One of the most disputed aspects of the fashion industry and advertising is body image. Models today are getting thinner and thinner. Kirstie Clements, former Australian Vogue editor, says the industry is a thin-obsessed culture in which starving models eat tissues and resort to surgery when dieting isn 't enough.
I began to recognise the signs that other models were using different methods to stay svelte. I was dressing a model from the US on a beauty shoot, and I noticed scars and scabs on her knees. When I queried her about them she said, nonchalantly: "Oh yes. Because I 'm always so hungry, I faint a lot." She thought it was normal to pass out every day, sometimes more than once.”
In today’s society the way we look, dress, act and even talk is defined by advertising and the media. Advertising is one of the main influences on our body image. Besides the many other influences such as parents, education, peers and relationships, the media has the greatest impact, and specifically on young women.
Young women are constantly being given the image of the ‘perfect’ body and indications on what the world defines as ‘beautiful’. From the perspective of the media slimness is idealised and expected for women to be seen as ‘attractive’.
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A young woman’s self esteem can be single handedly influenced by her body image. “As studies show, looking at fashion magazines for just three minutes lowers the self -esteem of over 80% of women” states Dr Susie Orbach. It is most common for women all ages to see themselves larger than they actually are. Only 1 in every 5 women are satisfied with their body weight and the way they look.
Body image is a complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual 's perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance states Cash & Pruzinsky. Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty. Advertising and the popular media show standards of impractical beauty that is almost completely impossible for most women to attain; majority of most models in advertisements are altered using such programs like photoshop.
Representative Ros Lehtinen told his opinion to The Daily Beast. “Advertisers are photoshopping children in ads that encourage young women and men to attempt to replicate unrealistic or impossible bodies, leading to serious health problems like eating disorders. Incredibly, one to two of every 100 children in America suffer from an eating disorder. Anorexia is killing more young adults and adolescents than any other mental illness, and it is time we did something about