Deborah aka Metropolitan Mum is a regular attendee to London Fashion Week shows and while she loves the clothes and adores the shows, there is one aspect that has increasingly upset her: half the models look half dead.
She says: “I know for a fact that a lot of girls in the industry – not only models but also designers, editors – keep their weight down by very unhealthy measures.”
Two years ago, Deborah reached a tipping point and decided enough was enough, she would go on a one-woman crusade to point out the continued use of super-skinny models in editorials and catwalk shows. Particularly enraging was that the flick of a magazine page that could take a reader from a piece on healthy eating, right into the jaws of another super-skinny image.
Deborah – like so many of us – is mindful of how to protect our daughters from these images.
“I want her to grow up confidently, no matter what shape she turns out to be… I just get so increasingly fed up by the image we as women are drip fed by the industry. I don’t know what else to do.”
Watch the video to find out Deborah’s ideas for taking action and how she feels the industry can do more to feed itself up to a healthier image.
See all our featured videos at BritMums.com.
Pic (Charlotte Astrid, Flickr).
About Holly Seddon
Holly Seddon is a writer, editor and community consultant and helped launched the community for Adoption UK, which won charity website of the year just 9 months later. She also writes a music blog.
A Mum
Saturday 24th of September 2011
Images on TV, magazines etc definitely affected my perception of myself. In my teens, I had glandular fever and went from a slightly chubby 12 year old to a very thin 13 year old, and it kind of stayed that way. Then in my later teens, I developed food allergies, eventually diagnosed as IBS, but by that time I was 5ft 9ins and 6st 12lbs - I don't even want to check what the BMI on that is. Now somewhere along that line, I got used to thin. I got used to being able to see my ribs, and I became familiar with the sharp, jutting bones of my pelvis. And somewhere along the line, I also decided that fat - any visible fat - was bad. That included breast fat, really, because when you're that thin, you don't have any, so if they start to appear, that's a sign you're getting fat, right? The images on TV and in magazines reminded me how I SHOULD look. Fat was not acceptable. And I was the only fat girl in the world (yes, I know I wasn't fat at all, but that's how I was thinking at the time). I guess I was particularly affected because the time I was ill coincided with when I should have been going through puberty, so I didn't develop a natural acceptance of womanly curves. My thighs seemed determined to get broader at the top, my bum seemed to want to become more prominent and I was fighting it. The jeans I owned and images on TV told me that I needed to stay the shape I was - there was no room for expansion. I 'let myself' go back up to 7.5stone, but I dressed in baggy clothes to hide the weight gain. I didn't mean to develop an eating disorder, I didn't even want to be thin! I didn't stand in front of the mirror and feel proud, but I totally feared the tiniest bulge at the top of my jeans or god forbid fat under my chin. It felt like weakness, failure and serious ugliness. If I ate, I sometimes felt like the fat was instantly more visible, like it could be seen in my belly, and had instantly migrated to my chin. If I ate well, I'd skip meals - almost all meals - for several days afterwards to 'make up for it'. Hating myself all the time for my moment of weakness. All that time, I was thinking, well I have IBS, not an eating disorder. Food equals pain, so I'm being careful. I'm not hurting myself, right? Anyway, I'm not even that THIN! Sad, huh? It was only really when I got into my mid-twenties and got more confident in my work and social life that I started to eat more healthily (albeit while exercising like a demon) and got up to a health (though I recognise now, still pretty slim) 9st. It wasn't really until I became pregnant with my son in 2007 that I'd say I felt 'ok-ish' about 'fat' for the first time. I was much less inclined to compare myself to the models on TV and in print, because they weren't pregnant. After he as born, it didn't take long for the fat-panic mentality to return, but never so badly. I understood finally it is not a crime to be anything other than bony. That having a covering of flesh is NOT fat, it is human. More specifically, it's female, and I am finally starting to be ok with that. Now I'm pregnant with my second, and I'm determined it won't beat me again, but this time I'm expecting a daughter, and I dread how all those images of emaciated young things will affect her.
Crystal Jigsaw
Friday 23rd of September 2011
So many models look really ill and not at all attractive. They have no boobs, no booty and generally no figure. How any man finds them attractive I have no idea. Personally, I think the industry needs a good shake up and some serious lessons in how to enjoy a good meal. I'd much rather enjoy a plate of steak and chips than feel guilty for having a piece of cucumber with my lettuce leaf. Some magazines are portraying these models as people to look up to. I would never encourage my daughter to look up to them because they give a bad impression of looking good, which the majority of them don't look at all. CJ xx