Glamor. The Magazine for Young Women. September, 1947 p. 33
Looking at photos of the models on the runways of the recent Sydney Fashion Week and Melbourne Fashion Festivals I was struck by how impossibly thin they all seemed. At an average of somewhere between 5’9” and 6’ in height and a dress-size of 6 to 8 (Australian , which converts to UK 4-6, US 2-4) the models represent a body type seen on only a tiny percentage of the wider population.
As the mother of daughters, I worry about the representation in today’s media of this waiflike body-type as an ideal.
It is a concern shared by some of the world’s fashion shows. In 2006, the Madrid Fashion Week organisers put a BMI (Body Mass Index) limitation on models taking part. As a result, five models were turned away.[1] Fashion shows in other parts of the world haven’t been so keen to act, mostly adopting voluntary guidelines.
Fashion models haven’t always been so thin. Before our time, in the 1930s and 1940s they were even what we would now describe as voluptuous.
The 1960s was one of the major turning points in the idealisation of being thin particularly following the rise in the career of Twiggy, a waifish fashion model who weighed just 90lbs (41kg)[2]. Studies of the way women are portrayed in the media have shown that models became taller and thinner between the 1960s and the 1980s.[3]
In the 1990s the ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic was adopted. Models looked thin, miserable and exhausted.
Nowadays, models are thin and sullen. Heaven help the catwalk model who cracks a smile.
Is it any wonder that teenage girls struggle with body image issues when the media surrounds them with images that are almost impossible to replicate (and that’s without even starting on the issue of the digital retouching of photos).
How do you think we could bring the happy, healthy body-type back into the mainstream media and the fashion industries?
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/13/spain.models/index.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21232157-5001021,00.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy
[3] Body image: understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women, and children By Sarah Grogan. Published by Routledge, 1999
Accessed via: http://books.google.com/
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21232157-5001021,00.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy
[3] Body image: understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women, and children By Sarah Grogan. Published by Routledge, 1999
Accessed via: http://books.google.com/
(photos of Glamor magazine, September 1947)
10 comments:
I think that every magazine shot should be labelled to show that it has been manipulated using photography software. I no longer believe any photo that I see.
I have no idea. Even my own daughter, who is cynical beyond her years, able to articulate what is wrong with the images that are presented to her as "normal" and "sexy" and lives in a household that puts little value on physical appearance, STILL wants to be thinner. And if I were completely honest? I would probably admit to the same secret. We all want to be valued and the western world presents these women as the most valuable examples of their gender. This problem is insidious.
Some time ago I asked a group of male friends whether they thought Marilyn Monroe (from memory) was thin or, well, a little thicker. All of them said she was very slim. Which just goes to show that what we think is thin or slim is all about perception and fashion. For western women the notion of "slim" has a positive connotation and what needs to change is what "slim" is considered to be. Often the word "healthy" is a weasel word for "fat" in the fashion industry so it's a term that will struggle.
While I'm on my soapbox I'd like to impose a legal age limit on modelling. If you model child clothes you can be a child. If you model clothes for adults, let's ensure you are 21 or perhaps 28 because I'm sick of looking at clothes for my age group that are modelled on impossibly perky 14 yo girls.
Having been told ever since I can remember that images of celebrities and models were unrealistic and highly edited, it still took many years for me to fully understand that fact, and to stop comparing my body to their bodies. But the so-called plus size or even average/normal-sized women in showbiz are still the exception rather than the norm. I just don't understand why a woman's body has to be a topic for public consumption, for gossip or speculation. I wish we could ignore bodies altogether and focus on healthy and beautiful minds.
I am all for promoting positive body image to young girls and I get very cranky at women who've had nose jobs, boob jobs, orthodontic work and spray tans - not to mention the luxury of time to spend large chunks of their day on their physical appearance - being held up as the ideal.
But I am just wondering here about context. Surely in the 30 and 40s when voluptuousness was all the rage the western world was probably much thinner than we are now, due to postwar food shortages and the greater amount of physical activity / labour they would have had no choice but to undertake. Voluptuousness probably required that you came from a wealthier background, so you could get some meat on your bones, and was also linked with looking fertile, with child-bearing hips and large mammaries. Nowadays our society gives worth to women in other areas beyond their ability to reproduce and I wonder if that has had some impact on the figures we find attractive.
I have seen an article that says medically speaking, our children should be lean and that it ought to be the norm to see their rib cages. But I think rib cages on western children are becoming rarer. Not to mention on adults. So whilst I would hate to see young girls hating themselves because they don't look like Angelina Jolie, and whilst I also get the shudders when I see models who really look like they have eating disorders (lollipop heads, matchstick arms and legs) I wonder if there is in fact some benefit in promoting a leaner ideal? Obviously I prefer healthy examples of this, and given that we all have different genetic make-up it would be idiotic to aspire to any one shape. (I will never be hourglass for example or bronzed!) But these days it feels like you have to actually make an effort to be slim, and this may have less to do with your genetic make-up and more to do with our easy lifestyle. There is always food in the fridge and you don't even have to leave your seat to change the television channel.
Sorry for such a big essay!
Really interesting comments above!
peppermintpatcher: I agree completely that digital manipulation in the media should be declared. It's one thing to use make-up and lighting to enhance a model's look, quite another to use software to shave inches off her hips or elongate limbs.
Stomper Girl: you make a really valid point - it's a fine balancing act between promoting the idea of weight loss for health, and idealising a body-type which only those with relatively freakish genes will ever achieve. And I think you're also right about context. I read something about models in advertising in the 30s and 40s smiling and looking happy as a distraction from what was going on in the world at the time (The Great Depression, World War 2). If the GFC continues, perhaps we will see a swing away from the sullenness of catwalk models today back towards perky, cheerfulness?
There is a sort of schizophrenia in the way women are depicted, which really worries me, especially when I consider the changes I have observed in my lifetime. On the one hand we see far more fat people - who are much larger in build now - and the number of fat children is staggering. When I was in primary school there was one fat girl in the class - just one. On the other hand I am sure there is a relentless obsession in the media and advertising about female body image and reality, which seems to me to be pressuring women to consider themselves primarily as sexual objects. Just look at current fashion. it is really difficult for any female to maintain a balanced attitude to body size and shape, and the ready acceptance of cosmetic surgery and breast enhancement is quite creepy. And yes, I want to be thinner.
In the past , the Depression years and the Second World War, many poor people had unhealthy diets as they had fewer choices about food and had much less to spend. I remember reading, however, that in Britain, under WW2 food rationing, public health actually improved.
There are so many valid concerns here. Stomper Girl makes some excellent points. Fat isn't healthy either. We are struggling with that at our house... we want to model health, not body image, by encouraging healthy eating and exercise.
J.T. has developed a bit of a soft belly and dislikes all veggies and most fruits. We certainly don't want to put him on a diet, but are concerned about limiting portions and making healthy food choices a priority (which isn't helped by living next door to Grandma, who thinks the kids should eat whatever they want, even if it's ice cream for breakfast)!
I have more of a Marilyn Monroe figure, to put it kindly. It bothers me to hear other women discuss wanting to be a certain dress size. My goal is to eat healthy foods, exercise and maintain a healthy weight for my height and build... not to be an unrealistic size. I'm also concerned that their is a perception that an ideal appearance equates automatic happiness. Healthy is a mental thing too.
Another reason to love the Spanish! (I'm biased though - my close friend is from Madrid).
There are some really interesting comments here in regards to the social and political aspects of body image for women. It would freak me out to be a teenager today - it took me years to become confident about myself and I take after the lean bean side of the family. Sadly, my oldest friend had a mother who badgered her about her looks and she developed a weight problem at a very young age that she struggles with still despite being an absolute beauty.
I use Photoshop for work and we need to highlight to young woman what goes on post-production to alter photos. I think less emphasis on image and appearance in the media in general, and more on the things that matter in the world, the better.
PS The Korean baths in Sydney are a great lesson in body image - after overcoming my initial inhibitions to bearing all, I now think it is something every woman should do so she can see for herself - I'm yet to see a super model!
I think the key to the post is in the title 'Modelling healthy body-types'. No one wants to see children wobbling everywhere instead of running but at the some time I want my daughter and son to enter their teenage years with a sensible body image.
Culturally we ask for our cake at the same time as stuffing it fistfuls at a time into our open mouths. I believe it comes down to the role of family and the atmosphere we create in relation to food, exercise and acceptable body image, bearing in mind I speak as one who hasn't been a single figure size since the age of about 10. However I am able to model physical activity and healthy eating patterns to my children, enable them to enjoy occasional treats but to temper that with an understanding of why home-cooked food is better than a diet of processed pre-made meal.
Like so many things the best working model would be good parenting practice executed on a broad cultural setting. I shan't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.
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