.

But it is a cultural thing, and we choose the culture we embrace. If there's one place in society I think we should be careful to legislate around, it's culture. There are borderline cases possibly, but this isn't it. Sure, one could give more money to schools and girl activities rather than shoving everything at boy sports, but in the end of things, an upper living standard syndrome often with parents of some means around, needs far less attention than so many other problems that are already deeply neglected.

The model world won't change, how we view it can't change from anything political, only information possibly (of which there is plenty around) and personal engagement can do that. In general I am not worried about anything happening in the model world or with anorexic girls on a societal level. These effects are not the sign of a sick society, they are, however odd it may sound, signs of privilege in combination with personal issues.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

I'm... kind of tired of flak. And I don't want to hostile at anyone.

But!

It seems to me you're putting all the blame on the kid no matter which direction this goes. She's healthy? Everything's fine and no one did anything wrong! She's not fine? Well her parents screwed her up, it's the society she chose, and if she weren't of a certain class and background she wouldn't have ED anyway. Am I reading you unfairly? It does look to me like that's what you're saying.

Society is already all over the drug problem and bickering about it right and left. Young boys choosing their circles and suffering from it seems about the same as the girl's problem, only without the "privilege" aspect. The single parent thing has to do with the economy, which everyone is also paying attention to.

The issue of weight does affect most women on a daily basis. We change our behavior, our spending, our eating, our exercise, we give food eating or abstaining moral overtones. I don't agree society has nothing to do with it. I do agree legislation is a touchy idea and I'm not sure where it would even start. But the OP just said the issue should be formally recognized in comparison to sports teams and candy. I don't see anything wrong with that.

[sarien.livejournal.com]

I used to model with Elite. I started when I was 13 in L.A. and did it until I went off to college (with my horrible body image issues, I wish I could turn back time and never step into that plastic place). Oh lordy did they subtly promote anorexia, not just the agents, but the clients as well. Yes, some people are naturally thin, but in the modeling world a natural combination of "beauty" and delicate body structure is rare. And if you are "model pretty", you have to stay "model pretty", which can get very unhealthy with ED and overexercising. Do not get me started on the racism in the industry. #coolstorybro

When you consider the millions of women who are looking at these unrealistic portrayals of women in every ad targeting them, yes it can certainly create an unhealthy body image. I'm surprised that statistic of ED isn't higher, honestly. The modeling industry is shameless and is not going to change on its own. I think we need to have a movement to improve body image and put pressure on the clothing/beauty companies to put varying body types in their ads.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input. It's great to get an opinion from someone who's been involved in a similar situation as Julia might, and I'm sorry for what it may have caused in your life. (I hope I worded that right.)

The futility of congressional intervention.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I am sorry to hear that you experienced such a horrible youth. My teens were trying times, but not that harsh.

As for action on the part of legislators, I doubt that anything they could say or do would have any impact on young people.

Re: The futility of congressional intervention.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm just glad that my mom is still alive. The doctors told her if she didn't make some drastic changes, she wouldn't see me graduate high school. Not only was she there to see me get my diploma, she'll be around to watch me get married.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

the fashion industry and magazine publishers should be ashamed of themselves

They should be, yes. They wont sadly. Maybe if we stopped throwing money at their monstrosities, that would be a wake up call.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

The fashion industry likes these kinds of models because they want a walking coat-hanger for the runway shows.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Use robots. We have the technology.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

When did the heroin-addict look become ideal?
I know my opinion doesn't matter but I think its gross.