Most Models Meet Criteria for Anorexia, Size 6 Is Plus Size: Magazine
EmailMost runway models meet the body mass index criteria for anorexia, according to an editorial pictorial in the January issue of PLUS Model magazine.
Twenty years ago, the average fashion model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23 percent less, it said. When asked for its source, the magazine cited the website of Rader Programs, which treats those with eating disorders.
Plus-size models have shrunk, too. A decade ago, plus-size models averaged between size 12 and size 18. Today, the majority of plus-size models an agency boards are between size 6 and size 14, the magazine said, based on its own research.
These statistics accompany nude photos of a plus-size model, who in some images is entwined with a nude runway model.
The editorial — intended to be revealing in both senses — is aimed at the fashion industry, but its immediate audience is ordinary women who are increasingly dissatisfied by fashion’s unwillingness to market to them, the magazine said.
Half of women wear a size 14 or larger, but most standard clothing outlets cater to sizes 14 or smaller, it said.
Buy from companies that market to you, shun those who don’t and amplify your demands via social media, the editorial advised women.
The pictorial has received more than 300,000 hits, 881 retweets and more than 11,000 Facebook shares.
Model Beverly Johnson told ABC News she was between a size 4 and 6 at the height of her career two decades ago. She wasn’t surprised to learn that meant she could almost be considered plus-size today.
“I think the whole obsession of being thin — I see more women and sometimes men that are super, super thin than in any time in history,” she said.
“My daughter is a plus-size model,” she added, “and she’s one of my heroes because she’s one of the warriors that are going out and saying, ‘Listen, we need to embrace our bodies and love our bodies as they are.’”
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I have been saying for years they need standardized sizing. A simple tape measure would suffice. Measure yourself and measure the clothes. I started marking down the waistline measurements of my pants as soon as I knew I was going to keep then. This 12 14 6 between different companies is ridiculous and dingbat me started on the difference between then and now.
Posted by: DeeAnn | January 12, 2012, 7:32 pm 7:32 pm
I do agree that most women on TV and in print send the message that “thinner is better.” Models do seem to get thinner BUT the average size woman in the United States is also growing at a very fast rate due to over eating and inactivity.We have to educate ourselves and our children that if we want to have a lifetime of good health, we need to exercise moderately DAILY and monitor our intake of food, soda and alcohol. Stop making excuses for laziness. It is time that people are held accountable for their health. If people have time to watch TV and look at the internet then they have time to take a walk.
Posted by: mary | January 12, 2012, 8:00 pm 8:00 pm
IDIOT AUTHORS! Dress sizes have changed drastically over the years! Expensive dresses have always been at least two size numbers lower for a particular body that the ‘run-of-the-mill’ clothes.
With the ‘average’ woman now obese, they lowered the number on the tag to compensate. After all, what woman wants to be a size 24 instead of a size six? Get real! You fatties out there will have far worse health issues, and lowering the printing on that dress label is not the way to improver either your health or your looks. Don’t worry about the models! Worry about yourselves.
Posted by: BigEd | January 12, 2012, 8:38 pm 8:38 pm
Why is it that the “ideal” image of women that is projected by fashion magazines has gotten thinner, while obesity has exploded? (68% of US adults are overweight or obese)
Posted by: Chris N. | January 12, 2012, 9:13 pm 9:13 pm
Dear BIGED – They speak of BMI in this article. Your blurb speaks to issues you must have. I eat little and work out to stay in a size 12 and I’m sick of this. I’m not obese.
Posted by: lexingtonlady | January 12, 2012, 9:31 pm 9:31 pm
More to the point, I find that it is because the clothes designers don’t know HOW to fit cloth around a round woman’s body. God forbid a designer ever has to ::shock! Horror!:: sew a dart into something.
Can see the day when the models come out carrying the clothes on hangers with cardboard inserts. Seems that what the designers *really* want anyhow: flat women like those cutouts.
Posted by: Deborah | January 12, 2012, 9:46 pm 9:46 pm
My daughter is painfully thin. She HATES it. She is 12 and weighs 65lbs. We have tried everything. High carbs, Ensure Drinks, 5000 calorie a day diets, vitamins. She doesn’t gain weight. People make fun of her so bad and have actually asked me if she is anorexic. Not all skinny people want to be that way. I cant count the times she has cried because someone has made a comment about her stick figure.
Posted by: Christy | January 12, 2012, 9:58 pm 9:58 pm
Most women were meant to have curves – a tummy, hips, etc. Even a skinny woman will have weight in the mid-thigh to waist area of her body, but then have a little bust and skinny arms. As we age, it gets worse. Stress doesn’t help either. I can exercise an hour a day and eat nothing but fruits and veggies and I will be a pear shaped size 14. It’s just the way it is. Doctor says I’m perfectly healthy and not a sick day in 10 years, but there is no way I’d wear a swimsuit in public. Not since I was a teenager. That’s what these skinny women are trying to represent – youth. Not just being tiny. I can’t tell you how many women I know who are 30′s-40′s and they are still trying to look like they are 21. Even smoking if they have to.
Posted by: Denese | January 12, 2012, 10:01 pm 10:01 pm
Obesity is a much bigger problem than anorexia. They don’t like thin models, so the answer is to promote fat ones? Bravo.
Posted by: kofybean | January 12, 2012, 10:20 pm 10:20 pm
i am 46 and still weigh what i did when i was 18 (about 115 lbs).
back then, i wore a size 3 or 5, sometimes even a 7. now i have to get size zero.
what’s next, minus numbers?!?!
while every body is different, too much weight is not healthy for anyone, human or otherwise.
if you really love yourself that much, take care of your body. it’s the only one you’ve got.
but don’t act like “fatter is better”. as christy pointed out, those of us who are naturally thin are bullied and picked on just as much as the obese.
ultimately, your sense of self-worth should be based on something other than how you look.
Posted by: peacewillow | January 12, 2012, 10:41 pm 10:41 pm
BIGED–You appear to have missed the point entirely. Did you read the article you are commenting on? The article states that most models today are in a weight range that would constitute ANOREXIA. And I assure you, these women do NOT eat. Almost never, truly. Also, if you did some research you would know that someone who denies themselves food in this manner wil have FAR, FAR more health issues than even an obese person. An obese person may slowly die from health related issues (and would probably live to see “old age”), but most anorexic/severely underweight people will die far sooner, ALSO from health related complications. Severely underweight people (as this article states most models are) will suffer from heart problems, liver problems, an immune system that shuts down, and will die far sooner than an obese person. As a friend of a recovering anorexic, I know that her disease was going to kill her SOONER rather than later. BTW, she became anorexic after a photographer spotted her at a pizza parlor and told her to pay a visit to the modeling agency he worked for. She went, and was told that she had a “great look,” but that she needed to “lose twenty pounds.” At 5’11 and 135 pounds, she was apparently “too fat” to be a model. Of course, her BMI was on the verge of “underweight” at that height and weight, but obviously, in order to be a model, you have to ACTUALLY be underweight. Severely underweight. Again, severely underweight are JUST AS UNHEALTHY and obese people, and are really even more unhealthy, as they will die far sooner if they don’t adopt healthier habits.
Posted by: wendy | January 12, 2012, 11:19 pm 11:19 pm
If you or anyone thinks nobody wants to sell you flashy, expensive clothes, you’re right if you’re broke. Otherwise, they don’t mind marketing to heavy$et ladie$. The problem in the past has been that fleshy babes don’t buy a lot of clothes, so that market is smaller. So far that +-size clothes market market has an even smaller niche of fashion-forward styles for wider women.
Even so, At some point, a huge person in sexy getup is becomes comical to others. So there are built-in disincentives for big folks who are not into self-humiliation. Of course, there are websites for all that now.
So, no market – it’s the money – like everywhere. If the big gals would start buying clothes the way teens do, it’d happen. If they bought clothes after seeing a plus-size model wear them, then we’d see more of it.
Posted by: Bob Owen | January 12, 2012, 11:23 pm 11:23 pm
Throughout most of history and in many parts of the world today, the body that these models seem to strive for and that are idealized, meant one thing – you are poor and have no money for food. And thus you were on the bottom of the social ladder.
How western society can idolize a starved body is beyond me. I find it grossly insensitive on every level and grossly inaccurate to what womanhood is and should be praised for.
Posted by: Emilie | January 12, 2012, 11:24 pm 11:24 pm
Non-model women, either fat or thin are gorgeous. Model women? Bones for your eyes.
Posted by: Joe Craig | January 13, 2012, 1:48 am 1:48 am
Christy – I understand what your daughter is going though although I’m the complete opposite. I work out nearly 6 times a week and watch everything I eat. Losing weight is nearly impossible for me but looking at the women in my family, they are all big hips, big breasts, curvy women. My DNA is meant to be this curvy woman and I’ve accepted it and I will continue working out and watching what I eat because in the end I just feel really healthy and that’s really what matters.
Posted by: Annie | January 13, 2012, 10:31 am 10:31 am
I sugest people who are interested in this topic read at least 3 books.
The Religion of Thinness, Health At Every Size: The Surprizing Truth About Your Weight and it’s Not About Food.
Until we get our emotional lives healed, we will always battle eating disorders.
Just because some of us don’t have full blown ED’s does not mean we don’t have what Jenni Schaefer named “Societal Ed”.
Posted by: Paula | January 13, 2012, 10:36 am 10:36 am
This story was timely as, on the morning that this story aired, I was looking at a clothing catalogue and thinking that I should write the company to ask them to show their clothing on “real” sized women. I have been shopping for clothing for over 40 years and I am tired of liking the outfit on the model, ordering it and then discovering that it doesn’t look good on me or any other real woman. Before ordering an outfit, it would be great to see it on the people who will really be wearing it.
Posted by: Mary | January 13, 2012, 11:04 am 11:04 am
I think people need to realize that these runway models and our communal self hatred for regular size to large size people has to do with capitalism, plain and simple. It has absolutely nothing to do with health! If I can make a look unattainable your will spend more and more money trying to attain that look.Currently thin is that unattainable standard. Large industries depends on this brainwashing, cosmetics industry, diet foods/companies, clothing, television. If food was a scarcity and people didn’t have the money to buy food and put on weight well then large fuller figures would be in and deemed as “healthy”. Remember when/if women in society realize they are beautiful in their own essence without the need for something to fix,,guess what? There is nothing to sell…. doing away with the whole reason the magazine industry exists! So really magazine images will always equate to unattainable standards of beauty…guess it is our job to create self acceptance and not expect a tool designed to make woman feel inferior do the work huh?
Posted by: Anna | January 13, 2012, 2:44 pm 2:44 pm
I wish there was no emphasis place on body size. We were all created to be unique individuals not look-a-like clones. I feel as though I have always been looked down on in one way or another. Once, I was heavy having hypothyroidism and was criticized for that, being told to watch what I eat, exercise more. Years later, I flip-flopped becoming hyperthyroid (which is not common to be both) and am now thin. Well, guess what? Now, I am criticized for that, being told I need to eat more, take better care of myself. You can’t “win for losing” or gaining for that matter.
Posted by: Karen | January 13, 2012, 7:27 pm 7:27 pm
If you took the measurements of 80s and 90s supermodels at their prime and the current models, there would be a huge disparity. Just compare Cindy Crawford’s arms in the photos to one of those pics of one of those women walking the runway. There is a huge difference.
Cindy Crawford’s measurements: 34B”-25.5″-36″
Current Model, Sigrid Agren: 31.5 – 22 – 33.5
Nearly 3 inches smaller in all dimensions.
Posted by: Jaded | January 13, 2012, 9:12 pm 9:12 pm
Clothing sizes are ridiculous – not everyone even follows the same curves. What we really need instead of ‘designer clothes’ are tailors and seamstresses to make clothes fit the best for the person who will be wearing them. Let them make their designs, but we alter them to fit us. I am one of the many who have actual arm muscles (Something women should not have?) and either have to buy a shirt three times larger than my bust and waist to get an adequate arm size or make the shirt myself!
I’d also like to make this point: Women are also on average, taller than their mothers and grandmothers. That affects size quite a bit, along with all the diversity of shapes and sizes in between. The ‘average’ woman in the fifties was much shorter than the average woman now, and had much smaller feet etc etc… yet stereotypes are still stuck in the past as to what ‘average’ is and/or should be (Two different ideas!)
Posted by: ML | January 13, 2012, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
I think it’s a reflection of a society that sells a message that women are owned property. Fat in a woman is not a sign of affluence, because the rich woman is owned by a rich man, who decides how much she should eat, and has control over every aspect of her life. Even women who consider themselves independent are owned by the larger society and some mincing, woman-hating fashion critic has control over what they wear.
Posted by: Fern | January 14, 2012, 2:45 pm 2:45 pm
I think as usual estrogen has gotten in the way and you are all bantering back and forth… Yes, it is ridiculous how “thin” you have to maintain these days to even buy good clothes and to FEEL “sexy’” … However, it is a matter of health. Plus sized or thin, you need to be healthy. YES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!! Does anybody realize this? I am a fluffy girl that used to be thin and had a chip on my shoulder once I put some weight on, but after knowing a few girls that could eat me under the table and are the size of a walking stick I realized its not a matter of your size but your actual health when it comes down to it. The unfortunate truth with society today is that super skinny is what is glamorized these days so our youth will never have a chance…
Posted by: Kennett | January 17, 2012, 7:39 am 7:39 am
I blame fashion designers who are cheap, lazy and greedy for this phenomenon. Anyone can design clothes that look good on a hanger. It takes real talent to make clothes that look good on a real womans body. They would rather have models starve themselves to death to fit into the runway clothes because it costs them less in fabric and labor. It’s disgusting – but we’re buying it. Vote with your dollars.
Posted by: Heidi | January 17, 2012, 11:49 am 11:49 am
Of course models will be significnatly less than the average women today since the average women and quite frankly men are heavier than they were 20 years ago. However, there are some that are too thin. In regarding sizes of clothing – look at Marilyn Monroe – back in her day she wore a size 14 – in todays world based on the backwards sizing – she could be probably a 6 or 8.
Posted by: Tasha | January 17, 2012, 6:11 pm 6:11 pm
more people die of obesity than anorexia.
Posted by: ladyoflettuce | January 17, 2012, 11:46 pm 11:46 pm
I eat healthy and workout 6days a week for at least 45 min, and I am a size 9! I dont think its about a number as long as you are healthy and happy:)
Posted by: Christian | January 20, 2012, 9:19 pm 9:19 pm
well, eventually we will all be plus size if the trend keeps going this way so then the term will lose its meaning, right? I don’t obsess with what number is on the back of my clothes and I am the average height and size of the American woman. Just wear what looks good, and live happy and comfortably. Don’t let life pass you by because food is one of the best parts of it.
Posted by: Sharon | January 23, 2012, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm