Italian campaign against anorexic models

A joint campaign of the Italian government and the Italian fashion industry is supporting the endeavor to propagate "normal sized" models opposed to the prevalent super thin models. They have been stung into action after the death of a Brazilian model earlier this year due to anorexia and the resulting criticism of the idealized size zero woman.
Italy is now calling for more awareness of "a model of healthy, sunny, full-bodied Mediterranean beauty that Italy has historically contributed" to the international scene. Also, a Brazlian fashion event tried to raise the minimum age of professional models to 16 in an effort to protect young girls from starving themselves into an "ideal" figure at an age critical to their physical development.
E.g. Sophia Loren as opposed to Kate Moss

So should models portray your average woman on the street complete with boobs, hips and cellulite, or should they still be salad-without-dressing nibbling, calorie-reduced water drinking teenagers whose ribs you can count at 20 yards?

I think Spain had a similar campaign a short while ago if memory serves me well. Ah, I see it's mentioned in the article you linked to.
And here it is too: Ban on super-thin models from runways in Spain. Those girls just go too far when taking care of their figure.

The salad-without-dressing comment reminded me of something that Sophia Loren apparently once said, referring to her own figure: "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti!"

The two comparisons you show I think are very interesting.

Kate Moss is of course NOT a typical model at all, because she is only 5'6" so disproving the basic premise that they only use an exact type these days.

Sophia Loren in that picture is very clearly wearing a bodice or constricting device that is artifically creating the profile in the picture. Kate Moss's picture shows her without constrictive clothing.

So of the two pictures Kate is showing a female in a more natural state.

Frankly I don't know where people get their notions on this subject. It is clear that obesity is causing 10 or 100 times the deaths that malnutrition from overdieting is ever creating in the West.

So if the fashion industry was controllable, then the message as a government you would WANT them to promote is that THINNER is better. Clearly even with their THIN biase the message is not getting through. It is clearly not having a mass effect. People are NOT dying en masse in the western world due to thinness, but due to obesity.

Fashion industry is about selling clothes. I am sure they would be happy to use fat models if it sold more clothes. Regretfully fat models do not make the clothes look good. Harsh but true.

Ugly popstars do not sell records as well as pretty ones.

Errrr are you sure about that? Well ok unless they can sing.!!!

They cannot be ugly and not sing, pretty and not sing quite a few get away with it!!!

oh, give me a break, Kate does not look 'natural' there, she looks like she is starving.
There are women and men who are naturally thin, but there are alot of models out there suffering because they are told to be a certain weight. Come on, there was a Brazilian Supermodel a few weeks ago who died of anorexia, and her family and Armani who she modelled for deny any problems. What kind of role model is that? Want you 10 year to come home from school crying as the kids called her fat, and she isn't, but she is 5'5'' and wears a size 10 shoe? But doens't fit the perfect form of a supermodel with no curves or cellulite?

First of all, Kate Moss is definitely wearing some kind of a padded bra here. Look at the seam line under her breasts. Being so skinny, and having seen her Pirelli calender shots and her runway shots, I can't imagine that her breasts are really that size.
So she is also wearing "constructive clothing" here.

Secondly her rib bones are sticking out. That reminds me pictures of Somalian children starving.

There was this other model who died cause she was swallowing cotton balls for lunch. In the end the cotton balls messed up her digestion system and she died. I think it's pretty saddening to hear that these girls go through such measures to stay "thin".

There is something called the golden middle, that is not being so thin but also not being very fat. I think Gisela Blümchen and Heidi Klum are some of the few models who are keeping their curves while also attaining a healthy weight. They stay thin by working out every day and not by starving themselves to death.

After all, who likes to watch a bag of bones walking by? A woman's sexiness is defined by her curves. I think each woman should be proud of their curves. That's my two cents as a woman.

I know, but it was the best one to show her "full-bodied" shape as opposed to skin-and-bones Kate. How's this one then?

When not sucking her stomach in to show her ribs, Kate looks like a pretty regular female you could see on any beach in the world. She does not look a scary starving refugee.

Well a pretty regular 12 year old, at least...

Feel free to choose which one you want to see modelling clothes - or the lack of the same.

For beauty, I'd stick with Sophia every time.

I don't think Kate looks like she is starving there.
As for ribs, ribs are good, but indeed can be indicative of being too skinny. I don't think Kate's ribs were sticking out all that much to warrant the comments. I never found her that attractive until I saw this video (where she doesn't look anorexic at all:
Kate Moss in motion



Cellulite is a bummer on anyone. Stairmasters do a great job on it though.
They should have chest-high desks with a stairmaster underneath so people can work out and surf the web at the same time. You'd probably need some kind of harness to steady your upper body so you could type.

Actors normally starve or purge themselves for roles, and it kind of comes with the territory. Actors probably get way less sympathy. But that is only a tip of a huge strange philosophical iceberg.
There should be a drive toward skinniness, because skinny is healthy. I am overweight. I have struggled with being overweight for a few years now. I think I will conquer it though. Just need a bigger acting contract and a time threshold. I think the biggest loser concept is a good one: http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser/

Here's a great video about the Biggest Loser (who "won"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrpM0oC5Vgs

And to belabor the obvious, this is yet another emotions disguised as advice and opinions thread.

As for Sophia Loren, she can look so much better than that last picture. She is just totally beautiful, even now being way older she is truly beautiful. That last picture above is bad. She is totally sucking in for the picture which makes her have this dough wad above her bellybutton that looks like she is just about to give birth to Alien4. Also, can anyone tell that her face has been poorly retouched? There are millions of better pictures of her.

Abs are good, round curves are good, a little lining is good too in the right places.

I am convinced even the most portly of women can have loads of sex appeal. It's all about countenance. But there is no way I would come close to imagining giving a group of unfamiliar women advice on sex appeal.

Just look like Alizee and bear an air of confidence, and you're already half-way there:

Look like Alizee and bear an air of confidence and you are "half-way" there? Dear lord, I boggle to think what the other 50% has to be to have sex appeal.

At least you can resort to Lamaze, the guys do not have that escape.

If that bikini starts to suddenly head towards Australia there is no way the headphone lead is going to stop it on time.

And the recording is saying "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out..."

Who says she was not in Austrialia at the time?

Re. 'Kate Moss in Motion' - we now have greater knowledge of what Pete sees in her, but what the hell does she see in him!?

pre or post sniff?

Would his performance differ? He looks the same before and after... basically like he's fallen out the ugly tree.

You want rid of these skinny models? Just enforce random drug testing and ban all those who test positive for life.. This "profession" has almost as many "drug cheats" as cycling. Sure, it would ruin the Columbian economy but you can't have everything right?

I found this diagram once and thought it was an interesting depiction of how the ideal figure has changed over the years. The diagram shows the idea measurements from 1890, 1930 and then again at 1970.

heck, I was just born in the wrong decade.

Jesus. And evolution seems to have given these birds wings

gratuitous link to Leonard Cohen: "First We Take Manhattan!"

Frigg that, I was born in the wrong friggin CENTURY!

Exactly, sarabyrd. Had I been born in 1875, I could have been a f*cking supermodel.

Edit: Except, as Crawlie pointed out, I'm missing the obligatory supermodel wings.

[Love that song, but don't get the connection]

[Can't stop typing like this]

Come on!


In a minor cord with L.C.'s non-existant range going dowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn?`
De-frigging-pressing!

I am a huge Moby fan and at times go on his blog. A few months ago he shared his insight on this model/anorexia problem. Very interesting.

Enjoy
Chi-town

From moby.com
ok, bear with me and this little analogy...
Oct 05, 2006 - nyc
suppose you were redecorating your house.
and you wanted your house to be a quintessential minimal mid-century modern house.
and you had a friend who only liked victorian houses, filled with velvet drapes and thick carpets and over-stuffed couches and lots of ornamentation.
this same friend also had repeatedly said that they had no interest in ever living in a mid-century modern house.
would you ask them for their opinion about decorating your mid-century house?
obvious answer: no. because they don't like mid-century furniture and aesthetics and they only like victorian aesthetics.
pretty simple, right? why consider the opinion of someone who has no interest in the aesthetic that you're going for? right?
ok, that was the analogy.
so, i ask you, why do women listen to the aesthetic opinions of gay fashion designers?
don't get me wrong: i love gay fashion designers. i'm just dismayed that there are hundreds of millions of women currently starving themselves and beating themselves up because they don't have a body that's deemed 'attractive' by men who aren't attracted to women.
gay fashion designers(and editors, photographers, stylists, etc)are sexually attracted to men. which is great and should be applauded. but they're not sexually or physically attracted to women, which does kind of make their opinions about female bodies kind of moot.
is it any wonder that these same designers/etc tend to like female models who have very boy-ish bodies?
to make an anthropomorphic generalization: male bodies: angular. female bodies: curvy.
most female fashion models are angular, which is a quality normally associated with male bodies.
women are supposed to be curvy. it's what makes a woman's body feminine.
can you imagine how absurd it would be if women designed clothes for men and expected men to have breasts and hips?
wouldn't it be absurd if hundreds of millions of men were staring into mirrors and berating themselves for not looking more like women?
ok, so isn't it then absurd that hundreds of millions of women are staring into mirrors and berating themselves for not looking more like young men?
it's unnecessary and unhealthy.
and yes, obesity is bad. that goes without saying. but when perfectly healthy, normal women beat themselves up for being 'too fat' it's not only absurd, but emotionally and physically unhealthy.
women are not supposed to look like emaciated 14 year old boys. they're just not.
i'm not trying to pick a fight with the fashion industry, i'm just saying that endlessly promoting an ideal of beauty wherein women are supposed to look like emaciated 14 year old boys is absurd and destructive and creates tons of unnecessary anguish for the hundreds of millions of women who are healthy and don't look like emaciated 14 year old boys.

to use me as an example. i'm a vegan. i don't like meat. so if you were having a sausage and cheese party would you ask me for my opinion on what sort of sausage and cheese you should serve?
of course not.
my hope is that somehow women will allow themselves to be who they are, and stop beating themselves up for not looking like emaciated 14 year old boys.
as i said, it's absurd and deeply unhealthy.
thanks,
moby

thanks for the chi-town.
sort of puts some things into prespective.

@chi-town
Very interesting viewpoint...

So moby thinks it's ok for me to have a fat ass... HURRAH!!

what fat ass?

I still bet he doesn't shag many fat chicks.

Define fat.

Considering he's gay...

... considering he's gay, with a higher appreciation of female beauty as opposed to 'I'd shag her...'!

Moby's gay?

PS-Brownie points for that one, Carm.

The Spanish fashion show used the World Health Organsiation value for the minimum Body Mass Index (BMI) considered healthy. So we are talking about a scientific measure not a subjective view on what sort of figure you prefer.

so where's the machine that will take me back to 1890?

Unfortunately don't have time to find a link but I seem to remember a psychology experiment asked candidates to sort a pile of pictures of different sized/shaped women into three piles: Too Fat; OK; Too Thin.

On average Women put more pictures into the "Too Fat" pile than men and men put more pictures into the "Too Thin" pile than women.

Exactly.
A slightly higher BMI doesn't automatically mean curves - muscle weighs more than fat.
It's a strange one that models have become the epitome of beauty when their job is to present clothes or products, not themselves.
To create a celebrity culture out of clotheshangers is odd.

That Kate Moss, for all her presumed sins, gets singled out again is also strange, that really is her build, something that if you see her in real life becomes clear.
It is a sad day when those that complain about the promotion of only one body shape do so with the promotion of another sole body type. Not all women will look like Kate Moss however hard they try, but not all women will look like Sofia Loren either.

Why does body acceptance only allow bigger sizes?
Why replace something exclusive with something else exclusive?

Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather see a healthier mindset out there, that flatter chests were fine unlike Victoria Beckham and her "natural" chest on a tiny body, that Heidi Klum didn't have the scrutiny post-birth about her shape, that someone widely accepted as beautiful as Jessica Alba didn't have to have recent treatment for an eating disorder because even she didn't think she was good enough and that fit, strong women such as Hillary Swank (I was pleased to see her get a Guerlain campaign, seriously pleased) or Jennifer Garner get the credit. Or hearing about women who have made lifestyle changes for medical reasons such as Missy Elliot or Queen Latifah, both who were successful before but due to high-blood pressure and heart risks got down to work and are still as respected as they ever were at any size. Or Condi Rice getting pictured on the treadmill - if she can make the time, that makes you think, whatever your view on her politics are.
Isn't it somehow sad that for all Oprah Winfrey has achieved, for all her media power, for all her firsts, that she will probably be best remembered for her weight battle?

What's more important - how your thighs look or how they work? Having that knee operation this year really made me think about that one.

Getting those images out there about strong, confident women will do more than any kind of political showboating, the Italian reference to "sunny, Mediaterrean" rubs for me, sounds a bit "Italians for the Italians" if I am honest.

And the slim bashing goes on. Yes Kiera Knightley is a slim girl, but anorexia will eat away at muscle as well as fat.

She's tall, rangy and exercises - that amount of muscle tone just isn't compatible with an eating disorder like anorexia.

And yet the tabloids are truning her into the new Kate Moss/eating disorder poster girl.

Maybe that figure isn't to everyone's taste, it is horses for courses, it just makes me sad that acceptance is only permitted for the larger end of the scale (and no I'm not that slim but pals of mine are, I am sick of hearing people ask them if they throw up after meals though).

And what about some of us who are naturally skinny and struggle to keep the weight we've already got...


Yes, I know, you all hate me!

Girls, please don't be so slim.

There's no way those pics aren't photoshopped.

Yes, of course they are

I would check with the nearest doctor to see if your thyroid glands are working properly or if you have some microbes/worms in your digestive system. Seriously, that is usally the case with people who can't gain weight.