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As a species humans have imagination. Sometimes we allow it to run away with us. As a result we build images of perfection about ourselves, other people, our lifestyle, how we should and ought to look and be. The sad thing is perfection is an impossibility. What makes us human, vulnerable and lovable is just that, our imperfectness. Coming to terms with reality is far more healthy.

Young people, and sometimes the not so young, often agonize about the correct way to do things; how to look their best, how to appeal to those they want to attract. As a result we turn to magazines for fashion ideas and what is currently being worn.

Fashion magazines have the job of selling clothes and accessories. To do that they make them as attractive as possible. On an individual who is overweight it's difficult to make items look universally appealing. The result has been that anorexic children have been coerced into thinking that skinny is beautiful. After that the technicians improve even further on nature by removing the tired look to the eyes, the awkward tooth, that fold of skin which is the normal result of bending, a perceived suggestion of a bulge which perfection says should not be there. The result is a strong sense of inferiority induced in the rest of us. Magazines play at theatre creating illusions and suggesting imagery which is unreal. In the theatre we can suspend reality but magazines who airbrush models can make this a dangerous exercise.

The message to the rest of us is, this is what you should look like. It takes no account of life, build, lifestyle, jobs or anything else that each of us has to do. Being slim is more healthy than being overweight but the operative word is slim, not skinny or anorexic with bones showing sharply. Women naturally have curves as a result of subcutaneous fat which is necessary. Slim means not carrying extra unnecessary fat but we need some to stay healthy. Young girls are chosen because they have fresh, unlined skin but the images in magazines is of someone suffering to maintain an unnatural thinness. The gauntness is repelling not attractive and an unfair influence of young people.

That apart, the message for all of us is distorted. No one has everything perfect. Models are chosen for their smile, their elegant feet, attractive hands, slim bodies. They stand in a body models for film actors. The magazines would do a far greater service to all of us if they helped us to understand how to accentuate our good features and down play our less than perfect bits. Unfortunately the universal fashion cry of thin distorts the reality.

Wallace Simpson, who married Edward VII, apparently said you can never be too thin or too rich. There are adverse sides to both if you think carefully.

Learn more about this author, Rosemary Redfern.
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