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How does media manipulate public perception
Similar effects between anorexia and bulimia
Negative effects from the fashion industry
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Recommended: How does media manipulate public perception
Peer Pressure in the fashion industry
Does the fashion industry need skinny models to portray a clothing line? At a very young age, many people were introduced to models whether they are in ads, TV, or on magazine covers. This soon became a part of society to think that beauty is tall and skinny. But the truth is that the average American women is about 5’3 and weighs about 166pounds which is quite a difference to the average American model that’s 5’9-6’0 and weights about 110 pounds to 130. Looking at the statistics one might say that there is almost no correlation between the two. Meaning how can modern day women live up to these unrealistic ideas of beauty. I believe that this way of thinking can be changed by instituting varieties of shapes and sizes within the fashion industry.
The problems with body image doesnt only affect women it affects everybody including young girls. This problem continues to escalate every year with every new trend. Imagine being a young teenage girl with 99 problems and 1 of them being how you look at yourself, seeing that hate or disgust in the mirror thinking, how can I change myself to look like the girl on seventeen magazines. Believe or not this is how many cases of anorexia or bulimia starts “Anorexia affects both the body and the mind. It may start as dieting, but it gets out of control. You think about food, dieting, and weight all the time. You have a distorted body image. Other people say you are too thin, but when you look in the mirror, you see a fat person.” The quote above explains thoroughly how anorexia affects both mind and body by distorting images that does not reflect the true reality. Most anorexia cases start with harmless dieting and the goal to become skinny, although these ...
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...parison from a supermodel to a teenage girl. People constantly put themselves down because of the havoc the industry causes by having to thin models.
This is an important topic for all because women, teenagers, girls need to realize the hypocrisy behind the fashion industry and the message they send. Many women including the models themselves have fallen into the trap of changing their bodies in order to fit a certain criteria made by the industry. This is not only dangerous but ifs harmful to health of all women and children. If this hypocrisy continues, then generations from on will have to suffer the consequences of eating disorders and self harming. We as a people must come together and stand against the fight of peer pressure originating from the fashion industry. To do this we must order the fashion industry to publicly accept all sizes and shapes to model.
From Twiggy to Kate Moss, the fashion industry has been attached to idealizing extreme slenderness, encouraging real women to hate their bodies and at extreme, develop anorexia or bulimia. If these models are exemplars of ideal beauty, then the measure for women is that to be beautiful, starvation level is required. It appears that the media and the fashion industry would have the public believe that ultra thinness symbolizes beauty when in reality, the standard represents infertility, and premature death. The public has to realize that Twiggy is different.
“Girls of all kinds can be beautiful --- from the thin, plus- sized, short, very tall, ebony to porcelain- skinny, the quirky, clumsy, shy, outgoing and all in between” (Tyra Banks). Tyra Banks is a worldwide model, actress, and businesswoman. She has modeled for numerous magazines and brands, such as Victoria Secret, Covergirl, and Vogue. She is also known for her TV production, America’s Next Top Model. In this show, she helps women and men of all types to become a model. However, based on the type of model someone wishes to become, there is usually an image the company wants. If someone wished to become a model who walks on the catwalks and runways, the companies would only want to take the client if they are tall, and lanky. Modeling
If you’ve ever been to a clothing store before, you have probably seen this phrase on a tag, one size fits all or one size fits most, but do you think one size really fits all? Whether too small or too big the reality is, one size does not fit all or most, “one size fits no one.” Companies each day are manipulating clothing by “vanity sizing” or “insanity sizing” which is a term that means, companies are manufacturing articles of clothing to be small or smaller than the normal size in order to increase sales. “Vanity sizing started off as a marketing tool.” Original sizing charts never had sizes 0 or 2 on them, until now because we are finally realizing that there are millions of sizes in the world. So companies are adding
Social pressure to have a perfect body is experienced by many women and young girls. The perfect body has been constructed by society and by the media and women and girls is expected to conform to it. “The American Anorexia and Bulimia Association states that: 1000 American women die of anorexia each year and that people with eating disorders have the second highest fatality rate of the psychological disorders”. Women are dying each year because of body image disturbance disorders and discovering the link between media images and perfect body image could be helpful in finding a successful intervention.
“My lips and fingers were blue because I was so thin that my heart was struggling to pump blood around my body”, said teen model fashion Georgina (Carroll 1). The new skinny has become excessively scrawny. Is it definitely not normal for today’s society models to walk around with blue fingers starving themselves until their organs start failing! As for the model agencies, they couldn’t care less of the pressure and dangerous practices they put the models through in order for them to stay thin for the runway. Even fashion Designers continue to produce the smallest couture sample sizes and scout for the slimiest bodies to wear the designs not aware of the consequences of the pressure they not only put on models, but on the society girls to look like these starving models. And when the models continue to get offers from the most important fashion industries like Prada, it motivates them to keep doing what they are doing to stay in the shape they are in (Carroll 1). But little did the outside world know what this pressure had on the models and what they were doing to their bodies to peruse their modeling careers.
The most fashionable, sought after magazines in any local store are saturated with beautiful, thin women acting as a sexy ornament on the cover. Commercials on TV feature lean, tall women promoting unlimited things, from new clothes to as simple as a toothbrush. The media presents an unrealistic body type for girls to look up to, not images we can relate to in everyday life. When walking around in the city, very few people look like the women in commercials, some thin, but nothing similar to the cat walk model. As often as we see these flawless images float across the TV screen or in magazines, it is hard to remember they are not real and hardly anyone really looks similar to them....
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
As once can see for decades fashion has been used as a “social weapon.” Yes the fashion industry is in part accountable for eating disorders and bullying. Ultimately, we shouldn't allow fashion to play a major role in our society. Not when it impacts in a negative way what others think of each other, and encourages an unrealistic body of what a man or woman should look like. Or simply excludes
Fashion models don’t need to be thin, they need to be diverse and healthy at whatever weight that is. Not everyone is supposed to be thin, some women are big boned and curvy, others are naturally slim and small boned, some are tall, others are short, some are light skinned and others are darker. So many diverse looks exist in the world today and the fashion industry need to change their perception of perfect. Body image in our society is out of control. We have young men and women comparing themselves to unrealistic models and images in the media and feeling bad about the way their own bodies look because they somehow don’t measure up. (Dunham, 2011) The struggle for models to be thin has led to models becoming anorexic or bulimic, untimely deaths, and inferiority complexes. Even worse is the fact that they influence a whole generation of young women who look up to these models and think “thin” is how they are supposed to be. They influence what we buy, how we eat and what we wear. Why has this specific group captured our attention so much? Why do we seem to be so fascinated in their lives, to the point where we try to look and act just like them? The media is largely to be blamed for this, many people believe the media has forced the notion that everything supermodels do is ideal. Others believe that the society is to be blamed because we have created a fascination with their lives. There are many opinions, and I agree with both of these specific opinions. We allow ourselves to be captivated by these people's lives, and the media portrayal of their lives seem to also enthrall us. (Customessaymeister, 2013) Despite the severe risks of forcing models to become too thin, designers, fashion editors, fashion brands and agencies still ...
Step out into the everyday world as an average American and you will witness an entanglement of varied body size, and shape. Now, enter the world of the media, a world in which you are formally introduced to high fashion, where flashing lights, money, glamour and riches crash around you, satiating every crevice of your being. Here, you will find two unified body types, divided into two categories of shape in women; thin, and thick. Naturally, any woman who wishes to someday strut down the catwalk in Zac Posen, or pose in Marie Claire wearing Dolce and Cabana must have a body that fits one of these required molds, right? It is a well-known reality that many women who cannot reach by healthy means, or do not already have, the desired body type for fashion industries, will develop an eating disorder to starve their way into the position. However, most fail to address the issue of obesity that curdles on the other end of the physical spectrum; the plus size modeling industry. This statement not only boils the blood of millions of American Women, but begs the question: If extremely thin models promote eating disorders, should we prohibit advertisers, especially those in fashion, from using plus size models, as they may promote obesity? To put it simply, no. Plus size models do not promote obesity because they only provide thicker, much larger women, confidence and appreciation for their body without pressuring them to take unhealthy means to shed pounds; they do not encourage overeating and lack of exercise.
The Fashion Industry can be described as a glamorous world with cameras flashing, beautiful models strutting down the runway, in stunning and grand designs. What really goes on behind fashion’s dolled up doors is only an illusion compared to what reality is. Beautiful people, stylish clothing and timeless sophistication all make up the illusion of the glitz and glam of the fashion industry, but behind the curtains countless of models and designers constantly fall victim to this industry’s ever changing wrath. Fashion can be defined as a popular trend especially in styles of dress, ornaments or behavior. A model is a person who poses or displays for art purposes, fashion or other products and advertising. Fashion models are used mainly to promote products focusing mostly on clothing and accessory. The two main type of modeling in the fashion industry is commercial modeling and high fashion modeling. High Fashion models usually work for campaigns, designer’s collections and magazine editorials for high fashion designers. Runway modeling also known as “catwalk modeling” is displaying fashions and is generally performed by high fashion models. In my research paper, my main focus will be the multiple effects on high fashion models based upon the industry’s unregulated standards.
Clacking their six-inch heels down the runway, always having their photograph taken, and appearing to live the elite and glamorous lifestyle are the models of the fashion industry. When super skinny women are chosen to model high fashion designs on the runway and in magazines, adolescents are given the message that this is the ideal body type that they must strive to attain. This is an unrealistic goal because fashion models weigh 20% less than the average women, and since young women are tuned into a celebrity culture that is full of stick-thin women, most girls begin to believe they are fat at a very young age. (Dying To Be Thin, McPhee) The constant repetition of the models that we see everyday changes our opinion of what is beautiful. The Professor of Psychology at Westleyan University, Ruth Striegel, states, “The repeated exposure to a particular image teaches you to like that particular image … We have become so used to seeing extremely thin women that it makes us believe that is what beauty is.” (Dying To Be Thin, McPhee) Evidently the repeated exposure to these thin images has incre...
A tall, glamorous runway model is every girl’s dream. Long beautiful legs, lean body, and beautiful shiny hair is what an average young woman views as an ideal image for a female. If you don’t resemble the images of those stunning Victoria Secret models and Fashion Week models, you suddenly become ashamed of your own body. It is a great life to have with the high pay, fame, drinking champagne on a yacht with famous celebrities and even being on the Vogue cover page. Fashion Modeling Industry has been the most influential source in our young women’s lives. Young girls and young women are seen eating as little as they can, even starving themselves at times to resemble those models. What they don’t realize is that they are contributing to the 2.7 percentage of 13- 18 year olds suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic said exposure to thin models is a great trigger in maintaining an eating disorder. When watching America’s Next Top Model or flipping through a Fashion magazine, these young women don’t apprehend that those models are either naturally slim or they are suffering from an eating disorder themselves, in other words, hostages in the dark hell hid behind those runway curtains. The growing number of young anorexia and bulimia patients, and the number of websites such as thinspiration, where girls put up pictures of their thin bodies clearly suggest that the fashion modeling industry do not at all bear any responsibility in providing healthy, realistic physical role models for young women.
Fashion industry skinny trend seems to poison young women’s attitude towards their appearance. In addition, the startling deaths of the “three very underweight models” (Rosemary 2007) has become the last straw that makes it impossible to accept the eating disorders anymore. These have added to the controversy over the use of extremely thin models in the fashion industry because not only does it reduce the self-esteem of those who do not have ideal bodies but it also naturally forces them to become anorexic to look exactly like catwalk models which has been proven to cause “drastic weight loss and premature ageing” (Cooke 2000, pp. 1). 3) Having a severe condition.
The media is a prime suspect as to why many females become anorexic and bulimic. They showcase to the world models and celebrities that have these perfect bodies that everyone adores and loves. Their bodies have to be slender, have thigh gaps, decent size boobs and big butts, and if they have a body with anything more than this then they are looked at as a disgrace and society starts to judge and look at them differently. Women like this are the ones that most girls look up too, and most young females want their ideal body to be just like the models they see. If not that, then they want it to be better, but that’s not healthy for them, or anyone for that matter. They think that having just a little fat on them then they are the biggest person in the world. Having a mindset on wanting a body like this leads them to becoming obsessed with everything that goes in to their bodies, and wanting to get out everything that goes in out no matter how small of an amount it is. When it gets to this point that’s when they are labeled to be anorexic or bulimic. Anorexia and bulimia can be defined as eating disorders to where the person is obsessed with losing weight and would go to the extremes of purging and exercising vigorously to burn the little bit of fat they the gain from the small bits of food they