The reality of Anorexia in modeling

Really? Then who changed the "standard" from the Cindy Crawford "healthy" supermodel to what we have now? Did the buying public really stop buying clothes modeled by such women in favor of the super skinny...or at some point did the public simply stop seeing the healthier models?

That sounds logical...but why wasn't it just as logical prior to the 1990s?

RDKirk wrote in post #11547205
Really? Then who changed the "standard" from the Cindy Crawford "healthy" supermodel to what we have now? Did the buying public really stop buying clothes modeled by such women in favor of the super skinny...or at some point did the public simply stop seeing the healthier models?

No, not stop but prefer. It's a subtle thing. Market the same product with two different models and one will do better than the other. Maybe not by much, but better. That translates to more $$ for the manufacturers. So a woman sees and ad for a dress with a healthy looking model and sees another with a skinny model and buys the one from the skinny model. They just voted. If this happens enough times soon the advertisers will start supplying skinny models because they sell more product.

If you want this to stop, women can do so. Just refuse to buy any product marketed by a skinny model. They will disappear in time.

Of course this does not stop the disease of anorexia but it might lessen the pressure for these women to become frighteningly skinny.

If it could be proven that a fashion model has an eating disorder they should be treated in a similar fashion as an athlete that takes performance enhancing drugs. Of course it's not that easy spying on woman vs. random drug testing, but if it could be wouldn't that be nice...

I wish that any girl that thinks stick figure runway models are hot would instead look at swimsuit models or just about any girl on the G&N forum here on POTN.

I don't buy that because I do marketing myself. I'm well aware of my deliberate efforts to plant ideas into womens' heads to sell my products. The industry insiders do decide the "look" they intend to push, the direction they want to go, and they do it deliberately. If they wanted to go back to the Crawford/Brinkley body type, they could do so.

DStanic wrote in post #11547602
If it could be proven that a fashion model has an eating disorder they should be treated in a similar fashion as an athlete that takes performance enhancing drugs. Of course it's not that easy spying on woman vs. random drug testing, but if it could be wouldn't that be nice...

It's much easier, much faster, much more positive, and much less intrusive to determine whether a woman is malnourished than it is to detect performance-enhancing drugs.

"Naturally thin" does not even look like "malnourished." I suspect a nutritionist or gymnastics coach can spot the difference a mile away. A very quick bodyfat measurement (several ways of doing that) would be the second test. A blood test would be positive, but unlikely to be necessary.

^^^ not to mention cracking down on the illegal drugs ie cocaine or heroine that ultra skinny models might be taking as well.

RDKirk wrote in post #11547205
That sounds logical...but why wasn't it just as logical prior to the 1990s?

Fashion models have generally always been tall and thin.

Or are you talking about that "heroin chic" movement in the 90's?

airfrogusmc wrote in post #11543147
Society seems to set a lot of standards. Look at the curves that were the rage in the 50s and early 1960s.. Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Ann Margaret etc. I prefer a more full figured gal over a very thin almost young boy looking body. But thats me.

Me too!
Hourglass figures, curves, call them what you will, but MEN don't want to sleep with "young boy looking bodies"

I like skinny girls - with the caveat that they are healthy

The fashion industry uses super thin girls because it exudes youth.
Weight on a person gives the impression of maturity and that is not the look they are going for.

As a woman, I see the trends still going toward the "thin is in" mentality.
Like mentioned before, thin (often the impossibly thin) is celebrated.

But then, obesity is becoming an epidemic.
Both sides of the coin, I suppose.

Darth Mo wrote in post #11547751
Fashion models have generally always been tall and thin.

Or are you talking about that "heroin chic" movement in the 90's?

Tall, yes. Significantly thinner than average for her height, no--keeping in mind that 50 years ago the average person was thinner than today. In the normal spectrum of thin to fat, models were at the thinner end, but not abnormally so. Taking care not to get fat when you're normally thin is not the same thing as trying to get thinner than normally thin.

In the 60s, when Twiggy became famous, her notoriety was specifically that she was so much thinner than her contemporaries, but people like her and Donyale Luna were exceptions, not the rule, and noted because they were the exceptions.

Lots of great comments here. In a response to a few earlier comments:

For me promoting health is more important than promoting vanity. I photographed a model last night who is a size 2 and is tall and completely healthy. The bicyclists I see daily are all slim and healthy. They don't look like they just left a concentration camp after 2 years of starvation. The opposite end of course are the many who don't stay in shape or have eating disorders. The bottom line of the protest I present is creating inhumane standards to live by and youth being guided heavily by the social standards set before them. It's really the only thing they have to draw on as they gain experience early in their lives.

bjyoder wrote in post #11542871
My sister is tall and thin (though she was a bit thinner and more in-shape during her college volleyball days), and everyone tells her she could be a model. However, she is too big to be a model - at a size 2! She would be considered a "plus size" model!
.

Your sister was given wrong advice. That is an over dramatization. By no standard is a size 2 a "plus size model", regardless of what her sources have told her. Research it yourself so that poor girl can have some peace of mind. ; ) Fashion runway models have the most extreme standards, which is typically 5-10 + inches and sizes 0-4. commercial print, editorial, fitness models, and garment fit sizing models and petite modeling all have different standards again. "Plus size" is generally accepted to be sizes 10-18, with the same tall height requirements. Many plus size agencies start at size 12.