Letters to the Editor
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Kid's clothing
So who exactly is going to model children's clothing now?
A strict BMI limit (restricting those both under and over a healthy BMI range) would seem to be a first step, not some arbitrary age limitation. An anorexic 16 year old should not be modelling any more than an anorexic 15 year old.
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That's funny!
When children are modeling children's clothing they are not made to look like they are 20!
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Kid's clothing?
HOw much of THAT do you see on the catwalk? Runway models aren't modeling children's clothing.
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oh, oxymoron. There you go confusing people by stating the obvious!
Nice job!
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Hmm...
I'm torn on this issue. As a person whose recovered from an eating disorder, I understand how the media and fashion industry are to blame, at least in part, for the current prevalence of EDs. I think that it is much more due to print advertisements and television ads than the catwalk, however, as the average person doesn't often see the latter.
However, I find myself objecting to any weight requirement--to gain or lose weight for a job, any job, seems counterproductive to the idea of size acceptance. The designers should be required to hire models of multiple sizes, not just at the slim margin of just at a BMI of 18.5 (cause you know they're not going over that if not required to.)
The fashion authorities should screen for the health of their models, not their BMI. As we know, weight is a poor indicator of healthy. And even at 16, was I technically underweight? Yes. Did I have an eating disorder? Nope, that didn't develop for two more years.
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No panacea...
...but I'm in favor of anything that helps protect these girls from exploitation.
Considering a girl can go from "perfect" (in the mind of the idiots in the industry) to "no good" in the course of a year, I'd say "yearly checkups" are too seldom. Maybe *random* monthly blood draw to check for signs of malnutrition, drug abuse, imbalanced blood chemistry, etc. would be better. This would eliminate some of the arbitrariness of BMI limits.
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other industries
that involve occupational health hazards require frequent screenings to ensure the well-being of the workers and the integrity of the industry. Porn actors have STD tests, athletes have drug tests (the efficacy of which can certainly be debated, but that's neither here nor there). Why not the fashion industry?
Probably because the fashion industry is convinced that it is "above" such mundane concerns as health, and the "girls", with the exception of the 1% that actually get famous, are nothing but interchangeable, disposable paper dolls. The fashion industry's product isn't clothes, it's images of unattainable perfection, and forcing it to confront these issues compromises that goal. It doesn't do to look at a picture of a girl in a $20K dress and think of her puking her guts out after eating a rice cake.
I worked as a high-fashion model for a long time, and I agree with other posters here that BMI and age are a red herring. But reform in the industry will not happen without force of law and the threat of harsh penalties; fashion designers, models and modeling agencies cannot be trusted to police themselves, because they're convinced that only "the little people" take this stuff seriously. A union for fashion models, something along the lines of SAG, would help, but it'll never happen -- the industry is too competitive, and there are too many girls who would scab their way to the grave. It's a jungle out there.
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responsibility
I'll articulate the likely unpopular position that it really isn't the employer's job to monitor the health of its workers. Given the propensity of eating disorders in modelling, it is entirely appropriate to make support and health care services readily available, but that is enough.
Can anybody cite any other industries where people are barred by law from working for their own sake? In sports, performance enhancement is banned to preserve the fairness of competition. For saftey reasons, many people who operate potentially dangerous equipment (aircraft, buses, landmovers) are monitored for substance use. In jobs that require physical strength (ie: soldier, firefighter), injuries can get one re-assigned to a desk job. In most cases these are all employer policies, adopted without the mandate of law.
So help me out - what sort of precedents exist for this radical proposal?
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re: As a person whose recovered from an eating disorder, I understand how the media and fashion industry are to blame, at least in part, for the current prevalence of EDs.
if this is what you believe, you haven't recovered at all - take responsibility for your life...
geeze...
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if you're 16 you can't fashion clothes...
but here, have a condom - and if you get pregnant, let's go get an abortion - you don't even have to tell your parents...
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if this is what you believe, you haven't recovered at all - take responsibility for your life...
I'm not even sure what you mean by this. What did you think I meant? Spell it out for me. Oh, and way to go posting anon.
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Re: responsibility
If we were talking about adults you might have a point – but we’re talking about girls UNDER the age of 16. Asking a child to be responsible for her own health in an industry that prizes thinness above all else seems to be asking too much.
We don’t send children down to coal mines anymore because of the harm it can do to their developing bodies. We shouldn’t send children to fashion shows for the same reason.
Plus I think that adults sexualizing a girl in her early teens is just gross. I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t find it icky.
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No scientific study can detect anorexia
Anorexia isn't like leukemia. It's a pyschological condition that presents physically, emotionally and psychologically, but not with strictly identifiable 'symptoms'.
I was anorexic for 12 years. ONly for 3 was I thin in a way that would cause people to comment and then only people who had known me somewhat heavier. I was 5'3 and my weight ranged from 75 - 92 lbs. Rarely did anyone tell me I looked sick, especially when I dressed up and wore make up. I was high functioning - I went to college on an athletic and academic scholarship and had a teaching assistantship for my Masster's and my Ph.D. at a good school.
I went to therapy for my eating disorder, but knew many many many girls who were as or more obsessed with food than I, vomited regularly (I rarely purged) and abused laxatives and did not consider themselves to have an eating disorder, since all of their friends did it and their weight was thin-to-normal.
Eating disorders are like autism - there is a fairly wide spectrum of disordered behaviors and results of those behaviors. The best way to assess if/where someone falls on the spectrum is to measure their caloric intake and their caloric burn. But girls and women lie about how much they eat and how hard they exercise to burn off what they ate. Most want to present themselves to the world as naturally thin, eating all they want, never exercising and just happen to have a super high metabolism that keeps them 30% lighter than other women their age and height.
The real issue with the modeling industry isn't disordered eating - it's promoting unhealthy standards of thinness that are damaging to both the model and the public. The best way to stop promoting those standards is to stop accepting models that represent them - a simple visual inspection can tell you this. We all know too thin when we see it. It's not necessary to measure BMI or do scientific studies. The modeling industry is hiding behind these measures because when push comes to shove it doesn't want to stop too-thin women from modeling and promoting an unhealthy standard of thinness - thin models sell clothes because thin looks better, at least from a clothing designer's POV, i.e. the less a body interferes with the drape of fabric, the better the design looks.
The only way to effect real change is to hit the industry in it's wallet.When the wealthy, celebrities and fashion editors that stoke the modeling industry's customer base start refusing to support designers that utilize too-thin models by not attending their shows (or conspicuously leaving and explaining to the papparazzi how they can't support such dangerous practices being presented to the public as a 'model' or ideal) and not wearing or accepting advertising for their designs, then there will be change.
Fashion modeling isn't the only industry that is remiss for presenting girls as women. The cosmetics industry is as bad or worse. Girls younger than 21 are routinely selling 'age defying'skin care and make up products. With the exception of More magazine, it's impossible to find a women older than 25 pushing a facial cream or eye shadow. This creates a hysteria over the aging process that is far more damaging to women's self-esteem than the thin factor - you can always get thin, but you can never get younger.