The Skinny on Fashion's "Little" Problem

People are exposed to fashion everyday, whether in magazines and newspapers, on the streets, or on television. People look to these magazines and television show to see the latest trends, and they follow them religiously. Skinny jeans, jeggings, leather jackets; the minute people see the newest trend they go out and buy it. What is fashion's most popular and influential trend? A size 0.


Size zero is the new standard in modeling, and the kids and teenagers who see those models on television and in photo spreads see that size and think they have to conform to it. It is just in the past few decades that this size has become the new desirable one, in fact, one of the most recognizable models in all of history, Marilyn Monroe, was a size 8! That would be considered plus-size in the current modeling history.

Models are turned away by designers if they aren't a certain size, and the pressure on models to weight a certain number is not decreasing. If anything, its increasing. In fact, on November 17th, 2010, a French model named Isabelle Caro died after two weeks in a hospital with acute respiratory disease. While the exact cause of her death is unknown, at the time of her death she was 5'5 and weighed 73 pounds, and at her lowest weight she weighed 55 pounds. The ideal weight for a 5'5 woman is 125 pounds, 52 pounds over Caro's weight at the time of her death. And while her case is an extreme case, there are less extreme but equally important examples. 

Ralph Lauren made headlines in 2009 when one of his ad-campaigns featured a model photoshopped to look impossibly skinny. The website Photoshop Disasters put up a post with the photo, titled "Dude, Her Head's Bigger than Her Pelvis." This image will be read by thousands of teenage girls in middle school, high school, and college and this is the standard they will measure themselves by. 


The reality of the  matter is that size 0 is not an attainable, realistic, or healthy size for most women. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents, 80% of 13 year old girls have dieted, and 50% if girls between 13 and 15 believe they are overweight. It is estimated that right now, 8 million Americans have eating disorders. 


The cost of Anorexia is great. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any illness. Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders get treatment, and treatment can cost anywhere from $500 to $2000 per day. 


However, slow progress has been made against eating disorders in the fashion world. Many fashion week events are starting to have weight restrictions, banning models who are underweight. However, more needs to be done so that young girls can have healthier women to look up to.