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Eating disorders: A more weighty issue than you think

Daniela Elser

by Daniela Elser

03 Aug 05:55am

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Filed under: Anorexia, Body Image, Eating Disorders, Health, Media

160 comments

Repeat after me: Models do not cause eating disorders. Really, they don’t.

This infamous billboard's message may have been misdirected. Photo: AP

The news which hit the headlines this week that nearly 100 children between the ages of five and seven had been diagnosed with eating disorders in the UK in recent years immediately prompted some stock-standard finger pointing (“It was the models wot done it!”), but it’s time to dispel a few myths about eating disorders.

For years, the scrawny, malnourished-looking girls who haunt the runways of Paris, Milan and New York have been accused of shoving women the world over just that much closer to starving themselves or sticking their fingers down their throats.

But, the truth is, models don’t give us eating disorders, nor does the tribe of actresses with waist spans the size of saucers who haunt the red carpet. No matter how many skeletal models Chanel shoves down the catwalk; no matter how many photos of bodies stripped of flesh and wrapped in satin are splashed across the glossy pages of Vogue – you’re not going to get anorexia.

Dr Rachel Bryant-Waugh, Head of the Eating and Feeding Disorders Service at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London told the UK Telegraph this week: “We believe much of the coverage today regarding children and eating disorders is misleading”:

Models and other society influences are, in our experience, rarely a contributory factor to the development of eating and weight difficulties in young children.

And here’s why - eating disorders have nothing to do with food or wanting to be super skinny. They’re an addiction, like being an alcoholic or drug addict, and have everything to do with self-esteem. Some people choose to address those feelings with gin; some with heroin; and some by going to the gym for three hours a day and subsisting on nothing but apples.

What all this means is you can’t ‘catch’ an eating disorder from reading too many magazines no matter how many photos of Posh Spice are splashed about the place and you won’t end up with anorexia simply because you spend your life pouring over Harpers Bazaar.

The idea that stuffing Elle with “real women” and removing every model whose dress size is in single digits from plain view will help reduce incidences of eating disorders is about as logical as every smug Prius driver thinking they are single-handedly saving the planet.

Next, eating disorders are by no means simply the province of neurotic teenage girls - they cut across all boundaries of age, gender, and nationality.

Your average image of a bulimic is not a paunchy middle-aged man hunched over a toilet heaving up condensed milk and Chinese food, but that was the case for former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

It was only once he was out of office that Prescott went public about his long-term battle with bulimia and his struggle to recover from it.

In fact, some statistics suggest there has been a 42 per cent increase in eating disorder patients 35 years and older in the last decade.

And finally, the words “eating disorder” do not necessarily translate simply to “anorexia”. Sufferers of Binge Eating Disorder are estimated to outnumber those with anorexia by a rate of 2:1. Research suggests there are 25 million people in the US who could be clinically diagnosed as having BED, an illness just as terrible as anorexia, but where’s the media frenzy about it?

So, we can keep kidding ourselves that our lack of happiness with our arses has everything to do with the fashion industry and every size zero model we can lay our hands on.

Or, we can take a long, uncomfortable look at why so many people in our society are plagued by crippling issues to do with self-image and self-worth and have a go at doing something about them.

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160 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Erick says:

      06:02am | 03/08/11

      Food for thought. *ahem*

      Seriously, though, this is an impressive article which goes beyond the standard media/fashion blaming to what is at its core a problem of mental illness in the individual sufferer. It’s good to see a different take on eating disorders.

      Reply

    • Mahhrat says:

      07:36am | 03/08/11

      Ba-doom-tish!

      Eating disorders (of either stripe), addictions with alcohol, narcotics and gambling are all serious social issues.

      Unfortunately, because some people effectively manage their mental health, they gain a vastly inflated notion of their own perfection.  You’ll see that here today. 

      Perhaps lack of compassion is itself a mental illness?

    • Tubesteak says:

      08:40am | 03/08/11

      It would have been better if it didn’t accuse models of being scrawny, malnourished and skeletal.

      Just because a woman doesn’t have a lot of padding everywhere doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her or that she has an eating disorder. It probably means she eats healthy food (lean meat and vegetables) and exercises appropriately.

      That is the image we should be holding up as an ideal.

    • adam says:

      09:10am | 03/08/11

      well said Tubesteak

    • Budz says:

      09:22am | 03/08/11

      @Mahhrat: Someone who is narcissistic in an extreme case can be considered a mental illness. And one of the biggest traits is that they lack empathy.

    • Mahhrat says:

      10:55am | 03/08/11

      @Budz, that’s kinda the point I was making smile

    • egg says:

      01:04pm | 03/08/11

      @tubesteak, if you think women aren’t meant to have body fat (and quite a bit more than men), you are just… an idiot. seriously. do you understand what a woman’s body is for? and why it might be advantageous to have “a lot of padding everywhere”? geez.

    • Tubesteak says:

      01:18pm | 03/08/11

      egg

      All people have some degree of body fat. It exists between muscles and in certain other places. You obviously have too much of it between your ears if you think an excess of it such that it becomes padding is normal and acceptable. Trim it off and firm it up.

    • Jordan says:

      06:07pm | 03/08/11

      @Mahhrat ... Narcissism is a personality trait. Severe ‘narcissism’ becomes Narcissistic Personality Disorder - which is NOT a ‘mental illness’. It’s a personality disorder. Why you’re raised Narcissism in a tread about eating disorders is strange. Whist you’ve raised it Histrionic Personally Disorder is often co-morbid with eating disorders. Eating disorders are also linked with sexual abuse.

    • mike j says:

      11:02am | 04/08/11

      You’re slowing down in your old age, Erick. Where’s the balance here? Oh, woe! Women’s issues! Body image! The media!

      All a woman has to do to have a good body is not stuff her face with jam donuts 24/7, or occasionally go for a walk. Yet people who don’t have the self control to do this want to externalise their guilt by blaming skinny models.

      If a man wants to be in a clothing ad, laying off the donuts just isn’t going to be enough. He needs to spend at least 10+ hours a week at the gym, lifting things that are really, really heavy. But we have no problem with THIS body image, do we, society? Noooo. We like our beefcake during Days of our Lives ad breaks. We condemn an influence that might encourage more women to eat healthily, but encourage one that promotes obsessive body sculpting in men.

      To bring some balance to this article, here’s the other side of the coin:

      If you spend 10+ hours a week at the gym, and use terms like ‘body sculpting’, don’t blame GQ and Men’s Health magazines, or the portrayal of the male body in the media. You’re probably just a wanker.

    • S.L says:

      06:09am | 03/08/11

      You are right Daniela it’s not the models that cause eating disorders. It’s the fashion designers that insist on modeling their wears around pathetically thin stick people masqerading as models.
      A friends daughter is suffering an eating disorder right now, she’s only 14.

      Reply

    • Sceptic says:

      06:50am | 03/08/11

      Always someone else’s fault.

    • KH says:

      08:00am | 03/08/11

      Sceptic - you can’t write off the influence of the media as simply as the author of this article has.  Every day from the day you are born, you are bombarded with images of what the ‘ideal’ is.  Girls are encouraged to spend ridiculous amounts of time worrying about hair, makeup and fashion, usually at the expense of intellect.  Every day, those of us not genetically blessed are reminded in some way that being good looking and thin gets you further, and no amount of dieting and exercise are going to make you something you just aren’t.  Once upon a time it was made to look sophisticated and cool to smoke - and it encouraged people do take up the habit - if it then became an addiction, you can’t divorce it from the fact they were encouraged in the first place.  Perhaps there are some people who these disorders might strike ‘randomly’, but the majority would have been influenced by the world around them to take those first steps down the road.  It would be interesting to see how many women (or men) in other cultures have eating disorders - I bet the number is much lower, as they aren’t bombarded with unattainable and unrealistic images every day of their lives.

    • Tom says:

      09:34am | 03/08/11

      Sceptic and KH, I cannot believe that I agree with both of you here.

      Our media rams stereotypes down our throats - “Good” is tall, skinny, confident, physically strong, assertive, narcistic and not responsible (read victim) whereas “Bad” is short, fat, bumbling, shy, weak, recessive and not noticed and responsible (read perpetrator).

      Who has a solution to how young people resist crap and cast off this nanny state mindset?

      Who allows / encourages people to say “I may not look anything like those film stars, tough s**t. But I have 70 or so years to do some pretty interesting things, have a lot of fun, perhaps discover my own talents and be valued in this society.”?

      Clearly traditional pop psychology has failed.

    • Lauren says:

      09:46am | 03/08/11

      @SL - that sort of attitude would not be helping your friend’s daughter.
      Instead of trying to find the underlying problems that may have made her prone for a ED, you are instead trivilising the mental disease as something so easily fixed if those pesky fashion designers would only advertise their work on bigger girls.
      It’s a little insulting for people with EDs (and in many cases, depression as well) to have all their problems summed up as the devil industry that has little to do with their lives.
      If not done so already, i’d suggest to your friend to get help - now. Sooner the better. See someone, get her talking about her troubles, and try and find the crux of her troubles instead of assuming it’s the fashion industry.
      It’s a mental disease, found in all cultures, that is not caused by the media or fashion.

    • Cate says:

      09:48am | 03/08/11

      @KH - There are incredibly high rates of anorexia in Japanese males - hardly something you can sheet home to fashion models. It is because many live high-pressure lives where they are expected to succeed at all cost, and an eating disorder is very often the only way someone can control an aspect of what they perceive to be their out-of-control life.

      In terms of Australian girls, the most recent studies on this topic suggest that it is the example set by your mother which plays the greatest role on how a young girl’s self-esteem develops, not the media. If your mother is happy and confident in herself and does not make negative comments about her body, then you are far less likely to have self-esteem issues and develop an eating disorder than those girls whose mothers yo-yo diet and obsess over their body, and criticise themselves.

      I grew up with a mother who was always incredibly positive about herself and her body, and being an average size 12 (after 3 kids), she is by no means “genetically-blessed” to look like a supermodel. I am a standard size 6 through genetics and luck alone - I have never been on a diet in my life, never binged and purged, never over-exercised. I appreciate my body because it is strong and gets me from A to B without drama. I have never obsessed over the way I look, not even as a teenage girl. I thank my mother for her healthy, realistic approach to body image because I truly believe it is why I (and my younger sister) are so grounded in this respect.

      The media (and through it, the fashion industry) is the eternal easy scapegoat which prevents us from examining the real social issues which cause eating disorders.

      @SL - rather than trivialising your friend’s daughter and her eating disorder, think about the fact that she has a mental health issue and needs professional help. Don’t insult the girl’s intelligence by suggesting that she is torturing herself purely because she wants to look like Kate Moss et al. There are deeper issues involved here. I wish your friend’s daughter all the best and hope she is getting some professional assistance.

    • S.L says:

      10:24am | 03/08/11

      To all the “experts” here I am not trivializing my friends daughters problem and I know there is more to eating disorders than girls looking at fashion models but as a models influence is the subject of this post I mentioned her as an example.

    • fml says:

      11:17am | 03/08/11

      I agree with sceptic,

      I dont understand why people are offended with broad social trends.

    • Hamish says:

      12:53pm | 03/08/11

      I’ve got an idea, let’s say that fashion models have to be a minimum size 20. A BMI of at least 30. Then instead of having thousands of young girls with anorexia we’d have thousands of…oh yeah…wait…we already do.

      Models don’t cause anorexia. Anorexia is a mental illness around sense of control in life and generally affects girls as they become pubescent (at least that’s my understanding). Surely the fact that we have zero obese models but craploads of obese girls suggests that models are not a significant factor.

    • AdamC says:

      01:10pm | 03/08/11

      I agree, Hamish. Surely, if models, celebs and those ubiquitous ‘media images’ we are constantly hearing about were as immensely powerful as they are usually characterised we wouldn’t have such an extensive obesity problem.

      The whole ‘body image’ movement irks me. And not just because it uses what I would see as an unrelated mental illness, anorexia nervosa, as a tool of emotional blackmail. I would see it primarily as another way in which society is infantilising women.

    • Cate says:

      01:33pm | 03/08/11

      @AdamC - agreed. It is infantalising and also highly insulting, because it implies that those with a serious mental health disorder, such as anorexia nervosa or BED, are not in fact ill but just want to look like Kate Moss. Which completely trivialises the seriousness of eating disorders.

    • Q says:

      01:33pm | 03/08/11

      Many addictions are about control and the feeling that you have none so you find something that you can control, in this case food. 
      The media does play a part in what is considered normal, ideal and acceptable.  The issue of ideal needs to be addressed as it gives the impression that anything that does not match the “ideal” is flawed.  To state that a certain body type, weight or clothing size is ideal is irresponsible.  There is no ideal, we are diverse in our appearance and in our abilities.  We should celebrate our diversity.

    • Tubesteak says:

      01:55pm | 03/08/11

      Q

      People are not a diverse range of sizes simply due to genetics or diversity. We should all aim to be as fit and trim as possible. Anything less than that is a failure. There is no such thing as a fit and tirm size 18 or XXXXXL

    • Jade (the other one) says:

      04:42pm | 03/08/11

      @S.L. - The causes of eating disorders are myriad and usually have absolutely nil to do with the influence of models or fashion magazines. The typical sufferer is a high-achiever, who will have indicators in childhood. There are children as young as 8 now being diagnosed with proper anorexia nervosa, and I highly doubt these 8 year olds are heavily influenced by the pages of Vogue.

      Most of the people who suffer with Anorexia don’t talk about wanting to be like Kate Moss or the like. They talk about wanting to achieve a specific goal weight - sometimes this can be the weight that they were at a specific age in their life, sometimes its a smaller weight than the smallest surviving anorexic, sometimes its an arbitrary number. Sometimes its a certain number of calories they never want to eat more than.

      Quite often, they will restrict their eating as a punishment for perceived failures - a bad grade at school, a gain of half a pound, not completing a task. They believe that they are “not worthy of food”. So they punish themselves in an extreme form of self-harm.

      How about you do some research? Very few real anorexics want to achieve an ideal based on celebrity images “shoved down their throats”. Every time someone suggests otherwise, they are doing real damage to every sufferer.

      Anorexia is the most deadly mental illness. I suggest if your friend wants her daughter to survive, she should seek professional help rather than listening to your uneducated, one-minded rantings about a subject you obviously have no idea about.

    • Michael says:

      06:27pm | 03/08/11

      Did you actually read the article? The disorder is more than likely caused by issues a bit closer to home. It will only improve once these issues are sorted. The research supports this.

    • Sceptic says:

      06:16am | 03/08/11

      People won’t do something about it, that requires effort on their behalf.

      Reply

    • Fiddler says:

      07:24am | 03/08/11

      Why does the media concentrate on the super-thin as opposed to binge eating disorder and how unhealthy being overweight is (I’m not talking about a few kilos here)
      Simple to make all the fat chicks who watch ACA or read Womens Weekly stories about plus-sized models feel good about themselves as they help themselves to that third slice of cheesecake.

      Reply

    • Sceptic says:

      07:36am | 03/08/11

      Don’t dare question a fat person about their weight, yet they somehow feel totally justified in questioning thin people.

    • TChong says:

      07:43am | 03/08/11

      The reason why Fiddler, is due to the sexiness factor of the problems.
      Chris Lilly - had it correct in “Summer Heights High”.
      Anorexia is considered glamorous. Sufferers seen as idealistic misguided lost souls - lots of empathy for the sufferer.
      Obesity is the domain of disgusting , weak minded , ugly, sweaty greedy guts.
      Very unfashionable to care about self indulgant fatties. Who wants to be seen near such losers?

    • AFR says:

      09:19am | 03/08/11

      The Today Show this morning (I only have it on for the little clock in the corner - honest!) gave Big W a free 5 minute ad when they featured the new fat chick range. The reporter used phrases like “curvy” and “plus size”. To me, being happy to be that big is no less a disorder than anorexia (but i’m of copurse not a medical professional).

    • Fiddler says:

      09:24am | 03/08/11

      I remember when I was young and quite slim (before I started lifting) and ppl would say “Oh, you’re so skinny, you need to eat more” and got really offended when I replied “Oh, you’re so fat, you need to eat less”

      I heard Fergies song “Big girls don’t cry” the other day and thought hmm except on the biggest loser, that’s all they bloody do

    • Skinny Minny but not judgemental says:

      12:35pm | 03/08/11

      Aaaaand you have just proven what a pathtic shallow moron you are by using “Big girls don’t cry” to illustrate your point. “Big” refers to the AGE, not the SIZE.
      You’re welcome.

    • Fiddler says:

      01:55pm | 03/08/11

      And you have shown how little of a sense of humour you have. Fact of the matter is people don’t really want to look at fat people in their magazines or on tv, if they want to do that it’s as simple as going down to the nearest shopping centre and seeing (mostly women) who are wider than they are tall.
      Doesn’t bother me too much. When the zombie apocalypse comes their lack of athletic ability will give me many a chance to escape

    • marley says:

      07:26am | 03/08/11

      Well, I agree you can’t blame the models - but when kids with self-esteem issues choose models a their ideal image, bad things happen.  I think the point is to try to identify and address the self-esteem issues, rather than try to change who kids pick as roles to copy.

      Reply

    • Cate says:

      09:52am | 03/08/11

      I think the undeniable reality is that most teenage girls do not chose fashion models as their role models - they chose the likes of Paris Hilton or the Kardashian sisters. I do not know many teenagers who aspire to be like Miranda Kerr (all healthy eating and noni juice and baby). They want to be like the girls they see on MTV’s the Hills, or any other trash reality tv show. Hence the rise of raunch culture in our society, and young girls sexualised far before their time. THIS is where the role of the media ought to be questioned.

    • Tubesteak says:

      02:17pm | 03/08/11

      Cate

      The media is a reflection of the viewer. Not the other way around.

      It’s very easy to change the channel and watch Discovery Science, National Geographic and The History Channel (as I did on the weekend). But if MTV and Arena notice their ratings soar when they show a bunch of vapid airheads then that is what they’ll show. Blame the viewers, not the media.

    • Mahhrat says:

      07:33am | 03/08/11

      The “Models” are not at blame, but the industry they work for certainly has some hard questions to answer.

      After all, if advertising didn’t influence people, nobody would do it.

      Reply

    • TChong says:

      09:08am | 03/08/11

      Mahrat
      If the model knowingly flogs a particular image, why arent they part of the problem ?
      This seems no different from a small time drug dealer, flogging something they know is harmful, but then stating its not up to them what the big dealers do.
      The “models”, in their willingness to be used to enforce unrealistic ideals are just as much part of the problem as everyone else.

    • Mahhrat says:

      11:05am | 03/08/11

      @TChong, Yes, probably being a little black and white there, i agree.

      Individuals working for the man still support the man?  I agree, but a model really just wants to model.  My argument isn’t about absolving them of all blame as more suggesting that they wouldn’t be that underweight if they didn’t have to be.

      The option is that they simply don’t model, and that isn’t fair - modelling should be as reaosnable a lifestyle choice as any other.

    • Ex model says:

      03:48pm | 03/08/11

      I don’t think the models are to blame, but I would say that, I’m an ex model with one of the biggest agents in the world. What you have to appreciate is that models are under IMMENSE pressure to be thin. You can talk about their willingness to be used in the advertising but the amount of money involved means that it would be very hard to turn it down. These are young girls remember, many of them teenagers.
      The people who put the pressure on the models are the agents, but they in turn have pressure on them from the photographers. These photographers are usually male, and want something to make their images stand out from the crowd. That thing is thinness. They set the tone of the aesthetic and in my experience all of the pressure comes from them.

    • Joan says:

      07:35am | 03/08/11

      Looking around me it ain’t anorexia that`s a national problem it`s obesity. Fat cooks and chefs in program after program promote more and more oil,  cream ,sauce dripping ways of stuffing our mouths. Fat Chefs as they lick and dip fingers.  equate sexy. with eating rather than nourishment, good heath , and survival. Fat chefs have, like a slow drip,  reshaped viewers minds and their message is that great mounds of pasta, rice, potatoes, pastries bread dripping in all types of calorific sauces and toppings is good for you. Eat up and go wallow like a whale on the sofa and watch the next episode.  No mention of excerise or how much excercise needed to wear off chef induced over indulgence. Anorexia is a problem for some- obesity is a gross nationbal disease suffered by both men and women and is mental problem of too.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      08:29am | 03/08/11

      Have to agree with this to some extent - after all, anorexia affects, what, less than 1% of adolescent girls, while obesity affects something like 15 or 20%.  The focus on food has a lot to do with it. 

      Mind you, quite a few of the celebrity chefs are cooking healthy food with fresh ingredients, using herbs instead of salt for seasoning, and relying on things like fresh tomatoes and lemons rather than cream for their sauces.  I’d actually place more blame on the laziness of people relying on fast food for their diet, rather than on celebrity chefs.

    • Mahhrat says:

      09:19am | 03/08/11

      Yep, the problem with obesity is laziness mixed with the easy access to fast food, not to mention the prices.

      Anglo food was fine when we were all farmers and worked physical jobs all day.  The diet hasn’t changed, but the lifestyle has.

    • Anne71 says:

      12:32pm | 03/08/11

      @Joan - If oil, cream, and “calorific sauces and toppings” are so fattening, then why doesn’t France have the obesity problems that Australia has? Cream, butter, suger, cheese, wine,  chocolate, olive oil etc are a huge part of their cuisine.  The answer is simple - their servings aren’t anywhere near as big as ours. They also don’t use anywhere near the amount of processed / convenience food as we do - they much prefer fresh food. The hotel I stayed in in Paris was on a street which had a market every day. You could buy fresh fish, meat, cheese, fruit and veg, even pate on your way home - and it seemed that almost every third shop on the street was a patisserie or chocolatier. Nobody loves their food more than the French, yet you don’t see anywhere near the number of obese people there as you do here. 
      The problem is, Australia is turning into a nation of pigs. I’ve heard so many people complain that a recipe for four is barely enough to feed one person. When I’ve made the same recipe, I’ve been able to get four meals out of it, quite easily. It’s not what in the food that’s to blame, but how much of it we eat.

    • Outraged says:

      03:21pm | 03/08/11

      Amen Joan!

      Since when did “Eating” become our National Pasttime? We have magazines and TV shows devoted to eating.

      “Eating” is just a bodily function. The less fat TV chefs glamourising over-indulgence the better!

    • Macca says:

      07:42am | 03/08/11

      “The idea that stuffing Elle with “real women” and removing every model whose dress size is in single digits from plain view will help reduce incidences of eating disorders is about as logical as every smug Prius driver thinking they are single-handedly saving the planet.”.

      Pretty much sums it up.

      Reply

    • Julius says:

      08:10am | 03/08/11

      Great article Danny.

      Reply

    • NSW says:

      08:23am | 03/08/11

      Still - People are stupid. They watch TV and look through those pinhead magazines and wish they looked like that famous wanker. I still believe a large factor is people being weak and stupid.

      Reply

    • Just want to be alive like you says:

      08:33am | 03/08/11

      I’ve suffered from Anorexia and Bulimia for more than 20 years. It was never about food or weight, not REALLY - I didn’t even think about my weight until I’d been diagnosed with anorexia for a while, because it was pretty much drilled into me that I had anorexia, therefore I was meant to be freaked out about that.  But every sufferer is different.
      I think most of us have in common that it IS an addiction - born of trying to cope with something we simply cannot - the media just hands us the loaded gun. Food/weight/body image becomes our substance as surely as alcohol or drugs or tobacco. That said, you can’t develop an eating disorder if you weren’t going to already whether you are exposed to that in the media or not. I think I had the thinking patterns since I was as young as I could remember. I would still have become sick in a perfect world. And it’s not a choice, either, another fallacy I often come across where ill-informed people call it a lifestyle choice like any diet - you can choose to stop your diet - I cannot choose to stop this - it’s alive in my head tormenting me 24/7 365 days a year.
      Thankyou for a great article and refreshingly NOT the usual misinformed drivel. There’s so little true understanding about eating disorders and even less treatment options. Perhaps next you could write about the travesty of treatment? Only 5 public eating disorder program beds in the whole of Queensland and similar in other states for example?

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      09:53am | 03/08/11

      I thought you might enjoy this quote,

      “When you know yourself you are empowered. When you accept yourself you are invincible”. ~ Tina Lifford

    • Anon says:

      03:09pm | 03/08/11

      Ditto.

      Only 4 public eating disorder beds in the whole of NSW. Why don’t you write about this?

    • Jackie says:

      04:28pm | 03/08/11

      good point anon, in Adelaide there was a great eating disorder clinic at Flinders Hospital which has been closed down, now the ED patients are thrown into the general mental health facility there…I find so much wrong with that. I would be interested to know what level of funding is given to ED clinics across the country?

    • Just want to be alive like you says:

      08:40am | 03/08/11

      Read “Crazy Like Us” - eating disorders exist even in societies that aren’t body image focused - they just aren’t as obvious. Also, in poorer societies where they don’t have as much access to health services - they aren’t going to be diagnosed as often, skewing the stereotyped ‘demographic’ of the rich white female.

      Reply

    • Tina says:

      08:40am | 03/08/11

      If we ban pictures of super slim models from magazine covers to protect our children then maybe we should ban fat people from the streets for the same purpose. Now that so many people are obese it doesnt even stand out and seems to be acceptable. Children are used to the sight of oversized people and might think its the standard way to go?

      Reply

    • fml says:

      11:48am | 03/08/11

      We already do it with smokers, drinkers, its only a matter of time till fast food is next.

    • Hamish says:

      12:45pm | 03/08/11

      It baffles me that we have such a huge obesity problem when I’ve totally, like, never even seen a picture of an obese person on a magazine. Life, WTF is up with that?

    • Tina says:

      01:21pm | 03/08/11

      @ Hamish

      And I would prefer to have more nice looking men on the covers and not always women that forgot to dress and for some reason always have their lips parted as if ready to give you a ... . Thinking about it, why do we have hot women on girls’ mags? As if we were all gay. grin

    • Lukew says:

      01:55pm | 03/08/11

      The idea is not polar, we should have pictures of healthly normal people on magazines, then we can all see how we should look.

      I am sure that using skinny models to promote things not the cause of eating disorders, but it provides an avenue of manifestation.  It represents a false ideal and that in itself is offensive. 

      There are societies where eating disorders are rare and is some cases unheard of and they tend to be the less materialistic ones.

      We have been talking about changing this for some time and despite apparent support, it never happens. Why do they do it?

      I understand the sentiment of the article, but it still doesn’t justify the practice.

    • Hamish says:

      02:00pm | 03/08/11

      Yeah it’s weird, you’ve got mens mags like fhm which have hot girls on the cover and then you’ve got womens mags which also have hot girls on the cover. The only mags with dudes on the cover are those mens health mags which I think actually are for gay dudes.

    • Tina says:

      02:19pm | 03/08/11

      @ Hamish

      Sounds like a win-win situation for you with hot girls all over.

    • Hamish says:

      02:30pm | 03/08/11

      Yeah I wasn’t complaining Tina, I was just making an observation.

    • Sad Sad Reality says:

      01:50pm | 04/08/11

      Women idolise female beauty because it represents a free ride through life.

    • biscuit says:

      02:56pm | 04/08/11

      tina, google “The maze gaze”
      It is a psychological thing where women put themselves into the mindframe of a man when looking at an image of a woman and desire to be this woman who is attractive to men.

    • Andrew Lake says:

      09:02am | 03/08/11

      Twenty years ago my sister was diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 11, after developing it at age 9. Her goal weight was 4 stone (25kg) and her quest to achieve this nearly killed her several times.

      In that twenty years this is the most intelligent article I have read on the subject. Thank you for making my morning smile

      Reply

    • Dave says:

      09:06am | 03/08/11

      Does anyone know where the ‘infamous billboard’ shown in the picture is? I’ve never seen or heard of it?

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      12:36pm | 03/08/11

      New York maybe? No.L.Ita as in north of Little Italy perhaps?

      I could be way off ...

    • Jackie says:

      01:09pm | 03/08/11

      Im pretty sure it was Italy, I know the model did die recently due to her ED. There was a great article about the model & billboard on Mammamia.

    • cybacaT says:

      09:20am | 03/08/11

      My main concern is that the media focuses so much on the relatively rare issues of bulimia and anorexia, when 100 times the number of people are affected by being OVERweight.  Let’s deal with the BIG problem first - over-eating, overweight kids and adults who shorten their lives and cost our health system massively.

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      10:14am | 03/08/11

      Agreed. 0.0005% of Australians have anorexia compared to the fact our average sized woman now wears a size 16.

    • OchreBunyip says:

      11:14am | 03/08/11

      Calls to tackle problems “first” makes the assumption that our society can only handle one problem at a time. Agreed we have more fat people than anorexic people but that doesn’t mean we cannot attend to both problems, particularly if one problem seems to be missing out on some presentation.

    • Luke says:

      06:28pm | 03/08/11

      cybacaT,
      Unfortunately and despite your possible good intentions, this shows you have no idea about eating disorders.

      Eating disorders are representative of other problems altogether and the affects are devastating for the sufferer and anyone close to them.  You may also be surprised at the numbers.  Help is increasingly difficult to get.  Apart from the cost, which is often preclusive, there are simply not enough resources to cope with the number of sufferers.  Most waiting lists are months long.

      Comparing eating disorders to being overweight in most contexts is not valid.

    • Innocent says:

      09:06pm | 03/08/11

      Dress sizes are meaningless. I got pregnant, ballooned, lost the weight, and then went clothes shopping afterwards. I was a size 8 before I got pregnant, and I went clothes shopping before I had completely lost the baby weight and couldn’t fit back into my old clothes but still wanted something nice.

      Now apparently I’m a size 6 in all the shops and I’m HEAVIER than when I was a size 8. And the insult to injury? When I do lose the weight, what do I wear? The shops I went into don’t go below size 6.

    • Lauren says:

      09:26am | 03/08/11

      Good article. My sister suffered from anorexia for a number of years, and was hospitalized on numerous occasions for heart trouble.
      It was never about the looks, or the self esteem.. It was about the control, and the addictive ways of controlling her body with as little food as possible… Kind of like proving she could survive on nothing and this made her strong.
      It wasn’t the models or the fashion industry’s influence at all; rather the ‘trigger’ was my parents separating. Dancing and starving helped her numb the pain, and she got addicted.
      I think education is still needed for all EDs. Anorexia is a life long mental disease that affects my sister and her family and friends. Blaming the complexity of her mind on something as trivial as a random skinny model just screams ignorance.

      Reply

    • Vivica says:

      09:31am | 03/08/11

      Whilst it’s nice to see a different take on eating disorders, I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiments made in this piece.

      I have suffered from an binge eating disorder since I was about 12 which was triggered by being in a competitive environment for dancing and then further triggered by waif thin models at my school waving it in my face that being thin is more beautiful etc etc. I’ve been modelling for 4 years and for the past 2 years I have suffered from bulimia which not only has been caused by stress from photographers, but also from models and the large amount of bullying and bitching that goes on.

      More than anything I blame the media, entertainment columns and magazines that pick on celebrities for having a bit of cellulite, gaining 10 kilos because they wanted to relax etc.

      Every sufferer is different. Model’s shouldn’t be held responsible. They are under just as much pressure and in a lot of cases are suffering from eating disorders and don’t even realise it - speaking from first hand experience.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      02:07pm | 03/08/11

      Sorry to say it, but if modelling is adding to your binge-eating disorder, you should get the hell out of the job and find a profession where the emphasis is on brains, not body weight.  Life is too short to be spending it in the bathroom throwing up.

    • Vivica says:

      02:23pm | 03/08/11

      I don’t suffer from bulimia anymore, thankfully. It was a really rough patch I went through where I was insecure with myself and I stopped modelling for quite sometime til I was ready to deal with it mentally. I enjoy modelling, both as a part time job and for fun. I do know a lot of girls though that are doing it for the wrong reasons, as an attempt to feel good about themselves. I do it because I love the creative side of it, not for attention, more so to share beautiful images with the world.

    • anon says:

      10:10am | 03/08/11

      nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

      Reply

    • James1 says:

      10:44am | 03/08/11

      You’ve obviously never eaten my legendary chocolate and caramel fudge…

    • Anne71 says:

      12:48pm | 03/08/11

      James1 - that sounds divine! Mmm…. chocolate & caramel fudge… *Homer Simpson-esque drooling*

    • Jackie says:

      01:07pm | 03/08/11

      Said uber skinny Kate Moss

    • Kika says:

      10:12am | 03/08/11

      I think the whole thing is overblown. Not one of my friends thought being super skinny was cool. Anorexia is a mental health issue, just as obesity is. It’s all related to self esteem and an unhealthy relationship with food. One girl I knew of with anorexia had severe depression because of a nasty divorce her parents went through. Anorexia is a way of controlling your life when it otherwise feels out of control by having control of your weight. Plus the attention you get from being anorexic also fuels the disease.

      I don’t think we should be worrying as a society about people wanting to be thin though. I think it’s a national disgrace that our average size woman now wears a size 16.  When and why should that ever be seen as normal? We should be encouraging girls to be healthy and not make excuses for having a bit of ‘padding’.

      Reply

    • Vivica says:

      10:30am | 03/08/11

      Disagree and agree to an extent. I am a size 14-16 and look quite healthy. By saying that size 16’s are unhealthy is an absolute load of garbage. There are 6foot girls who are a size 16 who are incredibly healthy.

    • Tina says:

      11:18am | 03/08/11

      @ Vivica
      Size 16 is far too large for a 6” girl. I am close to 6” and am a size 10 and can certainly not be considered overly thin. I have been at size 12 once and that would already involve quite a decent muffin top.

    • Cate says:

      11:40am | 03/08/11

      Hmmmmm I think classing people as healthy/overweight/underweight based on dress size is a furphy
      With the advent of vanity sizing, clothing sizes have slowly but surely being changed every year, to the point where I now can no longer fit into a size 6 Cue dress, and anything that Country Road or Witchery manufacture, even their size 4, swims on me. Whereas I have some vintage clothing from a few decades ago, where a size 8 is very fitted on me
      A “size 16” girl could be an average size, or could be overweight - the discussion is not grounded in any measurable, tangible concept of actual size
      Better to talk about height-to-weight ratios (although BMI is often inaccurate), and body fat percentage

    • Jade says:

      11:44am | 03/08/11

      @ Vivica, I would have to agree with Tina.  I am 5’6 and am a size 12 at the moment and it’s yuck, muffin tops… fat everywhere… double chin emerging.  I could never imagine being a size 16… the thought of that in nightmare material.  In no way is a size 16 normal or healthy. That is just fat people trying to justify the fact that they are fat.

    • Jade says:

      11:44am | 03/08/11

      @ Vivica, I would have to agree with Tina.  I am 5’6 and am a size 12 at the moment and it’s yuck, muffin tops… fat everywhere… double chin emerging.  I could never imagine being a size 16… the thought of that in nightmare material.  In no way is a size 16 normal or healthy. That is just fat people trying to justify the fact that they are fat.

    • Vivica says:

      12:02pm | 03/08/11

      Sorry I completely disagree. I work with a lot of size 14/16 models and none of them are actually overweight, they are just big bums, hips and boobs. I do not support anyone who thinks being obese is ok because it’s not. I’ve been obese and I was digusted (and still am) at the fact that I let myself get to 100 kilo’s. I’m a size 14/16 and I look very healthy and my dietition says that whilst my BMI is stupid it’s not realistic and I am actually very healthy. I’m 5’3” weigh 74 kilos and are fine. If you are 5’6”, size 12 and think you’re yuk, well I think that may be a very deluded opinion of yourself sorry. Those measurements sound completely healthy.

      There’s a difference between beign plus sized/curvy then being obese. I get annoyed with women who are obese and refer to themselves as ‘curvy’ and ‘sexy’. Some people are into that, but when it’s causing health risks, there is nothing sexy about that whatsoever.

    • Tina says:

      12:14pm | 03/08/11

      @ Vivica
      I am happy for you for your weight loss. Congratulations. And I agree that “healthy” weight ranges over more dress sizes and as long as there are no long term health concerns and the person is happy its ok. But 5"3’ and 74 kg still sound rather large to me. I am 5"10’ and 66 kg and am not considered slim. But I think it is right we should not try to make everyone look the same and have the same size. People are different and we should teach our kids that healthy is the key word - if its size 6 or 14.

    • Kika says:

      12:19pm | 03/08/11

      Nope, I agree with Jade. Size 16 is overweight. If it was normal, then why has the sizing increased from an average size 10 in the 80’s (my mum was and still is a size 10-12), to a 12, to a 14 to a 16? We are getting fatter. And we are getting more and more excuses to be fat because we are making it normal to have ‘b**bs and bums’.  It’s not! Look at family photos. Was your grandmother a size 16? Mine certainly wasn’t. She ate small portions, was active and never sat in front of a computer all day and binged. She loves her chocolate, scones with jam and cream and never put an extra kilo on. We’re getting fatter and fatter and getting lazier and lazier it’s no wonder Aussie men are turning off us.

      We’re one of the fattest countries in the world, behind America. They made it normal to be fat and we’re doing the same. The fact you need to have a plus size model agency goes to the fact that there are a huge number of Aussie women who are bigger and want representation in fashion and media. In saying that, I’ve never seen a grotesquely horrible plus size model. They are always well proportioned and good looking. But that’s just it, they are models. Most of the average size 16’s out there ARE overweight and by having representation out there by way of plus sized modelling gives them excuses and reasons to feel proud of being overweight.

    • Leto says:

      12:33pm | 03/08/11

      STOP using dress sizes as a measure of your weight! Who really cares what size muumuu people can squeeze themselves into. Picture two dress, one a size 14 and the other a size 16. Imagine that you fit into both of them. If you bought the size 14, does that mean you have lost weight?

      We have something called the BMI, which actually works much better. There are lots of different body types, that’s why the BMI has a range.

      @ Vivica, not meaning to be rude, but you have a BMI of 28.4. This puts you in the overweight category. How do you think someone is classified as obese? That’s correct, the BMI. Obese is obese and overweight is overweight. Why should the BMI work ok for obese people but not for you? Certainly it is possible to be healthy and overweight, but I would argue that it’s not the norm.

    • Vivica says:

      01:06pm | 03/08/11

      Wow some of you really aren’t bothering to take in what I am saying. Dress sizes are still quite irrelevant because you are not bothering to take hip, chest and bum measurements into account not to mention muscle mass. I did body building for 2 years and have a lot of muscle mass still which makes up for quite a lot of this but I have a flat stomach. So please don’t have the hide to tell me that I am ‘large’. I know what I am and so does my dietition. I work out 6 times a weak, eat 6 small meals of clean eating organic food a day and are healthier than most girls I know who are a size 8 and eat McDonalds twice a day.

      A lot of it comes down to food, genetics and exercise.  I know what my BMI is and I know it says I am overweight, but I am not overweight. If you saw me in person you would know I am not overweight. Even my doctor says I am not overweight.

      A lot of dietition’s don’t use BMI’s these days because they are not accurate and do not take things such as muscle mass into account. This is why a lot of them take excess skin measurements etc. Not tooting my own horn, but I have worked with enough models who are size 14’s and 16’s who are not overweight. Stop using dress sizes to determine if someone is fat. Not only is it narrow minded but it also quite jaded.

      It’s comments such as “You’re a size 16, you’re overweight/fat” that drive girls with already low self esteem to start overdoing it at the gym, starve themselves or try every different diet under the sun. I have done it my entire life and I am lucky enough now that I don’t listen to such comments and instead listen to a professional who is qualified to make such judgements.

      I think it’s a disgrace that I have to spend $150-$200 a week just for myself to stay healthy yet my boyfriend who is a lean size small can eat junk food 5 times a day, drink 2 bottles of wine a night, smoke a packet fo cigarettes every 2 days, yet no one says anything to him about his health.

      When society stops putting so much bloody focus on what overweight people put in their mouths and focuses on everyone as a whole and treats people equally, then maybe we might be a bit better off.

      I’m not saying anything else on the subject.

    • Tina says:

      01:15pm | 03/08/11

      @ Vivica

      Noone meant to attack you or said anything rude. Leto was right to say it is not the norm. The thing that surprises me most is your defensiveness and the fact that you have a dietition and talk to your doctor about weight. So your weight or your shape do seem to be an issue for you.

    • Cate says:

      01:30pm | 03/08/11

      Snap, Leto!
      Its call vanity sizing, and it drives me insane! There are so many stores I simply cannot shop in, because their so-called “size 6” is more like a size 10.
      Fair enough, if commercial clothing brands want to increase their range to include more large sizes, go for it! Just please, for the love of god, don’t forget about us smaller people! If you are going to turn a size 6 into a size 10, you’re going to have to start making your clothes in a size 0-2 or lose many customers.

      Agree also that BMI is not a good indicator of health for many people, such as heavily muscled people. My BMI is 17 which technically makes me underweight, which is a joke because I have boobs and a butt. Its a general guide, not set in concrete. Fat percentage testing is the only way to get a proper idea of how much bodyfat you are actually carrying.

    • Vivica says:

      02:01pm | 03/08/11

      I see a dietition and a doctor because I have suffered from bulimia, as mentioned above. I’ve had to have 2 colonoscopies and a biopsy because of the damage I have done to my body through bad diets and binging and purging for several years. It’s not because I lack confidence at all. I have a severely slow metabolism and due to the health problems I’ve had in the past, I want to ensure that my diet is closely monitored and that I don’t fall back into an eating disorder.

      I have a lot of confidence, especially compared to what I had 2 years ago. I’m not getting defensive, I am just frustrated at the view that BMI is the sole purpose for everything.

      Leto is pretty much on the money with this one.

      I don’t support obesity but I don’t support the BMI view as it’s outdated as per my post above.

    • Ex model says:

      03:59pm | 03/08/11

      Vivica I don’t wish to be rude but if you are genuinely that large I find it hard to believe you are a fashion model. At my agency in London (models 1) and all my new york agencies the girls who were 6” would be lucky to get away with a hip measurement of 36.5” That equates to about a size 10. I’m 5’9 and I used to get grief if I went above a 35” hip or a size 8 clothing size. There is no way someone who was a size 14-16 would EVER be a model in those cities. I presume we aren’t really talking about high end international modelling here. In which case the standards are very different to those required of models shooting large campaigns and major magazines.

    • Moby says:

      05:00pm | 03/08/11

      Just a quick one for all those that are quoting BMI, IT IS NOT RELIABLE!!!!!!  Just for one example, Jay Walker, winner of the 2010 Mr Universe title, stands 5’9” (175 cms) and is 270lbs (122 kgs) which comes out at a BMI of 39.98 With a little rounding, that puts him in the morbidly obese category.  Yes, it is ok for some general comparrisons, but it is not the be all and end all!

    • Frank says:

      10:31am | 03/08/11

      Funnily enough this article relates to what I am going through at this very moment. Being constantly turned down by women for the thinner guys and being unable to reach my ideal weight through healthy means, I recently decided to become anorexic, on Monday actually. If I could actually find a woman who wasn’t obsessed with man-hunks then maybe I wouldn’t have to go down this path, but for all their talk I am yet to meet a woman who is interested in a man because of their personality. If anorexia is what it is going to take to be attractive to women then I guess it is just what I have to do.

      Reply

    • Rebecca says:

      11:26am | 03/08/11

      Anorexia, like any other mental illness, is not a choice.  Perhaps you should check out the Butterfly Foundation website to inform yourself on these issues. 

      There is a big difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating.

    • Kika says:

      12:34pm | 03/08/11

      Actually I think you would find that most women don’t rank looks as the main priority in a man. If you are funny, you will never find a problem in meeting girls. I fell in love with my husband not for his looks, but for his humour and personality. I then fell in love with the looks later on.

    • Frank says:

      03:06pm | 03/08/11

      You don’t think I can choose not to eat? Watch me

    • Outraged says:

      03:26pm | 03/08/11

      I hate to break it to you, Frank…but women don’t like anorexic looking guys! They don’t like chubby guys either…women like muscled, athletic guys…in fact, most women I know don’t like guys who are skinnier than them!

      You don’t need to starve yourself…just hit the gym 6 days a week and start wolfing down Protein Bars!

    • Rebecca says:

      03:52pm | 03/08/11

      Of course you can choose not to eat, anyone can, but that choice is the main difference between someone who has disordered eating patterns and a diagnosable Eating Disorder.

      People with Eating Disorders such as Anorexia are unable to simply choose to start eating healthily.  It is a mental illness and is much more complicated than that.  Again, I would encourage you to do some research on this issue.

    • MD says:

      10:37am | 03/08/11

      Check out this link to Mia Freedman’s article on Portia De Rossi and especially the youtube video at the end http://www.mamamia.com.au/health-wellbeing/portia-de-rossi-unbearable-lightness/
      While it may not be the case for all people suffering from an eating disorder that they have poor body image because of the modelling industry , the ideal of a model’s perfect body is unhelpful for women and men.
      It dawned on me, when I saw pictures of Marilyn Monroe in a bikini in the US and then again when I saw on tv shots of bikinis from when they first originated, that the people we see on tv and in magazines has changed. The media images we consume have become thinner, more toned and more tanned. It really left me thinking about this change and that what we have now has not always been. While this may be a little off-topic, I also started to think: Since when did being super thin equate to being a good and successful actor? How and why are the 2 related?!

      Reply

    • Luce says:

      10:39am | 03/08/11

      Blame can’t be dolled out to any single sect of society. The fashion industry is just one part of a much larger issue: the promotion of the idea that you need to be someone other than yourself to be accepted in today’s society.

      While I’m an advocate for accepting personal responsibility for one’s actions, it’s hard to deny that the influences we are all subjected to on a daily basis do have an effect on us. A combination of factors, maybe a bad home life, trauma, changing hormones, pressure of living in the public eye etc may make someone psychologically vulnerable to these influences, and hence lead to drastic measures to try compensate for their battered self esteem. This is a challenge most of us will face at some point in our lives (not necessarily an eating disorder, but some sort of self esteem crisis), and requires our own perseverance, plus the support of our loved ones, to fight our way through it.

      It wouldn’t hurt, also, for society more broadly to play a more constructive role in this. I read an article by Janet Albrechtsen the other week talking about Lady Gaga and Hermione from Harry Potter and, whether you’re a fan of the music / movie or not, how they are both good female role models. Both send out the message that it’s ok to be yourself, and that women should not be afraid to be strong and independent. I’m sure many of us would like to see more of that kind of positivity.

      Reply

    • Luce says:

      10:57am | 03/08/11

      One last point regarding BED: it is in the media, they just don’t call it BED, they call it an obesity epidemic. Regardless of which term you think is more accurate, they change the way people view the issue. Calling it an obesity epidemic doesn’t exactly engender much sympathy for those who have a genuine problem, where as BED is more likely to.

    • Melinda Poor says:

      11:08am | 03/08/11

      I have never dieted, keep a healthy weight, never talk about weight or body issues in my house, it’s not a topic at all that ever gets attention in our household, we eat very healthy foods though, just as a matter of common sense. However, my efforts to make food and eating as low key as possible around my 4 daughters, is being undermined by the obsession with discussing it at school. They have a litany of classes on eating and food and nutrition and health etc etc to the point of ridiculousness. Our obsession is with obesity, and the more we go on about it, the worse it gets. Does anyone see the connection there ??

      Reply

    • Fiddler says:

      11:31am | 03/08/11

      I sure do. It was cold this morning and I heard a truck do down the street. Therefore trucks driving past causes cold weather.
      The reasons are quite simple we are eating too much of the wrong foods and not getting enough exercise (as a society that is, many ppl eat right and exercise hard)

    • fml says:

      11:45am | 03/08/11

      Are you saying, that education is the problem? and that making information about nutrional facts “low key” is the answer?

    • Kika says:

      12:25pm | 03/08/11

      Oh my God… I remember my ex partners little brother getting bombarded with healthy eating propoganda at school. Mind you, he was rake thin. A strong wind could blow him over. He ate fine. He was absolutely paranoid about even having one lolly because they told him at school this was unhealthy and would make him fat.  Sure. there were PLENTY of fat kids in his class that probably needed to hear it, but he certainly didn’t in fact he probably was underweight and needed encouragement TO eat.  He was almost anorexic in his phobia of eating what his school said was ‘unhealthy’ food, it was really frightening.

      We’ve all gone insane!

    • Vivica says:

      01:20pm | 03/08/11

      I totally understand this. I’m 25 now, but when I was 7 and danced a lot (travelling all over the country for competitions) I was the victim of weight propaganda. Because I was a lot more solid compared to the other girls and had developed breasts at an early age, I was constantly bullied by other students and was hounded by the teacher to lose weight. Looking back now at photos and videos of myself, I get very upset because I wasn’t overweight at all! By year 7 (age 12) I was starving myself and my dance teacher would confiscate my lunch on Saturday all day classes because she said I was better off without a sandwich and instead would give me an apple to last the entirety of the day.

      There is an obscene obsession with dieting however kids should be educated in schools on what’s healthy and what’s not and it should be up to the parents to help steer their kids on the right path. I will NEVER put my future children in dance school and make them suffer what I had to go through all of my childhood. I’m scarred and everyday I look in the mirror and judge myself thinking about all of the horrible things that have been said to me.

    • Innocent says:

      09:18pm | 03/08/11

      Kika - so true. The healthy eating education in schools is HORRIBLE. I had my kid wanting to know how much fat was in everything, whether an apple or an orange was more healthy, and refusing to eat any meat that wasn’t minced up because she could see the fat in it.

      And she’s skinny. I’m skinny. Everyone in our house is skinny. But she was obsessing over food. The fat kids in the class all have really fat parents - what is going to happen by talking about this to the kids? They need to teach the PARENTS.

    • JB says:

      11:18am | 03/08/11

      GREAT ARTICLE !! so much better than the usual superficial rubbish you find on these topics. These issues (inc addictions) are related to emotional issue. I had a drinking problem, the problem wasn’t the booze, the problem was what I was like when sober. Restless, irritable and generally discontent. Alcohol was the solution, until of course that became a bigger problem and bit me in the backside. My experience(and I have a lot) is that those closest to alcoholics, addicts, anorexia, bulimia, self harmers want to avoid the deeper issues of the sufferer because they won’t or can’t face the reality of how sick the person is. They mean well, they really do but often have little grasp of the gravity and complexity of the illness. If someone you care about does have an illness such as these, the best thing to do is educate yourself about it.

      Reply

    • Lesley Laurel says:

      11:45am | 03/08/11

      Your comment:fat chance it happens to me.

      Reply

    • Average Joe says:

      12:26pm | 03/08/11

      Anyone who doesn’t think that young women (and men) being bombarded with unrealistic body images in the media is something that conributes to eating disorders and other related issues is a flat out idiot. Of course, a lot (even most) anorexia sufferers would have developed the disorder regardless of external influences…but that does not mean that waif-like models being portaryed as the norm in certain sections of the media do not have a direct contribution in a lot of other cases.
      For what it’s worth, ladies, both myself and basically every guy I know would find an overage (or slightly plump) female infinitely more attractive than most runway models. Kate Moss always reminds me of Ren the chihuahua from Ren and Stimpy!

      Reply

    • Tina says:

      01:34pm | 03/08/11

      @ Average Joe

      My brother says about Kate Moss “You dont want to f*** her, you want to feed her”

    • bella starkey says:

      01:56pm | 03/08/11

      If you have ever heard Kate Moss speak (which she rarely does in public, for a very good reason) any illusions of glamour just melts away.

    • Ex model says:

      04:04pm | 03/08/11

      Why do you say that Bella? She has a somewhat working class accent but speaks perfectly articulately. That sounds like class snobbery to me. I believe I heard her say on a documentary once that the reason she rarely speaks publicly or gives interviews is that it is better for a model to be a blank canvas so that other people can project their own sense of what they want her to be on to her. Seems a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.

    • Vivica says:

      01:24pm | 03/08/11

      Marquita Pring who was recently featured in the plus-sized issue of Vogue who spoke about the modelling industry. Vogue has pretty much launched her career majorly and I was happy to see a magazine like this recognising that not all women should be a size 8. What has really aggravated me however is her comment regarding the usage of materials to make herself look bigger. Marquita is a 21 year old beautiful woman who is a size 12, which is not considered plus-sized in Australia and has confessed she uses 4cm wide pieces of foam to make herself look bigger. “It’s better for me because I can still be healthy and work out and have the body I want,” she was quoted as saying.

      Has the modelling industry and the rest of the world learnt nothing? I am annoyed to say the least that models still have to use false pretences in order to get work and be looked at. Not only is this practice also unrealistic but it’s unfair to other models and it sets no better standards than those in the US who get filled up with botox, silicone and binge and purge at every given moment.

      But, where do we draw the line at being plus-sized and being morbidly obese? I’ve seen some models who are dangerously overweight and there has been strong opinion that this sends the wrong message to women that it’s okay to binge, not exercise and risk your health.  You’ve got one half of the fashion industry that only wants to use ‘healthy’ looking models, whereas you’ve got the other half condemning plus-sized models. Not only this but it’s coming more and more apparent to me that societies such as those in the US are still obsessed with their self image and are setting unrealistic expectations not only for themselves, but for younger generations.

      It’s never ending….

      Reply

    • not saying.. says:

      01:26pm | 03/08/11

      Recently my 11 year old daughter has been throwing out her school lunches & rejecting dinner. She eventually broke down & became hysterical about her “huge legs”, she does ballett & is comparing herself to some of the other girls. So this combined with an ultra skinny friend who never seems to eat is causing angst in our house. Some of the conversations above are taking the “everyone is different” line which we have chosen to go with.
      The dilema is: do we quit ballet because of the skinny girls making my (not overweight) daughter insecure, or (prefered option) carry on with dancing, its great excercise & she does love it. My fave option is to remove her from the toxic friend…

      Reply

    • Vivica says:

      03:05pm | 03/08/11

      As being there myself when I was a child, my advice is to remove her from the toxic social circle or put her in a different ballet school.

      I did the whole throwing out lunches, not eating dinner, thought I had big legs, hated my big hips and it got worse because the teacher would single me out.

      You can’t shield your daughter from the bad parts of the world forever, but if she does truly love ballet then maybe it’s time to sit down and talk to her about her insecurities and ask if she’d be interested in trying a different school.

    • not saying... says:

      03:30pm | 03/08/11

      We have discussed moving ballett schools & she absolutley will not, her teacher is lovely & would never mention anyones size, there is a good range of different sized girls in her class. I think the real problem lies within her friend at school whose mother has admitted having an ED when young, its a long road ahead but I am determind to get her over it before she hits puberty.

    • Justin Patterson says:

      01:26pm | 03/08/11

      This article says that models do not cause eating disorders, but rather the disorders stem from low self esteem.  It doesnt seem to occur to the author that the self esteem issues are created by the media and models.

      While I have gotten your attention, I am also getting tired of the phrase “Real Women”, taken to mean “Fat Women”.  If this continues then I hope the “Real Man” physique can be taken to mean a guy with a beer gut and moobs, because when it does it means I can stop exercising and just indulge myself completely, safe in the knowledge that my new pudgy physique is what a real man looks like.

      Also, I am tired of guys who inevitably repsond to articles like this with things like “I like a woman with curves, with some meat on her bones”.  I dont.  I think models are attractive.  I like skinny, athletic, non-fat women.  Sorry, but its true.

      Reply

    • Tina says:

      02:00pm | 03/08/11

      Good. Because if we all had the same taste there would be quite some competition out there. I think though what those blokes mean to say is that they want standard girls and not girls that fuss about their weight issues 24/7.

    • Cate says:

      03:20pm | 03/08/11

      The phrase “real woman” makes me want to scream, especially as the inference is always that “a real woman is a curvy woman”
      What are the rest of us, holograms ???? Women come in many different shapes and sizes, and for some of us, skinny is the norm!

    • Ex model says:

      03:51pm | 03/08/11

      One thing you should realise though is that models overseas don’t look like models in Australia. Without being rude most (not all) Australian models wouldn’t even get an agent over there. They would be considered too fat. So the images that you see here in Australia are generally of healthy looking women, but that isn’t the case in the Uk for instance.

    • Fiddler says:

      03:52pm | 03/08/11

      @Tina, nope normally they are guys who say it to suck up to fat chicks cause they know they will never get a hottie. Having said that most girls who loudly proclaim they have “curves” I feel like saying, no, you’re fat to

    • Hamish says:

      04:27pm | 03/08/11

      Totally agree Fiddler, when women say ‘curves’ they mean ‘fat’. Except on the odd occassion when a celebrity who has big tits wants to make herself seem more in-tune with the common woman so she says something like ‘I hate those super skinny models, they don’t even look womanly, I’m proud of my curves’. Of course, their body shapes are even more unattainable for the average woman than the skinny catwalk models.

    • Tina says:

      04:52pm | 03/08/11

      I admit being boys you might know better what boys think. And I agree with the ‘fat’ and the ‘curves’ mix up. But I always assumed that boys hate it when girls talk and fuss and whinge about weight and count calories and take ages to dress.

    • Bilby says:

      05:42pm | 03/08/11

      Tina, one of the first things that attracted me to my wife was that she’d fight for that last piece of pizza. Still takes forever to get dressed but I have come to appreciate that bit. One likes one’s wife to look good grin

    • Innocent says:

      09:24pm | 03/08/11

      I’m very curvy. 10d, 34-26-36. And do you know what? I have enormous trouble finding clothes that fit. According to clothing manufacturers, I’m expected to be rake thin all over, or fat all over, but not curvy.

      I have to go out of my way to find jeans and tops that are cut for someone with curves, which is amazingly hard to find in the small sizes. No trouble at all finding anything in the goth clothing aisle though, they have clothes meant to be worn over a corset and those clothes fit me just right smile

    • biscuit says:

      03:25pm | 04/08/11

      in response to your original comment justin, most stable people can think for themselves and not look at images of skinny people and suddenly feel bad about themselves. I think that if this is the case, the individual had self esteem issues to begin with. self esteem comes from within, not from an external source.

    • Hamish says:

      03:31pm | 04/08/11

      Innocent, are you just showing off?

    • Eva says:

      05:00pm | 06/08/11

      Innocent,

      I can recall walking out of Jaquie E in disgust one day. I had tried on every skirt variation they had on sale in first a size 8 and then a size 6. None fitted because the waist was the same diameter as the hips!!!!! The sales girl told me I was probably a 4, absolute nonsense. At any size curvy women are discriminated against by the retailers.

    • Kassandra says:

      01:27pm | 03/08/11

      Take any behaviour you can think of that humans do - eating, drinking, dieting, sleeping, exercising, watching TV, on-line gaming, sex, collecting stuff, whatever - and a minority, maybe up to 10%, will do it to excess. Ah, oh, addiction! OMG mental illness! Rubbish. Problem? Sure. Illness? Nup.

      “Eating disorders”, which really should be renamed dieting disorders (true binge eating rather than just plain being a guts is usually part of a cycle of attempted dieting and resulting hunger), are unknown in those parts of the world where people don’t have our affluent lifestyle, except amongst the rich. Too much food, not enough physical activity, the normal genetic lottery for body shape, and everybody thinks they are fatter than they really are (from the most emaciated anorexic to the most morbidly obese) plus our modern culturally prized ideal of thinness = most people dieting most of the time.  And a minority of dieters will overdo it, a very few to an extreme that threatens their life.

      Where does the modern obsession with thinness come from? Women have imposed it on themselves imo and now they’re trying to impose it on men too.

      Reply

    • PG says:

      01:31pm | 03/08/11

      “Research suggests there are 25 million people in the US who could be clinically diagnosed as having BED, an illness just as terrible as anorexia, but where’s the media frenzy about it?”

      There is, it’s called “The Biggest Loser”, only it’s purpose is to make fat people with BED feel good because they can watch other people loose weight on TV while they eat.

      Reply

    • Clarity says:

      02:16pm | 03/08/11

      The whole reason I want to see all sizes on the runway is purely because I want to see how a garment is going to look on someone of my body type. Isn’t that what a model is supposed to do? Show you how it looks? I have no idea what it would look like on my size 12/14 frame when Kate Moss and her clones are wearing it.

      Reply

    • Loz says:

      02:35pm | 03/08/11

      I suffered Anorexia, but it wasn’t western culture people wanted to blame.  All the medical professionals that I dealt with (bar one magnificent lady), wanted to blame my parents.

      My parents had nothing to with the cause of my eating disorder.  After much hard work I have been able to identify several triggers to my developing an eating disorder.

      And to be honest, yes, low self-esteem leads to Anorexia and other eating disorders.  One of the contributors to my low self-esteem was in fact, our culture’s obsession with being skinny!!!!!

      Reply

    • Outraged says:

      03:16pm | 03/08/11

      Another great article, Daniela! Keep it up!

      Seriously, Australia is the FATTEST nation on Earth. If seeing pictures of thin models caused people to be anorexia…then how come we don’t see millions of anorexics walking about shopping malls?

      The truth is, we need MORE thin role models to encourage people what is healthy and normal!

      The new, up-and-coming “Fat Acceptance” crowd are just as dangerous as the “Pro Ana” people!

      Reply

    • Vivica says:

      03:35pm | 03/08/11

      Because it has become more acceptable to be fat as opposed to being thin. I know a circle of Anorexic girls who don’t leave the house, only to do their grocery shopping. This whole “Real Women” thing really annoys me. How is it real to be dangerously overweight?

      Replace the word “Thin” with “Lean and Trim” and I’ll agree with you.

    • Ex model says:

      03:40pm | 03/08/11

      I used to be a model at a top london agency. Perhaps models don’t cause anorexia but the pressure of the fashion industry certainly causes models to become anorexic. We were under constant pressure to be thin, including being stripped off and photographed in our underwear regularly to see if we’d gained weight. They didn’t weigh us, they didn’t dare, so they just scrutinised us constantly for any sign of body fat.
      I used to regularly see the owner of the agency on tv talking about how we were all thin because we were young. She would say that no model in her agency had ever had anorexia, something that she and everyone else in the agency knew was a lie.
      We had to fit into tiny samples or be let go from the agency. That meant none of us ate properly. There was too much riding on it.
      We then featured in magazines and advertising in images that trained the eye to think that being that thin is beautiful, healthy and something to aspire to.
      So, I an accept that perhaps models and the fashion industry doesn’t cause full blown anorexia, perhaps it is an illness that is unrelated. What I can’t accept is that it isn’t responsible for a whole nation of women torturing themselves and endlessly dieting to try and look like models- models whose agency deliberately keep them semi starved.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      05:20pm | 03/08/11

      A lot of young girls would like to stay thin - your thin - if only they could get out of bed for, say, maybe, a little less than…hmmm… 10 Grand ?

      May I suggest that the reason why young girls like to emulate your life, look and life-style, is because you get paid too much for it, and not because ‘thinness’, per se, has its attractions in some abstract notion of bones that are close to the skin are pleasant to look at.
      You simply get paid too much, and every person in the world wants what you’ve got : money for nothing.
      (And that the young want to look like you is only a secondary want, that the wealth and prestige is simply out of bounds.)

    • Ex model says:

      03:43pm | 03/08/11

      Really, you think Australia is the fattest nation on Earth? You obviously haven’t been to America lately. Whatever the statistics might tell you, your eyes don’t lie, and everywhere you go in America you are confronted by the morbidly obese. American people aren’t just fatter than Australians, they are about five times the size. Which if you’ve ever eaten anywhere in America isn’t too surprising because their portion sizes are about five times the size of ours too.

      Reply

    • Prince says:

      04:11pm | 03/08/11

      Daniela - why is an ostensibly Australian blogger using american sizing vernacular?

      “So, we can keep kidding ourselves that our lack of happiness with our arses has everything to do with the fashion industry and every size zero model we can lay our hands on. “

      This article IS your own work - right?

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      05:27pm | 03/08/11

      Her quotes are from the UK.
      So what ?

    • bananabender says:

      06:41pm | 03/08/11

      There are no quotation marks or mention of a contributing author.

      When I was at university this behaviour was called plagiarism.

    • stephen says:

      06:57pm | 03/08/11

      We are not at university, and I have been reading your rubbish for a week and a half.. if we were at Uni. you wouldn’t get a look-in.

    • bananabender says:

      07:46pm | 03/08/11

      Stephen says:
      “We are not at university, and I have been reading your rubbish for a week and a half.. if we were at Uni. you wouldn’t get a look-in. “

      Four Australian universities apparently disagree with you and have awarded me degrees (three of them post graduate).

      Even in primary school I discovered was that sentences begin with capital letters. This is something that has escaped your attention.
      Please crawl back under your rock.

    • stephen says:

      08:12pm | 03/08/11

      Mr. Banana, I am a telemarketer, professional, and I am not easily enterred.
      Capitals have nothing to do with my indignation here, but speaking on behalf of everybody who earns 16 bucks an hour and likes to read this site, I say…‘Raise your standards, because it’s a hell of a life flogging things to your wife’.

      PS OK moderator…scan that.

    • Bob Barton says:

      08:26pm | 03/08/11

      She’s cited the Telegraph article where appropriate. And unlike you she’s writing under her own name. Pretty easy to throw stones when you’re hiding beneath the crown of anonymity “Prince”.

    • Food Scientist says:

      05:01pm | 03/08/11

      Obesity is around 100 times as prevalent in young women as anorexia.

      Promoting plus size models just encourages people to think of obesity as natural. Size 14-16 women aren’t healthy - they are typically 20-30kg overweight.

      Women are not meant to Rubenesque. Rubens painted fat models simply because obesity was highly prized amongst wealthy. It indicated high status because they could afford to eat too much and not do any physical work. Far from being the norm the fat women in these paintings were rare exceptions. [Likewise black and rotten teeth were considered highly desirable amongst wealthy 16th century English women because Queen Elizabeth I was a sugar addict. Middle class wannabes had to settle for staining their teeth black because sugar was incredibly expensive and very few could afford to have real rotten teeth.]

      Reply

    • Vicki PS says:

      11:20pm | 03/08/11

      “Size 14-16 women aren’t healthy - they are typically 20-30kg overweight.”

      According to whose standard and what population?  Where is the evidence base for this sweeping assertion?  Comparisons with Rubens and QEI are silly and dishonest.  It’s equally in/valid to compare the mania for thinness with the 19thC foolishness of tight-lacing, or the bosom-binding of the ‘20s.  And perhaps we should talk about the evidence of hormonal imbalance, low fertility, bone and joint problems and psychological disorders in body-obsessed exercise addicts? 

      Some of the scariest people I’ve come across, in terms of both their weird personalities as well as their negative impact on others, have been “scientists” and medicos with food and body size obsessions. 

      Unfortunately, the professional niches these crackpots occupy tend to legitimise their pathology, for example the grossly underweight hand specialist my daughter was referred to for evaluation of a fracture, who spent the entire consultation haranguing her about her weight!  No-one does bigotry and hate speech quite as vehemently as a skinny freak: legitimate health concerns merely grant permission and provide a “cover” to these vicious neurotics to act out their pathological hostilities.

    • marley says:

      07:10am | 04/08/11

      Size 14 to 16 is overweight?  Hmmm.  Now that would depend on how tall you are, wouldn’t it. I know some ladies who are in that size range and, to judge from how they look in bikinis, they are definitely not overweight. It’s just that women (and men) are taller than they were a generation ago.

    • Kika says:

      09:08am | 04/08/11

      I agree with Food Scientist. Size 14-16 is not normal. Humans evolved into who we are because of a hunter gatherer lifestyle. There would have been no time to be lazy there would always be something to be done, made, hunted, gatherered. We were always on the move.
      Now look at us? We can get all the calories we need from chocolate, a caramel latte, we sit around and watch stupid TV shows like Master Chef to satisfy the inner beast within and make excuses why we are fatter tricking our brains into thinking it’s ‘normal’.

      It’s not normal! A small fraction of those who do wear bigger sizes would be what you call endomorphs, but in saying that you can still watch what you eat and exercise and stay within a healthy weight range.

    • marley says:

      09:59am | 04/08/11

      @Kiki - if we were talking sizes 22 or 24 i’d agree with you.  But heck, if you’re 5’10” and weigh 70 kg you’re in the normal weight range but probably into a size 16.  Our hunter-gather forefathers weren’t after all, anything like as tall as we are.

    • Kika says:

      02:16pm | 04/08/11

      Yes they were. We aren’t talking millions of years ago. Only thousands. People haven’t ‘grown’ that much in the last few generations. In fact, in my generation we have got smaller! Both my sister and I are shorter than our parents.

    • marley says:

      03:03pm | 04/08/11

      @Kika - actually, you’re right - up to a point - hunter gatherers were tall, then average height decreased when we switched over to farming (so much for veganism!)  then started to increase again in the 19th century.  The average height of Americans has increased by about an inch in the last 50 years.  So, on average, people are somewhat taller than a generation ago.  Of course, they’re a lot heavier too.

      But my point was, being a size 16 makes you overweight if you’re 5’4” but not if you’re 5’9 or 5’10.

    • bananabender says:

      06:05pm | 03/08/11

      Not as bad as the ‘Ask Bossy’ column where the only changes are “mom” to “mum”.

      eg Billy Bob and me were high school sweethearts. Then he fell in love with a tramp from a trailer park…

      Reply

    • Chris says:

      09:13pm | 03/08/11

      I enjoyed this article, didn’t agree with everything but through reading it with the comments I would like to think I am better informed and changed my position on the issue.

      Thanks

      Reply

    • VickiPS says:

      10:24pm | 03/08/11

      What an utterly fatuous and disingenuous analysis! 

      Eating disorders are “an addiction…and have everything to do with self-esteem”: true, and the Queen Mum is dead.  Self-esteem resides in a person’s estimation of their own worth, either on a particular dimension or globally.  And on what measure of worth does an anorexic’s self-esteem fixate?  Why, body image!  Gosh, what a surprise.

      This article has nothing new or useful to say about eating disorders, addictions or self-esteem.  It does nothing but attempt a late, lame and cynical apologia for industries whose reason for existence is to dictate arbitrary standards of acceptable and desirable physical appearance.  The fatuous analysis runs competely counter to the glib last-paragraph summation, “we can take a long, uncomfortable look at why so many people in our society are plagued by crippling issues to do with self-image and self-worth and have a go at doing something about them”.

      Quite.  We can start by attacking the “thin is beautiful” myth, and follow up on a broader front by dismantling all mythologies that factor physical appearance into the measure of a person’s worth.

      Reply

    • Amy says:

      07:24am | 04/08/11

      Thanks for a sensible article about this issue. It is time people started looking at eating disorders as first and foremost a mental illness, of which weight loss could be considered a physical symptom (and just one of many). The weight loss doesn’t cause the eating disorder - if this were so, anybody trying to lose weight, regardless of their motive, could be considered anorexic or bulimic. The eating disorder - the mental illness - causes the weight loss, not the other way around. It’s the same as people looking at those who are overweight and thinking “well they must be addicted to food”. Food addiction is a mental illness also, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who is overweight has that addiction. Many people are quick to assume that any person they see who is very thin, whether famous or not, “must be anorexic” when really, when a person is already thin it is all too easy for them to unintentionally lose a couple of kilos that pushes them over the edge from ‘slim’ to ‘skinny’. Think a couple of skipped meals over an insanely busy weekend, a 24-hour illness, stress. It can also be very difficult for thin people to regain weight once they have lost it. Don’t forget,  not-so-thin people can be bulimic or anorexic too - like John Prescott.

      Reply
 
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