Ruthie has four sets of clothes: trouser suits for work in an exciting range of colours (black, navy and grey), her leathers, her rugby kit, and clothes suitable for wearing for cleaning her bike. Suffice to say that fashion is not a matter that occupies much of Ruthie’s waking thought time.
Ruthie is therefore shocked to learn that super skinny is apparently now the aspirational look for celebrities and troubled teenagers. The US “size zero” is all the rage. Ruthie has no idea exactly what this is, but photographs suggest the measurements of an African famine victim. Perhaps instead of sending aid to drought victims we should send some photographers over with expensive clothes. It’s a double money saver: cheaper than hiring professional models and a saving on the aid budget. I’m sure the starving Africans would be delighted to learn that they are the height of fashion.
Ruthie is mystified why this look is fashionable. Promoting anorexia is rather like promoting cancer or depression. A brief perusal through the average lads mag will confront the reader with lots of fat healthy bouncy bits. Skinny is not sexually attractive. Underweight women cease to ovulate and are therefore incapable of reproducing. The biological imperative is therefore not fulfilled.
Skinny is all about the attainment of a perfectionist ideal for (usually) women suffering from low self esteem. One is ten sufferers from anorexia will die from the disease or linked illnesses, including suicide.
Ruthie finds the glamourisation/normalisation of skinny images within the fashion/advertising industry abhorrent. Madrid has now banned women with a body mass index (weight in kilos divided by square of height in metres) of less than 18 appearing in fashion shows. (The world health organisation classes anything below 18.5 as underweight). As a consequence many of the banned models are turning up at London Fashion Week.
Marks and Spencer are funding a model bursary. Perhaps if sufficient women lobby M&S and London Fashion Week with their disapproval this will encourage the use of normal sized models. Ruthie suspects that the reason more women don’t complain is that they are conscious about being judged on their looks rather more than men and have been indoctrinated to believe that skinny is good.
Obsessive dieting is of course a form of masochism. Now that women are now longer openly oppressed in the West, we have been taught to oppress ourselves. It’s hard for starving women to compete with men in the workplace. They simply don’t have the stamina.
Research on the web reveals lots of sites which purport to be help sites for anorexics, but instead seem promote anorexia as a lifestyle choice rather than an illness. Don’t look at them. Instead look at this and encourage this company to continue taking a stand against the tyranny of thinness that is killing some women, and making the lives of many more a misery.
With respect Ruthie: a degree of hyperbole here mixed with scientific inaccuracy. The vast majority of underweight women don’t cease to ovulate: many anorexic women do yes but let us not ruin a fair argument with exaggeration.
From an aesthetic perspective, and with admission of acceptance of cultural bias, slim women are much sexier than fat ones. If you wish to engage in the biological rationale I’d say that slim is better since it suggests better health and fertility.
There is a big difference between slim and underweight. Slim would be at the lower end of a respectable BMI. Underweight is where bones start to be visible.
I was disgusted to hear on the radio today that the youngest model appearing in London Fashion Week is 14. She is 5 foot 7 and eight stone: seriously underweight. I think her parents need to have a long think about whether they are acting responsibly in allowing her to appear at that weight. In my opinion its child exploitation/cruelty.
Once upon a time Ruthie - briefly - dated a director of a well known merchant bank. Whilst readers may imagine steamy lunch breaks in expensive hotels, sadly no. The gentleman concerned was married to a model and found her eating habits so tiresome he simply wanted to watch me eat.
Readers can imagine I got bored with this very quickly, although since I was an impoverished student at the time an endless supply of free burgers and chocolate cake was received with gratitude.
I thought his situation was rather sad. Despite having all that power and money he still wanted a wife that he felt would conform to an image rather than one that might make him happy.