Should models fatten up?

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wibble

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The organisers of London Fashion Week say they won't follow Madrid's example, where girls with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 18 were banned from taking part in catwalk shows.

The World Health Organisation says a healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 25, which means Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell would both be considered underweight. It's worked out by calculating weight compared to height.

"Stick-thin" models put girls under pressure to starve themselves, says British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. Has she got a point?

Do you think weight restrictions on models are a good idea? Will they encourage a healthier image of beauty? Is the fashion industry partly to blame for eating disorders? Or is it up to us to stay real about our bodies?
 
I think that the fashion industry may have an infulence on eating disorders, but there's so much more to it than that.

I do think that the weight restriction is a good idea. If 18.5 to 25 is healthy, then I don't think that a limit of 18 is unreasonable at all. It's not healthy to be that thin, and these fashion models are roll modles for young girls/women all over the world. They shouldn't have to think they need to be that skinny in order to be pretty or popular.

Kudos to Madrid for doing this.
 
oh yea definatly! I think Madrids idea was inspired.I mean, image aside they wouldn't let a model be over the 'healthy 25' of BMI why should they give free rein to the under 18.5's?
Is the fashion industry partly to blame for eating disorders? Or is it up to us to stay real about our bodies?
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I dont believe its black and white- no one can put you on a starvation diet, but I think all those size zero's floatin around don't help!
If those restrictions appeared across the board models would have no choice but to conform because thats their livelyhood right?
 
I have to say that I think models do have a lot to dow ith how girls feel about their bodies. But it also a very, very large part to do with celelbrities. Celebrities are the ones we see the most and are our role models.

I think that the restriction is really worth it and should be made to be world wide. I know the fact that I see girls on ramps with size 0 waists makes me feel less than perfect, and I have been skinny all my life and am often called the skinniest girl in my grade.

Kudos to wibble for posting this. :p

Kate. :)
 
I dont really think that eating disorders are coming from skinny models or the media, al lot of it have to do with your life or past or situations that happend to you. I mean than things like abuse and so on. I have a eatingdisorder to and mine came not from looking to the models. But i like to see them a litlle more fatter than the are now. Not so skinny any more, most woman are a little bit more fat than them so show more "real" woman with curfes instead of those skinny ones. I love to see more curfes by the way ;)
 
i think its not necessarily the models, but the whole media circus around them. when i hear about a recovering anorexic who is now a 'healthy size 10' and getting great work as a 'plus size model' as a size 10 how is that supposed to make me feel? 10 is not plus size, im well within my healthy range thank you very much.

i think the ban on super skinny models is a good thing. underweight models are dying, even right on the catwalk in the middle of a show. some will say they are naturally skinny and perfectly healthy, but when a 20 year old girl drops dead backstage from a heart attack she is not perfectly healthy. not to mention the pin thin, bones jutting out models are not attractive at all.
 
allmaple said:
i think the ban on super skinny models is a good thing. underweight models are dying, even right on the catwalk in the middle of a show. some will say they are naturally skinny and perfectly healthy, but when a 20 year old girl drops dead backstage from a heart attack she is not perfectly healthy. not to mention the pin thin, bones jutting out models are not attractive at all.
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Well said. I too think it is a good idea. Everyone is different and I think that we need to get real about body sizes. Where I live and work I see people of all sizes but I don't think I have ever seen some so thin as some of those models.

The pressure to be thin can be so overpowering and there was an issue some time back about how it even affects boys, not just the girls. How boys try to work out to get buff and have the 6 pack abs.
 
I dont find super skinny to be hot,in fact if I can see and count all of your bones when you are wearing a dress or whatever, then I think you are starving yourself. It's true though that the pressure to be thin has to do with both models and hollywood. I think women who have curves but are at a healthy weight are sexy.
 
I can't even stand to look at models...they look sick. The weight limit isn't even that high, even with that limit, they really would still be underweight for their height. Females are supposed to have fat on their bodies, about 16%. I feel like crap about myself whenever I look in a magazine. Banning wouldn't help in the long run, we need to get away from this skinny is beautiful attitude. Curvy women used to be consitered to be ideal, and that has gone away. Girls now have to be as stick skinny as possible.
 
Definitely! However, the designers are also to blame. It seems like they're recruting walking, human clothes hangers to show off their work. They care more about the way the clothes off on the runway than the actual people working the runway.

At the same time, they probably wouldn't look as thin if they worked out more to tone their bodies. I don't care what anyone says. Thin isn't sexy unless it has a slight athletic definition to it, ie in the hips & shoulders. It'll make 'em look slightly healthier.
 
I think that the fashion industry does have a role in the promotion of unhealthy body images in young women, in particular. However, I don't think that it the main reason why so many people are suffering from eating disorders, I think there are many other factors as eating disorder is a mental illness.

I also think that a BMI limit for models is being a little too prejudice. Not everyone who has a BMI of under 18 has an eating disorder and some people are naturally thin. I think that banning them from the catwalk is unfair. Banning thin people from the media isn't going to lower the societal expectations that many people have in regards to weight.

Anyhoo, that's just my two cents on the matter...
 
well when you think about it, models are typically 5'10", and to have a bmi higher than 18 you have to weigh more than 120 pounds. thats not an unreasonable weight, as xfcanadian said women need a particular percent body fat to be healthy. i know skinny people can be perfectly healthy, my dad has a bmi just under 19 and he eats all the time and is in perfect health. unfortunately i didnt get his metabolism :lol:

when they talked about this on oprah, there was a woman who wanted to be a model. at 5'10" and 130 pounds the agency told her to come back when she lost 15 pounds. now she said 'screw this' but you can imagine other girls would be pressured into doing unhealthy things to get to that weight (which would be underweight).

when you see some of the 'super models', like hiedi tyra or giselle, they are thin but they have curves. they look like women unlike some of the underweight models that have the bodies of 12 year old boys. and when dove did their 'campaign for real beauty' they had women of all shapes, sizes, and ages and i thought they were all beautiful. but when some guys commented on them on websites you saw things like 'disgusting fat cows!'. and you just wanted to smack them and say what does your mother look like? your sister? your girlfriend? so i think the public perception of what a model is plays a role too.
 
I think that models are meant to be a blank canvas upon which to present a designers clothes. Now I'm not saying that the fashion industry does not promote eating disorders, as I believe it most certainly does, however I read in a book called 'fashion babylon' that a piece of clothing hangs better on a person who is rake thin; the model's body does not detract from the clothes s/he is wearing (I mean, when Scarlett Johannson is at a premiere, nobody is looking at her dress) and if it were possible, a designer would send his/her clothes down the runway on coat hangers. Which seems to me to be pretty much what they are doing in this day and age ;)
 
Remember Marilyn Monroe now look at what is going down the runway! :eek:
As you can tell, I am all for the BMI restriction, Madrid had the right idea. I suppose other companies are worried about losing business, which is fair game. To me Marilyn Monroe is a what I would say is a 'perfect woman,' I don't find anyone skinnier than her at all attractive, it's just unhealthy, anyone agree with me?
 
models are typically 5'10", and to have a bmi higher than 18 you have to weigh more than 120 pounds
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See that is crazy, with my body type, I am actually underweight at 120! I am only 5'4''....I have a large frame, and losing weight won't change the shape of my bones. Yes, there are some females that are skinny naturally, but it is VERY rare. With the amount of eating disorders, something needs to change. And it isn't just the modelling world...
 
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