Skinny women are now banned from strutting their thin figures on catwalk runways – or at least in France they are. This is following France’s recent decision to pass a law banning ultra-thin models from modelling on runways.
France’s capital – Paris – is known as one of the four main fashion capitals of the world (the others being London, Milan and New York City) with highly sought after fashion designers such as Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and Hugo Boss hailing from France. As such, France’s opinions on fashion and beauty are esteemed as the gold standard. France’s latest move will, therefore, have implications for beauty and what constitutes it. It will force people to start reconstructing their ideas of what makes for a beautiful woman, and make people start appreciating that being super skinny does not necessarily equate to being beautiful.
Reason for banning ultra-thin models
The ban of skinny models from catwalk runways was part of a wider health act that was passed in a bid to crackdown on the increasing incidences of anorexia on the part of models who avoid eating altogether in a bid to be a certain size for the runway. Under the new law, models will now have to show their Body Mass Index is at least 18 in order to be a catwalk model.
In addition to that, agents who force models to lose excessive amounts of weight will be punished in the form of a jail term of up to six months or a significant pecuniary fine. A separate law was also passed making it illegal to condone anorexia which was aimed at agents who force models to lose too much weight in order to get work, and websites that encourage unhealthy and extreme weight loss methods.
BMI is a tool used by the World Health Organisation to determine whether a person is undernourished (underweight) on the one extreme or obese on the other extreme. The prescribed healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 23, and is measured as a ratio of one’s height and weight.
Why is being skinny the Holy Grail?
Just a few decades ago, a heavier, voluptuous woman was considered as beautiful; the full-figure was the body to aspire to look at Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. She was not skinny yet she was considered the epitome of beauty. Fast forward to today, and the media has given a whole new definition to the term beautiful. Thin is the new standard of beauty.
What changed people’s views of what body size and shape are beautiful?
Negative influence from the media
Women’s perception of what is beautiful is largely being influenced by what they see in the media. The western culture has caught on and young girls (and not so young women alike) see pictures of skinny Hollywood celebrities in glossy magazines and start aspiring to that. People see a lady on the cover of a magazine wearing a bikini with a caption such as “how to lose five pounds in a week”, “how to get a bikini body” and “the skinny on getting skinny” and they grab the magazines hoping that they can get to the size of the models on the magazine covers.
False representation
A lot of women do not realise that the pictures they see in magazines are often heavily altered, and that the models often look nothing in real life like the magazines purport. It is, therefore, a vicious and unsuccessful circle to try and attain what you see in magazines. It puts undue pressure on women and makes them unnecessarily feel bad about their bodies.
There is a short documentary that has been doing rounds on the Internet that reveals that what we see as the final product in many commercials is usually quite different from what the models actually look like in reality. A lot of 'photo-shopping' is done to make their bodies look smaller, to make their faces look flawless, to make their skin look lighter, and to make their hair look longer. If you knew what most celebrities look like in real life sans makeup and elaborate software tricks used to 'perfect' their looks for publicity photos, you would probably stop beating yourself up about how you look.
No one is perfect; so do not believe the false perfection that is presented to you in the form of magazines and TV. Recently 'before and after' photos leaked of Beyoncé from her L’Oréal advertisement. Whereas the after photos depicted her as having flawless skin, the before pictures showed that she had pimples (which is pretty normal – she is human after all).
Fans all over the world reacted to the before photos, many in shock that she could actually have pimples! Some people had bizarre comments on social media such as: “You mean Beyoncé actually has pimples? You mean she is actually human...” Many people believe that celebrities are superhuman; that they have flawless skin, washboard abs, and no cellulite while this is not always the reality.
Fat shaming
Apart from influence from the media, another reason many women have become obsessed with losing weight is because of the stigma that the overweight and obese face. Overweight people are usually deemed to be lazy and are seen as food lovers with no self-control, and who don’t take care of themselves even though this may not be the case. There are overweight women who may never be able to get into a size 10 pair of jeans naturally and that doesn’t mean they are lazy – they just have a different body shape and different genes.
There are people who, however, refuse to understand this and make it their job to taunt women with a little extra weight. Stories abound of cyber bullies mocking (fat shaming) overweight people, and this can have a negative impact on the self-esteem of the victims.
Looking for validation
Women need to be careful about the company they keep because some people have the habit of putting others down. Michelle, an acquaintance, used to have what I thought was a nice full figure, but she embarked on a rigorous weight-loss programme that saw her lose a significant amount of weight.
She says she is happy with her body now but I think she looks a little awkward – her head seems to look a bit too big for her body and her skin looks pale. When I asked her what prompted her weight loss, she mentioned her boyfriend, and how he used to make snide remarks about her weight, telling her she was round like a whale.
One wonders why this 'boyfriend' was with her if he was so irked by how his girlfriend looked. Anyway, that is a story for another day – the point is, women need to surround themselves with people or partners who build their self-esteem, not tear it down and push them to unhealthy extremes.
Mothers and daughters
Unbeknownst to many mothers, they are passing negative messages to their daughters when they condemn their bodies. Sheila, a Nairobi resident, says she likes swimming and would like to accompany her children to the pool for a swim whenever they go for swimming. But she says she has to sit back and watch them because she would never wear a swimming costume, and be seen in public – “What with love handles, stretch marks and cellulite” as she put it. She says nothing on her body seems to sit right ever since she had her two girls. She usually 'jokes' to her daughters that she is too fat to swim whenever they ask her why she isn’t joining them in the pool.
Sheila is not someone you would call obese by any means, but I guess when she compares herself with what she sees in magazines, she feels too heavy. The sad thing is that her daughters are growing up thinking it is shameful to be over a certain weight, and these views pass from generation to generation – this can cause her children to start developing negative self-images as well, and the negative cycle continues.
Overweight or obese?
One is termed as being overweight when they weigh a little over what would be considered a healthy weight for their height, age and sex. It is sometimes a cultural issue, in that where one culture may deem one to be overweight, another will see the same person as having a perfectly normal weight. Obesity on the other hand is when a person has excessive deposition and storage of fat. Obesity comes along with health risks, as one is more prone to getting heart disease and diabetes among other complications.
Different strokes for different folks
At the end of the day, there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to weight matters and what is beautiful. As long as one is keeping an active and healthy lifestyle, they should not feel the pressure to conform to society’s definition of the 'right size'. Life is much more than a figure on the weighing scale. Embrace and appreciate your body as it is, and do not let outside noise pressure you into attaining a certain 'ideal' size.