As a young woman, I’ve faced my fair share of body image issues. I have overcome some food issues in my past, and I find myself constantly comparing my size to the people around me. Most of the time I just want to say: “Whatever, give me the brownie,” but then thoughts of svelte girls donning the styles I so desperately want to wear keep me holding back.
It is especially hard nowadays to find acceptance in your shape and size because one minute the media will embrace “the shape of a true woman” and the next it is glorifying how chic thin is.
A recent article in Glamour magazine sort of miffed me. Depicted is an image of 20 year old “plus size” model, Lizzie Miller, slouched over in an unflattering pose with her belly pooching out and a more womanly shape than we expect when we think of a model.
The image itself is pleasantly surprising coming from a fashion magazine; Lizzie is laughing and seemingly extremely comfortable in her skin. But one can not look past the fact that here is a woman, slouching in a chair. Why did she have to be in this particular pose? Sure enough, if anyone were to attempt this they too would have the same type of results from their midsection, no matter what your size is.
I don’t think this is quite fair. Take Lizzie and pose her like any other model, rather than make her emphasize something quite deliberately.
The article as a whole isn’t bad. There is another image of Lizzie that has her sitting in a different pose, still looking quite beautiful. The feedback on the article has brought both positive and negative results, with the obligatory celebration of “real” women, anad then the more disturbing views of how we are trying to glorify obesity.
However, this must be taken into account: Lizzie is not the average woman. She may be a size 12, “the average dress size” but she is still of model height, 5’9, while the mean height for an American woman lies around 5’4.
Her body might show some signs of flab, but for the most part she is not in any way overweight or heavier than average. She is also tanned, blonde and quite pretty.
While I understand the goal of this image is to make women feel acceptance with their bodies when they see it, more than likely some will compare themselves negatively. Some readers may see this and say, “Oh we’re the same size!” but then think, “But I don’t look like that, she is much prettier than me,” and then the purpose of the image is defeated. The model is still providing body dissatisfaction towards the consumer, just shifted towards a different group of people.
I understand that Glamour wanted to break down the “size zero wall” and show how beauty can be depicted with women of different shapes and sizes, but “plus size models” more than often aren’t even of what society would deem a “plus size.”
The point of these models isn’t to empower the consumer, more to market themselves so that the consumer feels like they can relate to them and want to buy the product, just like any other model. In a sense, these models are just continually trying to sell us a lifestyle: glamorized or more within our means. What is a “real” woman? How do we even go about with this distinction?
I do not see the shame in being of different sizes, as long as you are healthy. I think that we may overlook how these “empowering” terms actually set us back a bit. We are all “real” sizes regardless of what that actual size is. There should be no differentiating between these types of things. When we use terms such as “plus size” and “petite”, we are pigeonholing ourselves to identifying this size as “not normal”.
For all the praise we give for showing “real women” in magazines, we run articles the following weeks such as “How to lose 30 pounds in 30 days.” It does not equate.
I think that a more positive approach to this type of thing in the modeling industry would serve to actually integrate the two worlds of “plus size” modeling, and high fashion models.
Show me an editorial in Harpers Bazaar with Karlie Kloss and Crystal Renn wearing the newest fall/winter collections and show me no differentiation between their sizes.
They are both models; let them sell to me the same things.
When we try to put a label on the lifestyles that these different types of women can present to us, we are setting ourselves back and not opening our eyes to the possibilities that can be had when we diversify.
Kristen Vasquez can be reached at kvasquez@ut.edu.