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by Gillian Livingstone
 The
latest Hollywood craze of celebrities becoming a scarily small American
size 00 has been causing a stir within the media of late. It has led to
the banning of underweight models at this year’s Clothes Show Live and
Milan fashion week.
It seems the fashion industry has distorted our body image and warped
our idea of what is considered to be a normal size. Take the infamous
Nicole Richie as an example, her emaciated appearance has been a major
cause for concern lately. She is a reported size 00, but is the fashion
industry to blame for her extreme weight loss?
It is thought that celebs are slimming down in order to wear clothes by
their favourite designers as this is seen as fashionable and more
acceptable due to the skinny models wearing their designs.
Times have changed since the curvaceous Bettie Page was nick named “Girl
with the perfect figure” in the fifties, not to mention the famous size
16 of fifties sex goddess, Marilyn Monroe.
Paintings from the 15th and 16th century such as those by Peter Paul
Rubens feature beautiful images of shapely women. There’s no evidence of
skeletal looking women depicted as beautiful in art history. So, what’s
influenced us to think that a size 00 is attractive and acceptable?
The fashion industry seems to have played a significant part in the
growing concern for underweight girls. Along with promoting their latest
designs, Fashion designers are potentially promoting eating disorders by
using underweight models such as Eva Herzigova who in recent years went
from being a curvy Wonderbra model to a bony looking shadow of her
former self.
The size 00 trend is fast becoming the norm in Hollywood with the likes
of Kate Bosworth, Lindsay Lohan and Sienna Miller adding to the clan of
gaunt looking celebs.
Could all this hype concerning under weight celebrities within the media
be fuelling eating disorders in young girls? The amount of skinny celebs
and models featured in magazines could be triggering a distorted body
image in young girls, brainwashing them into thinking being a tiny size
00 is normal and making them think a normal size 10 or 12 is just too
‘fat’.
I think it’s time we started to look up to healthier sized models and
celebrities. The likes of Beyonce Knowles and Scarlet Johansson are
modern day icons who demonstrate beautiful curves and what a healthy
sized woman should look like.
These skeletal celebrities and models are risking their health and not
only are their bodies wasting away but so are their lives as they are
spending too much time worrying about their weight and not enjoying life
like they should.
What are your views on the new trend in Size 00 fashions? Is the
fashion industry responsible for leading more and more young women
towards eating disorders, or is something else to blame? Send us your
thoughts to
linconline@wlct.org
Related Feature:
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