anybody
AnyBody member Elise Slater's diary excerpt; written while stuck in a hotel room in Rome with only a copy of Marie-Claire as entertainment. Please excuse the profanities; sometimes there aren’t words strong enough to describe the fashion industry.
...I put down the copy of Marie-Claire and find myself in utter dismay that while I have grown up women’s magazines haven’t. They are still regurgitating the same body fascist, mind numbing & even more worrying; mind-fucking garbage that provided me with enough fuel to develop anorexia in my teens. So horrifying, the possibility of a girl being able to grow up in modern days into a well-adjusted confident woman seems a slim impossibility.
And that Marie-Claire is supposed to be a thinking woman’s magazine!!! It makes it all the more distressing. Is weight all the thinking woman thinks about these days? I hate to imagine what is in the trashier women’s magazines; my imagination cannot stretch that far.
All three feature articles in the magazine, one on Sandra Dee, one on Terry Schiavo, and one on a girl who went to re-hab in Thailand called Milly, all three have one thing in common – they either suffered from sever anorexia or bulimia at some point in their life. It scares me that it has become a normal rite of growing up to have an eating disorder. The glamorization of anorexia and self-harming has a lot to answer for. Where are the positive role models? I mean it’s surely not the interview with Elizabeth Hurley, who states: ‘I have to be a little hungry all the time (or) I’d be two dress sizes bigger.’ Get real Liz.
I definitely think like other industries the magazine industry should take responsibility for this crap they are pumping out. I mean who are these people writing these articles and publishing pictures of celebrity cellulite? Do they have any idea of the ramifications they are having on young (and scarily even older) minds?
Cigarette advertising is monitored and has to meet strict guidelines. Why can people write what they like and make insane claims about firming creams and diets and breast enlarging jackets? To the extent of selling diet pills, that were originally developed to treat asthma in horses – Insane! Aren’t these things just as poisonous to our minds as cigarettes to our lungs? And yet we have to ingest this crap involuntarily. We can’t avoid these ads. These skinny models in overpriced clothing. Even as strong minded individuals; after the 600th ad telling you that a size 14 girl couldn’t possibly be happy you start to believe it. You can find non-smoking areas, but an ad-free zone in our consumer society = completely unprofitable.
These magazines and the individuals behind putting underweight models on catwalks need to be taken to court. They need to be made responsible and there needs to be official regulations monitoring the content of magazines and monitoring the catwalks. Prior to anorexia I had a scrapbook of these images, skinny models I wanted to emmulate and articles on anorexia that I got tips from. And if one girl is doing that you can be sure there are many more doing exactly the same. These images have an impact. And it is time that was recognised. Having anorexia should not be a standard passage of growing up.
Reader Comments (17)
If she came across any of these maagazines she would read them closely and would glean any dietary tips that she could. Weight loss/promoting diets being the most helpful to an Anorexic child.
Imagine my horror, despite my sad attempts to protect my child, to find at each visit to our then Eating Disorder Clinic, literally piles of such magazines increasing in size, stacks and stacks of past magazines available in the clinic waiting room. On one occasion in desperation I collected them up and insisted they banned them, I complained bitterly, I brought it up at counselling sessions.
The magazines remained, I was fighting a tiny battle, I was so worn out from fighting our private Anorexia nightmare, otherwise I wished that I could have chanelled my anger towards the fight for the regulation of the "fashion, dieting and fitness indistries".
It's ironic that magazines cannot advertise or promote cigarettes, but so called journalists can sit in their offices making up diets, or suggesting that such and such celebrity got their perfect body in six minutes by eating carrot peelings and give advice to impressionable young people with no regulation what so ever.
I have since left the UK.
My mum has recently introduced me to this website to help me in my recovery and I doubt that she realises that I found her comment.
I just wanted to say that all of the above is true and that although the media doesn't cause anorexia it definately encourages it.
I am now fourteen and successfully recovering from my eating disorder. I must say that it has robbed me of my childhood and ruined some of the "best years of my life". It makes me shudder when other girls say that they wish they were "a bit anorexic" or when they quote on how Nicole Richie looks better now that she's emaciated. Teen magazines reluctantly say how 'curves are cool' but plaster their pages with images of stick-thin models.
I wish that no one endures this illness as part of growing up. We should not be made to feel insecure at such a young age. Adolescence should be enjoyed, not spent worrying over every morsel of food that eat(or don't eat).
Although that I'm on the path of rehabilitation and eat all of my meals, it still pains me when i sit with my friends and still reject their offers of chocolate or chips.
I would like to thank your organisation for being the first to speak sense about this issue. And i would also like to thank my mum for saving me from an early grave.
Obviously MEN prefer to look at healthy women rather than skinny sticks - why can't women see themselves as the beautiful creatures that they are. Conversely, they are falling prey to the clutches of a few, very wealthy designers that couldn't care less about the effects that their "runway models" have on kids growing up (and already grown women) today. I notice that the designers don't mind their WALLETS getting fatter every day. *sigh*
Just a thought.
I'm 17, from the US, and I generally consider myself strong and healthy, but I (like you) am extremely bothered by all the teen mags. Seventeen has articles all about how to love your body and how to dress for your size, and the models in all their fashion shoots are probably my weight and 8 inches taller. And it drives me insane. Because no matter how many articles they publish about being ok with who you are, until they put "normal" sized models in their shoots, the articles are worthless to me. god I hate the industry.
There is nothing wrong with "fuller figured" women, they just shouldn't pretend that they are as attractive as skinny beautiful women. It's like if someone is not athletic they should not pretend that they are a good athlete just because they want to be. Average women need to stop convincing themselves that they are attractive and start either exercising or just accept that they are not as attractive as skinny models. Skinny models are hot and guys lust for them, except it and don't starve your selves to look like them. If you want a hot body then exercise and have a healthy disciplined diet.
Hope to hear from you, take care! Monika xo
Sophie Dahl was (in my opinion) as beautiful when with a fuller figure as skinny...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/04/xinsrc_5820802041555500928640.jpg
It's a pity she felt the need to change to make herself "acceptable" to mainstream ideals of thinness.
I'll be blunt now... to look like those "hot models" exercise and sensible eating is not enough. The only way to be THAT thin is to starve or to eat very low fat food all the time and exercise TOO MUCH.
I'd not be too bothered if a hot looking guy had a bit of a tum... If he's a beautiful person inside apart from any physical attractiveness it would show through regardless of his waist size.
I know... post a pic of yourself on here and we'll rate you next to some sort of platonic ideal of manly good looks. You're entitled to your taste but don't think you're godlike in your assessment of what all other males on the planet think. That's arrogance gone insane.
...this girl is reallly skinny, but considering some of the other stuff she isnt so bad, her ribs are showing which is still a bad sign but she has a little bit of flesh, so she isnt the worse case.
lets be honest here that aint exactly attractive...
That girl in the picture has the perfect body!
There's nothing more personal than sexual and romantic attraction, and anyone who claims to speak on behalf of an entire gender on something so individual doesn't know what they're talking about.