Yes

by Francesca Grace

Created on: November 07, 2010

Do ultra-thin fashion models promote eating disorders in young women? Yes. Absolutely. Let's get real; ultra-thin fashion models promote eating disorders with other ultra-thin fashion models so why wouldn't a twelve year old in Kansas City get the message that skeletal is the new look? The real question is who is creating the clothing that can only be worn by women who look like they were rescued from a prison camp?

The fashion industry is guided by the hands of fashion designers. To be blunt, there are an overwhelming number of men in the industry who are openly gay men. Their influence on the season's offerings in undeniable. They design the clothes that women end up wearing. When these men design the perfect cocktail dress, whose body do they design for; A- a curvaceous and full busted size 14 woman or a flat chested pencil think girl who could easily be mistaken for a prepubescent boy playing dress up in his mom's closet? My own gay friends are the first ones to tell you that the runway fashion we see today is a direct extension of the drag shows that were formerly underground in the gay community.  There are no curves, no breast bumps, no rear ends in high fashion. The more you look like a ten year old boy, the more money you make as a model, because the clothing is designed for that shape and that shape only. If a very skinny boy could wear it, it will show up on the runways of New York, Milan & Paris with an emaciated young woman stalking like a starving weasel down them wearing the outfit.

Versions of these drag show costumes make their way into fashion magazines that are read by innocent girls everywhere who look into their bedroom mirrors and cry because their bodies don't look the same as the dying women in the pictures. These same young girls will starve themselves, vomit up their meals, take laxatives like tic-tacs and still see their bodes as less than perfect even when their organs fail.

Not only does starving yourself to fit into the dress damage your internal organs, but these girls also damage their mental image of what it means to be a female. They are chastised by designers if their body begins to resemble a female. By starving themselves, they also cause their menstrual flow to stop, which further throws the natural state of their female bodies into a tailspin.

The fashion industry, both clothing designers and the magazines that publish photos of emaciated women must become responsible for the images they promote.  In the same way that violent song lyrics and incendiary speeches can drive people to commit violent crimes, so the fashion industry drives impressionable young girls into dangerous eating disorders and damaged self images. The industry and the magazines that make hundreds of millions of dollars every year from this business should be required to fund programs for young women with eating disorders in the same way that tobacco companies must fund stop smoking campaigns. They should have nutritionists and speakers going into schools, hosting TV programs and leading body image workshops for anyone that has been drawn into the deadly cycle of eating disorders.

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