[quote=“gao_bo_han”]
If we accept this mandate then we are going to have to take it to the next step. Obesity leads to far more health problems than being underweight…[/quote]
But for girls and young women, anorexia and bulimia are more dangerous than obesity. Los of young women die of anorexia. Young people are also more susceptible to the images in the media. Banning anorexic models helps make the images more realistic; it is also an attempt to help improve the health of the models themselves.
They aren’t supposed to be. They are FASHION models and their job is to display clothes.
[quote=“Namahottie”]
Hell, Tyra Banks, a former model herself, has been recently laughed at in the tabloids for gaining weight (she’s 161 ) 
[/quote]
Tyra Banks wasn’t a fashion model. She was a lingerie model. There are many different kinds of models and they don’t require the same physical attributes. Most people equate the term “model” with “fashion model” and that’s incorrect. Models have been around for thousands of years…fashion models for only about 100 years…and “super models” only since Marie Helvin and Jerry Hall back in the 1970s.
*I’ve always thought of Tyra Banks :moo: as being butt ugly.
[quote]Why not? The government regulates tons of stuff.
Can’t carry a hose and axe to the top of the tower? Sorry, can’t be a firefighter.
Can’t hit the target at 50 yards? Sorry, can’t be a cop.
Can’t drive? Sorry, can’t be a taxi driver for a private cab company.
Can’t pass the bar? Sorry, can’t be a private lawyer in a private firm.[/quote]
Didn’t say I was opposed to all regulation. And by the way none of your examples are relevant. Your examples reference ability. If you don’t have the ability to carry a hose and axe to the top of a tower you can’t be a firefighter. If you don’t have the ability to hit a target at 50 yards you can’t be a cop, etc. Therefore, your next statement is a non sequitur.
A model with an eating disorder not only has the ability to be a model, but has the ability to be a damned good model that employers will want to hire and buyers will want to see. I am not defending anorexia/bulemia, merely trying to demonstrate why your argument doesn’t hold water. No offense intended.
Hitting the whiskey a bit hard there friend?
[quote=“bababa”][quote=“gao_bo_han”]
If we accept this mandate then we are going to have to take it to the next step. Obesity leads to far more health problems than being underweight…[/quote]
But for girls and young women, anorexia and bulimia are more dangerous than obesity. Los of young women die of anorexia. Young people are also more susceptible to the images in the media. Banning anorexic models helps make the images more realistic; it is also an attempt to help improve the health of the models themselves.[/quote]
You make a good point. But let’s remember that high profile fashion shows likely account for only a tiny percentage of girls’ media input. They are bombarded with images of thin, pretty women on television, film, magazines, among their peers, etc., many of whom are probably underweight and may have eating disorders. So how far do we stretch the hand of government? It would be nonsensical and inconsistent to limit regulation to fashion shows when a host of other media sources exist which present the same thin ideal to girls minute after minute. And how about a school beauty pageant where the contestants are underweight? Same regs?
And the issue of naturally underweight women has still not been addressed. Let us a say a young woman can prove she is naturally underweight, and let us say, healthy as well. Fit as a fiddle. Should she be allowed to join the fashion show/beauty pageant/TV show/movie? I think to deny her entry to any of the above would be immoral and would very likely raise Constitutional issues. Beware all, this slope is a bit slippery…
I’ve been bombarded all my life with photos of football players with huge muscles.
Somehow I’ve managed to refrain from using steroids.
Some men are born or raised big and strong. They make good firefighters. Some are born with good eyes and steady hands, they make good marksmen.
Ability is certainly part of it, but then so are genetics and upbringing. Why you think this distinction is important to regulation, I don’t know.
Some women are born or raised with good posture and presence. They make good models. If they have personality, charm, and intelligence, they make better models.
Ultra-thin as beautiful is a recent trend. It will be gone soon enough. We’ll still have models, and maybe they really will be models.
I was wondering when someone would bring up steroids. That’s a good analogy. The government regulates steroid and other performance-enhancing drugs in sports. It’s unhealthy. So is starving yourself to meet some warped fashion designer’s ideal of feminine beauty.
Why ARE fashion models so freakishly skinny, anyway? Serious question.
I think I’ll take that Tyra Banks for my woman. Have her washed, scented and brought to my chamber forthwith.
Yesh, me lowd.
heh.
Many cultures value youth, especially in women. Extreme thinness is valued as it suggests an inability to bear children which is attractive to many people on a variety of levels. The opposite was true in the past, where the ability to produce a large family was economically important and desirable.
In the western worlds and many other cultures, fatness and obesity are portrayed, rightly or wrongly as lower class problems. Larger families, young mothers (despite the fact that females in their teens have given birth to large broods throughout history, they are now demonised as poor, un-educated, irresposible, etc. But that’s slightly tangential), fecundity are looked down on as evidence of lack of economic status.
Can I just point out by saying this that it’s just one theory and that I am not saying this is why any people as inviduals go for this stuff. You are mostly 20-50 year old males on this forum; you are not the target market of the clothes that are sold on catwalks. Who is? Women who are rich and successful in either earning their own money or attracting a mate with money. The former are likely to be older. Teenagers, for the large part, can not afford the Coco Chanel suit, or the YSL couture dress.
However, these women belong to an economic elite. The models must appeal to them on an aspirational level. And what does a 50 year old woman on the front row at the catwalk shows want but can’t have? Very little, apart from her youth.
Fashion models are not employed to be desirable to men. That isn’t the point. They are there as cultural markers of the woman who has most status. She is very young, very thin, and rich enough to wear Chanel. She is not a council estate/trailer park fatarse who stays at home, breeding unwanted children and draining her partner’s economic lifeblood. She is a sexual, independent person in the prime of her life, which is pre/post childbirthing years.
What do women achieve by wearing these kind of clothes? Ultra alpha female status with other females. Intelligence is only occasionally, and very grudgingly part of the equation. That’s not to say the intelligence isn’t there, it’s just not aspirational because the women who thousands of $$$ of disposable income to spend on clothes, already have it.
I may be talking rubbish, though. Edit I’m also not insulting anyone’s body shape, the way they make money, or people who do have large families, I’m just trying to explore why cultures as a group, operate. Modelling is a great way for people to use their advantages to support themselves. God knows, I find it demeaning and damaging to my health to sell my brains to pay the rent…
If it weren’t for the women I wouldn’t even watch the ten seconds of runway that accidentally find its way onto my TV. The clothes they wear are usually some narcisitic explosion of homosexual creativity.
That big hat is ssssssssooooo sssssssssassssssssssyyy! 
Apart from what Buttercup has already said on the subject… I think it might have started with the fact that the designers and photographers have judged that clothes ‘hang’ better on thin people, lean bodies are easier to work with.
Then it went to an extreme.
Has anyone seen the TV show Ugly Betty? I haven’t but I’d really like to. It’s supposed to be set in the fashion world and Betty is just an average looking girl working for a fashion agency, I think.
Man, that must be tough. I have a sufficient amount of self-esteem for a normal and happy life, but I can’t imagine being constantly surrounded by all those thin women and so much obsession with weight, without starting to be influenced by it and feel inadequate.
EDIT: I see how someone could think it, so I’ll say it: No, Taiwan is not like that for me. At all.
[quote=“Quentin”]
Why ARE fashion models so freakishly skinny, anyway? Serious question.[/quote]
The clothes you see being modeled on the catwalk are not off the rack. They are almost always one of a kind. Catwalk models are are of a particular height, weight and measurements so that the clothes can be worn by any of the available models backstage. Women with good figures are rare. Naturally skinny women are alot more common.
One of my favorite models is Irina Pantaeva. She’s 5’10", 34-25-35 Most people think she’s [i]way[/i] too skinny.
That woman’s knees are way too pointy for my taste. Someone should give that girl a cheeseburger – oops! Sorry. Having a Fark moment.
Sandman wrote [quote]That woman’s knees are way too pointy for my taste.[/quote]
C’mon. Don’t be a meanie. Give her a charity shag; it will help build up her self-esteem.
:bravo: For Buttercup, very insightful and in depth posting.
why are these super thin models popular now? not that long ago christie brinkley-muscle toned models were popular. i think the public just absorbs whatever we are fed- we don’t set the trend, a subsection of us just uncritically follows it, whatever it is, as long as it is shocking enough to get our attention. i do have to agree though that obesity is more of a danger to young girls in the us based on what i see in the public schools. anyway, parents have the main reponsibility to try to raise our daughters as best we can. if my daughter started to have some kind of eating disorder, i would bring her to volunteer with me in a soup kitchen or something to shift her perpective. being vain and overly concerned with other people’s opinions is something most of us hopefully grow out of.
She was never a catwalk model. She was print. She did magazine covers. And don’t confuse American ready-to-wear fashion with internation fashion. New York ain’t Milan. As I said before, there are many different types of models requiring different physiques.
High fashion has little to do with the public.
[i]Exactly![/i]
Good luck on that. 
That’s right, but I’m telling ya, Billie Jean’s not my girl! Well I guess she is a grrl’s kinda grrl in any case.
Tennis great … Billie Jean King wearing a design by Gustavo Cadile.
HG