Too Skinny to Stand

Cindy Crawford

If you thought models were thin twenty years ago, have you notice them lately?  They used to be real people, only 8% smaller than the average American women.  Today they are 23% thinner—so tiny that Cindy Crawford and Christie Brinkley would be plus size models today.   

Plus sized models?  Plus sizes are now sizes 6 to 12, and the average woman in America is a size 14.

What’s happened to our thinking?  Things have gotten so skewed, so entangled, we can't think straight  any more.  If we saw a couple of those models coming down the aisles of our supermarket, we’d swear they’re anorexic and want to drag them to the closest hospital and hook 'em up to the nearest I.V.   But on a runway they’re gorgeous?  Come on, what's so beautiful?  There isn’t any beauty around.

The top models are all size ZERO.  That means nada—nothing, like no fat on the bones, or a mushy pound of flesh to squeeze.  At the same time, we're all bombarded by videos of pour souls from Africa dying of hunger, and some celebrity begging us to send money to save these people from dropping dead on the spot.

skinny models

                                                                                                  

How about the models?  They’re getting sick too.

Luisel Ramos, a 22 year old South American model dropped dead of a heart attack after stepping off a runway in 2006.  She had been on a three month diet of green leaves and diet Coke after being told she could be an international sensation if she lost weight.   Six months later, Luisel’s sister Elana, also a teenage model, was found dead in her bathroom.  She, too, suffered a heart attack. 

But American culture won’t let go of its vise-like grip.  Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and three-quarters of the covers  on women’s magazines include a message about changing a woman’s body by either:  diet, exercise, or cosmetic surgery.   Is this self-improvement or self-destruction?
 

These non-stop messages about thinness make women constantly doubt themselves because they continually remind us that we're never quite right, that we're always in need of adjustment.   According to Jean Kilbourne, educator and author, the overwhelming presence of painfully thin women means that real women’s bodies have become invisible in the mass media.
 

Callista Flockhart

Do women realize that these models and many celebrities have eating disorders?  Have you seen Callista Flockhart, the actress engaged to Harrison Ford?  You telling me he still gets excited pressing his hands to her bones?
Stand her next to a broomstick, and you can’t tell them apart.   

Harrison please, I’m telling you, there’s others…    Let us all send a donation to Callista.  Maybe she’ll take a nibble.