Sorry to take so long to respond back to you here – I must have missed this comment.

Fair point – if the industry itself is not willing to take proactive steps in these areas, then regulation, whilst not being the best answer, may well become necessary.

Yeah, no doubt you are not anorexic (smile), and I must agree that she looks very attractive as she is at the moment. If she was seriously sacked for being overweight as she claims, then whoever made such a decision seriously needs to get a clue.

Personally, I am not sure that regulation is the best way to go, but nor would I be completely dismissive of the idea. It would certainly be interesting to see what kind of sensible rules, if any, could be drafted up in this area.

As for her “weight” issue, you should have seen her on the news when she was talking about being fired and the issue with the magazine. If that woman was overweight I’m anorexic, and I’m not.

I sure wish that the modeling industry would not try to push its narrow standard of beauty onto the rest of us. But that seems like wishful thinking for the forseeable future.

The story of that ten year old girl is a great shame. Children should be given the opportunity to enjoy their childhood.

You bring up an interesting point. One would think that the use of super-thin models must work, or else, as you say, the media industry would not be using that approach. On the other hand, I don’t personally know of too many people who are necessarily all that turned on by super-slim – I know that I myself am not.

Years ago, I was a camp counselor at Boston Ballet School. Much like models, ballerinas are notorious for eating problems. I’ll never forget the 10-year-old student who wouldn’t eat her pie filling because it would make her fat.
Ten years old. I would have eaten her slice and the whole pie at that age.

What I don’t understand is this….based on everything I hear from people I know, and judging by the responses on this post, people don’t really buy into the toothpick image of women. But perhaps this is not a truly representative sample. If society is not interested in paper-thin women, why are they ever-present in advertising and other media? It must be effective, no?, or else industry would have canned this approach a long time ago.

Though I don’t cast any form of judgment upon those who wish to pursue such a career, I share your feeling on this matter and I can’t say that I myself would be that keen on a vocation based predominately on physical appearance either (even if I had the ‘looks’).

Brad,

Actually, I agree – Filippa Hamilton looks very nice as she is nowadays – much better than when Ralph Lauren digitally altered a picture of her some time ago to make her look thinner.

Weight clauses sound like a commonsense idea to me, although I could see why companies may shy away from using them, given the sensitivities associated with acknowledgement of employment decisions based on weight. They also come in very handy where the requirements of the position in question dictate that a reasonably degree of fitness or physical agility is essential.

Jake,

Yep – you can’t listen to or watch advertisements all that long before hearing messages about needing to lose weight or look younger or fitter or something.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with placing some value on physical beauty, something’s going wrong when physical appearance becomes the ‘be all and end all’.

Fred,

Agreed. That digitally altered image of her looked downright awful. I would be curious to see just how Ivory fared with their campaign using ordinary, average people.

Merryl,

I love your clothes hanger analogy!

When I buy an article of clothing, I don’t frankly care how it looks on Hugh Grant or Brad Pitt or anyone else. I care about how it looks on me and about whether or not the style is looks suitable and appropriate on my body.

That said, I would certainly imagine that physical beauty would influence consumer behavior to some degree. Myself, I certainly know that the beauty or otherwise of actresses does influence which movies or television programs that I watch.

Stats have shown us again and again that models have gotten skinnier and taller than those in the past. Their stats also move further and further away from the average person.

It’s not going to change anytime soon… Dove does campaigns with people like you and me. But like Fred said… don’t know if it made a difference or not.

In truth, I buy things because they meet my needs — not because I saw an ad.