Montreal-based fashion designer Katrin Leblond, reports that it is still difficult to find healthier-sized models in Montreal, and she believes additional efforts are required.

"There's no centralized industry, there's no centralized monitoring of modeling agencies," Leblond said in a March 10 article by Andrea Hayley of The Epoc Times. "Most of the agencies couldn't even provide me with a choice of more than one or two girls of that size."

According to the Quebec Association for Assistance to People Suffering from Anorexia and Bulimia, as many as 65,000 women in the province struggle with disordered eating behaviors, The Epoc Times reported. The extreme thinness of fashion models is believed to be one of the media influences that contributing to the prevalence of eating disorders.

Labels: media, model, fashion

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On February 22, Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists published a statement calling for warning labels on airbrushed photos of models and celebrities, and for a ban on underweight models at London Fashion Week.

The college's call to action urges the government as well as the media and fashion industries to take greater responsibility in the fight against eating disorders. The college believes that labels on photos would help to raise awareness of how widespread photo manipulation is, and to dissuade people from attempting to achieve "unattainable physical perfection."

The college also urged the British government to establish a forum, made up of politicians, experts and representatives from the media and advertising, for the development of an editorial ethical code. Dr. Adrienne Key of the college's eating disorders section said the media must be prevented from "glamorizing" excessive weight loss and exacerbating the psychological and social pressures faced by young people.

She commented: "What we need to do is raise people's awareness of what they are looking at. A lot of people have no idea how much manipulation goes on. The aims of the forum should be to collaboratively develop an ethical editorial code that realistically addresses the damaging portrayal of eating disorders, raises awareness of unrealistic visual imagery created through airbrushing and digital enhancement, and also addresses the skewed and erroneous content of magazines."

(Source: www.independent.co.uk)

Labels: eating disorder, media, model

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This week, documentary filmmaker Darryl Roberts spearheaded a major boycott against Ralph Lauren Polo in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Roberts and supporters boycotted Ralph Lauren stores in the three cities in an effort to protest unhealthy advertising images recently utilized by the company.

The controversy began in October when the company ran an ad featuring a photo of model Filippa Hamilton that had been photoshopped to make her look grotesquely thin. Although Lauren eventually apologized for the poor retouching job on the photo, the company has since run two more ads featuring extremely thin-looking models.

Roberts comments: "Ralph Lauren apologized for the first image of Fillipa Hamilton that was photoshopped ... but later he was caught with a second image and a third image. If he was truly sorry, why didn't he pull the additional ads when he apologized for the first one? So it seems that his company has an apologize-as-we-get-caught philosophy.

"The reason that we're boycotting is that we want him to commit to never putting out another ad that's egregious and offensive to young women and girls again. No more empty apologies from Mr. Lauren. We want a firm commitment that he'll never use ads that are disrespectful and egregious again."

YWCA of America supports Roberts in his boycotting efforts. Lorraine Cole, Ph.D., CEO of YWCA of America, comments: "The relentless marketing of so-called 'beauty' in the Ralph Lauren ads is alienating to all who don't meet ... those artificial standards of 'ideal.' It is time that we ignite a cultural change in this country to end the pursuit of the elusive beauty myth, starting with a boycott of those companies that disregard the self-esteem, health and human worth of the women and girls whose dollars they seek."

(Source: www.prnewswire.com)

Labels: model, advertisements

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World famous fashion designer Ralph Lauren apologized this week for an ad which featured a Photoshop-altered image of a grotesquely thin woman. The model, Filippa Hamilton, actually weighs 120 pounds and stands 5 feet 10 inches tall, approximately a size 4.

The ad featured a photo of her modified so that her hip bones appear narrower than her head and her waist seems cartoonishly small. In addition, her legs appear so thin as to belong to a science classroom skeleton rather than a living human being.

Filippa Hamilton was also recently fired by Ralph Lauren. Although the company denies it, Ms. Hamilton asserts that she was fired because the fashion designer thought her body was too bulky to fit in sample sizes.

Ralph Lauren has a history of portraying extreme thinness (the photo of Filippa Hamilton is not the first bizarrely modified picture to find its way into the designer's fashion spreads). The National Organization for Women is demanding further apology from the designer, and was planning to hold its fourth annual "Love Your Body" celebration on Oct. 21, 2009.

(Source: www.latimes.com)

Labels: body image, media, model

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Germany's most popular fashion magazine, Brigitte, announced that it will no longer use ultra-thin professional models. The magazine plans to feature only "real women" from now on.

The editor, Andreas Lebert, says that the magazine made the decision in response to readers' complaints that stick-thin models promote unhealthy body standards for girls and women. Readers said they were tired of seeing the models' protruding bones.

"We will show women who have an identity -- the 18-year-old student, the head of the board, the musician, the football player," Lebert said. "We will pay the same fee as we would for professional models."

The magazine has invited readers to send in portraits and photos of themselves to be considered for photo spreads.

(Source: news.sky.com)

Labels: media, model, healthy-weight

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Former model Dotsie Bausch spent seven years battling eating disorders and drug addiction. Her eating disorders began while she was an undergraduate at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Her career in modeling only worsened the eating disorder and addiction and also introduced her to a lifestyle of daily substance abuse. When she decided to change careers in the late 90s, Dotsie moved to California to become a television production artist. While working on a television sitcom, she inherited an old mountain bike that had been used as a prop.

From the beginning, she was hooked on biking. She entered a 600-mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to benefit AIDS research, purchased a road bike, and obtained a racing license. Since then, Dotsie has become one of the best climbers and time-trial riders in the women's peloton.

Dotsie recalls finally opening up about her struggles with food. She comments, "Everything changed when I knew I could be totally honest (about the disease). ... Some people go through this for 20 years. It was really bad in the middle for me and working full time as a model in New York. I don't blame the industry. It was all me. ... Bulimia and anorexia still remain somewhat taboo. It doesn't make sense to people. People understand overeating, but it goes the other way, too. Restraining from eating."

(Source: www.tulsworld.com)

Labels: model, health-care, bikes

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As public opinion continues to shift away from the size-zero standard of beauty, a teenager from Glasgow is helping solidify that opinion. At a healthy size 12, Angelica Gray has no shortage of offers from modeling agencies in Australia, Belgium, London and America.

“Ms Gray is just the latest model to buck the size-zero trend in what many believe is a growing section of the fashion world. The average dress size a UK woman is 16. The average model is a size six… Victoria Allison, model booker at Model Team, Ms Gray’s Glasgow-based agency, said: ‘The market does seem to be changing. Girls like Angelica are proving that curvier models can be just as beautiful as a slimmer model and can work equally well in high-fashion clothing.’” (Source: The Sunday Herald)

Though curvier models are being more widely accepted, Dr. Alex Yellowlees, who treats women struggling with eating disorders, says there’s still a problem. The curvier models are often referred to as “plus-size,” even though they’re not at all overweight. Accepting size-12 models is a start, but the practice of labeling them “plus-size” needs to stop.
 

Labels: media, model, fashion

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