Model thinness and eating disorders

Me with other models and MUA/hairstylist at Maggie Killick's fashion show

I was very intrigued by the article published in today's Guardian and authored by Caroline Evans, from Central St Martin's, University of the Arts. It is about the issue of model thinness and it makes the point that models from when the profession began have always been slender. Incidentally slender is not the same as skinny, but let's go on. The article is actually a plug for the exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Silent Partners. Artists & Mannequins from Function to Fetish, which is on until Jan 25th and which I now really want to see, as it sounds most interesting. The exhibition is about mannequins, not models. The article plays on the double meaning of the French word mannequin, which also refers to models in flesh and blood who were initially named  'living mannequins'. It is an article that ends quite abruptly, quoting another University of the Arts  academic, Agnès Rocamora, from London College of Fashion,  who maintains that there is no real correlation between model sizes and eating disorders and that it will never be possible to substantiate any claim to the contrary.
Not really sure about that.


Silent Partners Exhibition trailer
I don't know whether Rocamoras' statement was taken out of context but I find it surprising. If the argument is that models have always been thin, they must be thin for whatever reason, and body image anxiety and eating disorders that seem to be so prevalent in our contemporary society have little to do with the fact that models are thin and that there is no quantifiable data that shows any link, well this argument does not strike me as sound. It strikes me as disingenuous. To begin with, one can never say that it will never be possible to find a link. Why so?
For one thing, extreme  thinness as a requirement for modelling has had a direct link on eating disorders in those instances of models and would-be-models that starved themselves to death and died on the catwalk.
A model I personally know told me that the agency that initially signed her put her under so much pressure to lose weight that her parents had to intervene - she was only 17 at the time - so she eventually changed agency and she is now working a lot, being a UK size 8 , 5'11 in height and weighing 59 kg - she had been asked to go down to at least 50kg.


Anna Carolina Reston a model who died because she was suffering from anorexia

Model Bonnie Bee, when campaigning for  Models of Diversity,  talked about her struggle with anorexia and how long it took her to recover. Young girls are encouraged to lose weight in order to be ready for Fashion Week. So here you have at least one demonstrable correlation between model size and eating disorders. 'Oh but not everyone is  or wants to be a model". This is the difference between attitudes to models in the 1900s up to well into the 1950s, when models were perceived to belong to the demi-monde and no respectable woman  really wanted to be a model, and attitudes today ,when every young girl looks at magazines and wants to be a model, because some models become celebrities and/or they date famous actors, rock stars and footballers. So young girls do starve themselves in the hope of being scouted or simply to be perceived as beautiful like 'so and so'.
Only in June the same newspaper carried an article about size zero campaigners discussing body image issues at an event held at that very same college where Rocamora teaches and at that event the correlation which Rocamora believes does not exist was discussed at length.

Eliana and Luisel Ramos models who died after starving themselves

It seems to me that today's  article is making the point that model thinness is OK. As I understand it this is how the argument goes: model thinness does not REALLY have a link with body image, body anxiety and eating disorders. Only a little bit, maybe. But young girls do not starve themselves because they see thin women in magazines and on the catwalk. Oh no, they do it for different reasons altogether. Models have always been thin, there was no anorexia amongst young women in the early 1900s, though models were thin even then.
Now let me ask you this question: until very recently it was OK to have models that were only white skinned. That has, begrudgingly, changed. The arguments for white skinned models were " Oh I am not racist, it's just that paler complexions make the clothes look better" Or "you can't do much with non-caucasian hair". Compare this with saying "Oh clothes fit better on a very skinny body, that's why models have to be skinny".
Of course, there was no correlation between racism and the absence of models of colour. It was only an aesthetic choice. Or was it?
Do you now see why the article in The Guardian makes me feel uncomfortable?

Comments

  1. Do they think we're that stupid? From what you say, Alex, that article has "state of denial" written all over it. When I was a boy, every boy and most girls wanted to be astronauts. (This was the mid-60s.) They were celebrities; reluctant celebrities, many of them, but still celebrities. Now it's football players (American football or soccer)--and don't think lots of highschool athletes aren't using steroids! OF COURSE there's a connection between eating disorders and the pressure to be thin. Thin is virginal, playing up the madonna/whore false dichotomy. It's Victorian, really; thin models are "good girls" in our subconscious, while curvy ones are too obviously "sexual," and older ones are "used," again in the collective subconscious advertisers know so well and whose existence too many of us deny.

    It's long past time for a change. And change seems to be fighting its way into existence, against all the established thought patterns that keep much of the human race in bondage. I pray such change will be born soon.

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