Zero size models are a huge controversy these days. When the size zero was introduced to the market, it wasn't intended for a six foot tall woman. It was originally intended for the large number of petite size women who didn't want to shop for clothes in a kid store. Size Zero bust size is 31.5 inches (80 cm), waist 23 inches (60 cm) and hips 34 inches (86 cm). To put this into perspective, the average waist size of a healthy eight-year-old is 22 inches (56 cm) and an eight year old child is about four feet tall. So we are taking about grown up women who are almost six feet tall with the waist size of an eight year old child. The minimum height for a Top model is 5'7. If people don’t start recognizing that there is a huge problem and that is unnatural, then our society is wrong. On top of that, sometimes photographers will crop down the models waist line because the models are so thin they barely have hips and they have a straight line between their waist and hips. Unless the model bends to the side, then she can create the fake appearance of having some hips.
Girls will follow fashion standards that are dangerous and unhealthy, like the thigh gap, which is when a woman is so skinny she has a gap between her thighs. Those skinny models who walk flamboyantly on a catwalk with a huge thigh gap don't just have a gap between their legs, they also have thighs with the circumference of their calf. This is something you only see in underweight adolescents who haven't gone through their puberty. So what kind of message are we sending with these images? When we pretend that grown up women should look like this. Based on the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, Almost 50% of people with eating disorders meet the criteria for depression. 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems.
Former Vogue editor Kirstie Clements Wrote an amazing book that introduced us to the inside world of the fashion industry, The Vogue Factor. In every page of this book, you will live her experiences as an editor of the fashion magazine Vogue and learn how horrible the fashion industry can be. Something must be done. There is a lot of secrecy behind their closed doors. Behind the beauty of these girls, there is a lot of pain. It is terrible that no one talks about it. This is a book every teen girl and every woman should read. Is it worth it to hate my body thinking that these models on the catwalk are the image of perfection? Once you read this book, your eyes will be open. This is an interview the author published about her book and once I read The vogue factor, I realized I have to read more, so I bought the book right away.
The
longer I worked with models, the more the food deprivation became obvious.
Cigarettes and Diet Coke were dietary staples. Sometimes you would see the
tell-tale signs of anorexia, where a girl develops a light fuzz on her face
and arms as her body struggles to stay warm. I have never, in all my career,
heard a model say "I'm hot", not even if you wrapped her in fur and
put her in the middle of the desert.A few years later we booked
another Russian girl, who was also starving herself, on a trip to Marrakech.
When the team went out to dinner at night she ordered nothing, but then hunger
would get the better of her and she would pick small pieces of food off other
people's plates. I've seen it happen on many trips. The models somehow
rationalize that if they didn't order anything, then they didn't really take in
the calories. They can tell their booker at the agency before they sleep that
they only had a salad. By the end of the trip, she didn't have the energy to
even sit up; she could barely open her eyes. We actually had her lie down next
to a fountain to get the last shot.In 2004, a fashion season in
which the girls were expected to be particularly bone-thin, I was having lunch
in New York with a top agent who confidentially expressed her concern to me, as
she did not want to be the one to expose the conspiracy. "It's getting
very serious," she said. She lowered her tone and glanced around to see if
anyone at the nearby tables could hear. "The top casting directors are
demanding that they be thinner and thinner. I've got four girls in hospital.
And a couple of the others have resorted to eating tissues. Apparently
they swell up and fill your stomach."I was horrified to hear what
the industry was covering up and I felt complicit. We were all complicit. But
in my experience it is practically impossible to get a photographer or a
fashion editor – male or female – to acknowledge the repercussions of using
very thin girls. They don't want to. For them, it's all about the drama of the
photograph. They convince themselves that the girls are just genetically
blessed, or have achieved it through energetic bouts of yoga and eating goji
berries.
This is something we shouldn't doubt about the life of the models. There are so many models who have opened themselves up and spoke out about what they live as top models. Top model Jennifer Sky also wrote a book telling her story in Queen of the Tokyo Ballroom. She was a minor when she start modeling and she got a contract to go to Japan. Once she 
went to Japan, life for her changed drastically. For an American girl living in a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language and the American laws didn't apply… the situation pretty much looked like human trafficking. The modeling agencies look at models like independent contractors so models are not actually employees for the modeling agency, they are independent. That is why they don’t have marginal benefits like health insurance and others things. For a child abroad, this is a situation that is very difficult to understand and to manage on their own. They are also not mature enough to defend themselves from the situations they can get into. Typically, modeling agencies will contract a girl at age thirteen. This book will get you into the heart of the secret world of the modeling industry.
Countless questionable things
happened to me during my time as a model. From neglect to molestation to
topless photo shoots to men exposing themselves to being made to stand in a
freezing pool until I turned blue, I would be abused for the entirety of my
career. Eventually, the highs of the photo shoots began to dull. I started
to show signs that things weren't right; feeling disconnected,
hollow, having nightmares. My naturally outgoing personality changed: I
became withdrawn and startled easily. It became hard for me to travel new
routes, to eat at new restaurants, or even shop at the corner store. I became
so timid I no longer spoke. I eventually did not leave my room unless I had a
job or a casting.
I
was sent abroad and I was put in very inappropriate situations. I was sent to
Mexico, I was drugged, and I was made to do a topless shoot. They remove you
from the United States because here, we're protected.
Abroad, we're unchaperoned, we're alone,
we don't speak the language, and we can't advocate for
ourselves. The modeling industry should be treated with the same laws and
contempt as the human trafficking industry. When your body is a commodity,
where’s the line?
Jennifer Sky is working right now requesting a petition to the government to protect minors in the fashion industry so they don't have to experience the same situations she did when she was a top model. Her book is amazing. You can sign her petition here and help support this cause. To read more about her movement, you can see our blog -
The downside of children in the fashion industry and what you can do to protect them.
If an animal showed one of these signs or symptoms we would consider them malnourished or starved and produce indignation all around the world.
- bones of the shoulders, ribs, back-bone and hips protrude
- sunken eyes
- tucked up abdomens
- muscle mass and organs may be shrunken or decreased in size
Why is it a fashion statement in humans?
There is no difference between the body shape of a Top model and a Starving third world country person. Why we keep promoting these ridiculous standards? Patronizing fashion designers who have no intention to change their old fashioned standards and making us all feel ugly with the only intention to make their fashion lines an exclusive unattainable item so they can over price their designs. To get in on this exclusiveness, you must obey their eccentricities. This is nothing but ridiculous standards of beauty. They mock women, patronizing them with their ideas of beauty, using models who do not represent real women. Paying millions of dollars to get exclusivity on the covers of magazines to make girls believe that those starving photoshopped girls are the standard of beauty. To achieve those standards, women all over the world learn to hate their bodies get expensive surgery, go to the gym, drink pills, eat the goji berry, use the magic cream, buy the fantastic band, smell like me, pose with that candy and throw it away…..live a fake life and hate your body because in the end, no one knows the secret life behind the fashion industry is that the size zero model doesn't even look like her true self after she is photoshopped.
In the UK, there is an
agency that is cutting short these advertisers. They just started recently, and it looks like the days of advertisements with misleading messages and anorexic girls are going to be in the past. There is a still a lot to do, but there are many other countries who are joining in this idea, maybe the U.S. should do the same.
The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. They apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. Consumers can go online and make a complaint if they see an advertisement that promotes something that is misleading or contains material which is offensive. You can alert them if any of the models look anorexic, unhealthy or excessively photoshopped or if there is a minor posing like an adult. This is an awesome movement to promote a realistic beauty standard.
