TAKING ON TOO-THIN MODELS-REALITY OR DREAM?

TAKING ON TOO-THIN MODELS-REALITY OR DREAM?

On Tuesday of this week there was an article at CBSnews.com that tries to address the issue of too-thin models in the Quebec region specifically. I say “tries to address” because this issue isn’t new and we have all heard this before. Young, teen-age models who are rail-thin are today’s newest supermodels, and you can find numerous little waifs strutting down the catwalk of every top designer’s runway. Fashion and the media have started to pay closer attention to the weight of models after twenty-two year old model, Luisel Ramos, died from malnutrition in 2006. Some major modeling firms began turning away too-thin girls based on their body mass index measurements, which should normally be around eight-teen percent. Other designers and firms like, Marks and Spencer, aren’t as sympathetic and don’t believe that health should be determined by this BMI method.
I think that this article and the issue in general raises a very valid question about today’s society and what we deem as “healthy”. What body image is being projected at our fashion loving little sister’s and daughter’s? Is too-thin beautiful? It seems that way in Hollywood, the cinema and all over the fashion world, but whatever happened to the women like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor who flaunted their curvy size twelve and sixteen figures? We do have the few Beyonce and J.Lo’s in the rich and famous scene, but I have read the snarkie remarks that tabloid writers publish; “Beyonce…is she just a few Oreo’s from being a big-girl?” Fashion has such an enormous influence over young people and women in general that it does have the power to make girls starve themselves or go on crazy celery and diet coke diet’s.
I am just asking where do we draw the line and start to get rid of this taboo subject of body weight and stop harming our beautiful young girls. We are women. We are curvy and have breast and thigh’s and plump asses. And that’s how our bodies are genetically made. We are made to be curvy and thick because WE are the ones that have the babies and rule the world. I just wish that being happy and healthy was beautiful, whether that healthy is a size two or a size ten.