THE WOMAN ON PAGE 194
It was just a 3″ by 3″ picture in a magazine, but it caught and held my attention in such a way that I decided to visit the magazine’s website to leave a comment about it. A quick note of thanks.
Turns out I was hardly alone.
The Glamour magazine article was about liking yourself as you are, and the photo they chose to illustrate the story was of a model who was laughing while posing in her underwear.
And the model had a stomach that was (gasp!) normal.
I don’t mean normal by model standards. I mean normal as in my-diet-doesn’t-mimic-a-rabbit normal.
Delighted readers began inundating Glamour with notes thanking them for showing a woman’s body “with all the curves and quirks and rolls found in nature,” wrote one.
“It was great to see a healthy woman without her flaws airbrushed out,” wrote another. “It was a bit shocking to see a model with a real-life tummy, which just goes to show how conditioned I am to seeing ‘perfect’ people in magazines. But I loved it! Women are made in so many ways, not in a cookie-cutter format.”
Early this year, dozens of magazines featured Jessica Simpson’s shocking weight gain on their covers. It seems she’d become an atrocity. A monstrosity.
A size 8.
The thing is–the average U.S. woman is a size 14. Granted, we’re an overweight nation, but even so, I can’t comprehend this bizarre chasm that exists between the real world and the one where fashion designers and casting agents and those types reside.
And I didn’t realize how hungry for validation those in the real world were until I read some of the remarks about the page 194 woman.
“I love how happy she seems, especially given all the negative messages from the fashion industry telling her she is fat and therefore unattractive.”
“This beautiful woman has a real stomach–and did I even see a few stretch marks? This is how my belly looks after giving birth to my two amazing kids! This photo made me want to shout from the rooftops.”
A few years back, Dove started an ad campaign featuring women of many sizes and ages, with the gist of the ads being that the women liked themselves as they were, that they were comfortable in their own skin. It was considered a brave move for Dove, especially since the dirty little secret in the beauty business is that you can’t sell your product if women actually like how they look.
The industry uses ultra-gorgeous, super-skinny models because they think women are vacant enough to believe, “I want to look like her, and if I buy this, I will.”
As our nation has grown larger, models have become smaller, with the average model now weighing 23 percent less than the average woman. Twenty years ago, the average model weighed an average of 8 percent less. Plus, the models in print ads are often Photoshopped to perfection, helping to create a culture of women who are conditioned to see that as the norm. One to which few can measure up.
It’s no wonder eating disorders are rampant.
Women are clearly hungry for reality, but are being fed a narrow-minded idea of beauty.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I can tell you that personally, the last thing I want to see when I open a fashion magazine is “reality”. If I want to see overweight, common, unfashionable women, I need look no further than any street at any time of day, anywhere in this State.
I read Vogue, and Harpers and other such magazines because I love glamour, style and beauty. I love the mystique and art of fashion and fashion models. I don’t particularly care to see Dove girls to tell the truth.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Glamour can put all the Dove girls they want in their magazine but it’s not going to change anything. I personally admire thin, stylish women. That’s why I buy those magazines.
Sorry folks, Glamour, Vogue Harpers and all those fashion magazines will give Dove girls a little lip service from time to time but when it comes to selling magazines, it’s the 5′10 110 model that sells them.
Besides, why look to Dove women for inspiration? Would you cite to a woman’s yellow teeth for inspiration to smoke? Or a drug addicts track marks? Obesity is nothing to be admired. It’s unhealthy and expensive to society. There’s a happy medium somewhere between toothpick models and the overweight of this country but it’s not tubby women who don’t take pride in themselves. And if you actually strive to look like those fashion magazine women - who don’t even look like that themselves - then you do need a dose of reality, or maybe some medication.
September 15th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Liza, I’m afraid I must respectfully disagree with some of your points.
*Obesity is nothing to be admired.*
I don’t recall anyone saying that OBESITY should be admired. Obesity is unhealthy and not typically a sought after condition. The point of this was that normal women have some meat on their bones and aren’t stick thin with 2% body fat. That doesn’t mean that they’re obese.
*There’s a happy medium somewhere between toothpick models and the overweight of this country but it’s not tubby women who don’t take pride in themselves.*
If this woman in the mag (which I did not see, by the way) took no pride in herself, I don’t think she would be pictured there at all. She’d be hiding behind a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants. Sounds to me like she was making the point that you don’t have to be a stick to be beautiful. Tubby? A rather cruel and unnecessary adjective. Real women have curves. It is completely impractical to think that everyone in the world should be stick thin. Most don’t even have that option due to genetics. And just because you have a few pounds on your frame, that means you shouldn’t be proud of your body? Come on! I’d hate to think that I ever made someone feel less than adequate, less than attractive, less than worthy, just because she had a couple more pounds than I thought necessary.
*If I want to see overweight, common, unfashionable women, I need look no further than any street at any time of day, anywhere in this State.*
Wow. How sad. Just try to remember that those are real people with real lives and real feelings. If you saw me on the street I have no doubt that you’d see an unstylish, plain woman who you’d consider to be overweight and unwilling to take care of herself. Lucky for me I am comfortable in my own skin; happy with myself for being a good mom, wife, and friend; and confident that the ten extra pounds I’ve battled for years are the result of bearing four children, living my happily busy life on the run, and being so involved with family, friends and volunteeer work that I just don’t have the time (or the finances) to spend hours on end in a gym or with a trainer to get a body that is viewed as perfect by someone else’s standards.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying fashion magazines and stylish models. There is nothing wrong with striving to be like those models if that is what you wish to be. But please don’t view every woman out there who has different standards than your own to be lacking. Some of us are just happy enough with who we are and what we have that we don’t need to strive for someone else’s idea of perfection.
September 15th, 2009 at 10:56 am
We have here a good example of a person who has totally bought into what constitutes attractive, and it’s scary. Says Liza, “I personally admire thin, stylish women” and “I love glamour, style and beauty.” Those who don’t fit those narrow parameters are “overweight, common and unfashionable.”
The fashion industry has been force-feeding us skeletal for years now, and we’ve bought it. Young women are starving (and puking) themselves to death in the pursuit of meeting the standards set by these magazines. How is 5’10” and 110 lbs healthier than 5’5” and 150 lbs? The first is grossly underweight and dangerously unhealthy. The second is a few pounds more than ideal, but considerably healthier, less time- (and life-) consuming to maintain, and can be EVERY BIT AS ATTRACTIVE — and could be even more so if the fashion moguls would design clothes for their frames rather than constructing clothes that could be aptly modeled by a garden hose with shoulders.
From a financial perspective, it seems clothing designers would be smart enough to want to use models who are shaped more like average women since that would sooner inspire them to want to buy the clothes. If it’s flattering on a model that is shaped something like they are, it will therefore be flattering on them. We know that what looks good on a pencil isn’t going to look as good on a highlighter.
There’s a world of difference between average and obese. I’d love to see a few models whose hipbones and collarbones aren’t so prominent. I’ve struggled for years with self-image issues, but when those issues started, I was 5’6” and 118 lbs. My ribs showed, my hips stuck out. And I still saw myself as fat because I wasn’t 105.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:48 am
The woman in this photo weighs 180 pounds. What’s worse is she’s only 20 years old. I’ve had two children, am in my forties, and don’t have a stomach like that.
No one says everyone should be perfect or that beauty is one size fits all. Some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known were average looking at best when measured by the standards of Vogue. Fashion magazines are like movies - fantasy. I think of fashion photography as artistic and I enjoy the mystique and drama of it. That’s me. I do not admire or want to look at overweight women in fashion magazines nor do I identify with overweight women who think that obesity is something to be admired or accepted.
No one said we all have to look like those models because like I said before, they don’t even look like that. But to admire obesity and strive for its acceptance is not the answer either. Those magazines aren’t kind to us middle aged women either but that has absolutely nothing to do with my own self esteem and the pride I take in myself. If I took those magazine to heart I would probably not go out. But I don’t take them to heart, I look to them for inspiration and for their beauty, style and art form.
As far as designers, bad news girls, they don’t want heavy women wearing their fashions. That’s why you can’t get Prada in an 18. It’s just the reality of high fashion - the greatest creation in the world is lost on a big wide backside and that’s just a sad fact of life. Besides, designers are all about exclusivity and given that most American women are overweight, ulta thin is exclusive. Sad reality.
I reconcile it myself. I do the best to maintain a certain level of pride in my appearance without becoming suicidal if I don’t look like 17 year old Ukranian girls. I also don’t resent them or their beauty. But I find no inspiration in a 20 year old woman who weighs 180 pounds and has a stomach that I didn’t even have a week after I had a 9 pound baby. That’s true by the way.
It’s just the way it is ladies and it’s been that way since the first cavewoman strung a tiger’s tooth up and wore it around her neck. Take the time to read what women used to do to reduce their waist sizes around the turn of the century - makes plastic surgery look like amateur hour.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
So do you actually think the woman on p. 194 is obese? Seriously? I’m having trouble with that. You were LUCKY to have the genetic makeup that enabled you to look better than she did after having a 9-lb baby, but aside from a few teenage moms (and celebs with their personal trainers), I don’t know another women who could say that.
I DON’T admire obesity and that’s not what I’m saying here. What I DO admire is acceptance versus misery and obsession over appearance. And what I WISH I could admire is an industry (in this case, clothing designers and the fashion biz in general) that could be compassionate and realistic enough to say, “Hey, this is how most women are built. Let’s not cater only to the skeletal.”
And what you said about fashion magazines being like movies, that they’re fantasy and artistic. What’s artistic about making a thin, gorgeous woman look good? What’s creative about designing clothes that look pretty on a woman as shapely as a coat hanger? If a designer or photographer is truly talented, the model’s size shouldn’t matter.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Have you ever seen Elle? If I remember correctly she was the first ‘full-figured’ fashion model. And you know what? She is beautiful! She is no more ‘obese’ than the woman on page 194. Is she heavier than that woman? I don’t know. Is she curvier? I think so. Is she healthy? According to her, very much so. Should she lose 60 pounds just to be accepted by people who have a narrower view of just what constitutes beauty? Absolutely not.
Okay, I can’t believe that I’m putting this on a public blog, but here goes: At the age of 43, I am 5′4 1/2″ tall and I weigh 147 pounds. Most folks say I don’t look like I weigh that much, but the fact is that I carry that many pounds around on my medium-boned frame. I wear a size 10 jeans. My tummy probably compares to pg. 194’s when I’m seated. That tummy also accomodated four pregnancies (my heaviest baby was more than 8 1/2 lbs) over an 18 year span and evidently I wasn’t blessed with the same genetics as you because it is going nowhere without surgery. I refuse to put my body through the stress of surgery when it isn’t medically necessary, especially when I am otherwise healthy and happy. I won’t let the fashion industry dictate what is an acceptable body image. I see too many other beautiful women out there who are not shapeless, walking broomsticks to fool myself into thinking that I am obese. I simply am not.
It saddens me to know that there are people like yourself who would see me walking down the street and think “THAT’S not a size 2! She is obese and evidently takes no pride in herself.” Obesity walks hand in hand with poor health and I am not in poor health. Sure, I have medical issues from time to time like anyone else but not one of those issues has arisen due to my weight. BP is on the low side of good and cholesterol is well within range. Those things are much more important to me than the average Joe’s opinion of my body shape.
Please, Liza, I beg of you…take into consideration that today’s fashion industry has shaped your idea of how a woman’s body should look. (During WWII, pin-up girls sported voluptuous curves and everyone wanted to look like them!) The idea of what is beautiful evolves from one generation to the next. And as for those designers, well that’s their loss. If they don’t want the average American woman to be able to wear their clothes, they’re slitting their own throats. After all, there are a lot more of us than there are 5′10″ 105 pound models.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am
All I’m saying is that if you need fashion magazines to validate yourself then you have bigger problems than body image issues. It’s not the job of the fashion magazines to put heavy girls on the cover to make average women feel better about themselves.
And is this woman obese? No, but she is 30 pounds overweight and on her way to a lifetime of potential obesity issue if she looks like this at 20.
I personally don’t need fashion magazines to make me feel good about myself. That’s not to say I’m some beauty because I’m not but I don’t measure myself against 17 year old Eastern European Vogue models either.
If the Dove girls have body issues it’s not Vogue’s fault. If you accept yourself for what you are then you shouldn’t care what the magazines say. But don’t expect the fashion world to tell you it’s okay to be even overweight because it’s never going to happen unless being heavy becomes a fashion trend. As far as trends in fashion,women used to have ribs removed to achieve small waistlines. This is nothing new.
My point is that I don’t think it’s realistic to expect fashion magazines to start putting heavy women on the covers because the majority of American women are overweight or obese. Either learn to live with yourself and love your own skin or lose weight. That’s all. And don’t expect those of us who enjoy fashion to accept seeing $10,000 couture gowns on size 14 women because they reflect the American culture of obesity. Not going to happen.
Take the fashion magazines with a grain of salt. Either that, or don’t buy them. Who do you think keeps those magazines in business anyway? Women.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am
It’s going to be interesting to see how Glamour responds model-wise as a result of the feedback from that one picture.
While I agree with you about accepting yourself and not caring what the magazines say, I totally disagree with your stance that anything short of skeletal isn’t fashionable and never will be.
Read this ad copy from a 1933 Woman’s World: “”Special quick way to put pounds on fast! Now there’s no need to have people calling you ’skinny,’ and losing all your chances of making and keeping friends. Here’s a new, easy treatment that is giving thousands healthy flesh and attractive curves - in just a few weeks!”
“… watch ugly, gawky angles fill out, flat chests develop, and skinny arms and legs round out attractively. Life becomes a thrilling adventure.”
In paintings from the 19th century and earlier, beautiful women were full-figured. Rubenesque. Even into the 50s, celebrities were curvaceous.
To be skinny wasn’t considered pretty, it was considered unhealthy and therefore dangerous–to such a degree that thinness was shocking. Since shocking meant getting noticed, advertising gurus took note and made use of it, as did fashion designers.
Our perception of what’s pretty changed once – from shapely to thin. Now the success of the Dove ads and this p.194 woman are showing advertisers there’s a new way to get noticed, that emaciated women are so much the norm in magazines that we no longer see them. But we DO notice the shapely. That got our attention. If these advertising and fashion folks are anywhere near as savvy as their predecessors, they’ll try to be among the first to lead the charge in the other direction.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Karin, I never said that only skeletal women were fashionable and always will be - never.
My point is that it’s not realistic for heavy women to expect the fashion industry to accommodate them simply because the average American woman is heavy. Fashion doesn’t work that way. Most American women are short too but you don’t see 5′5″ women on the cover of Vogue either. Kate Moss is a shrimp at 5′7″.
Fashion makes the trends, not the other way around. American women don’t tell the fashion industry what to do. Women either buy what the industry offers or they don’t. And as far as Dove, the last I read, Dove’s brand appeal was suffering because of their ad campaign. Initially, they saw sales boosts, but now they are feeling the effects of being identified with “real” women.
And back in the 1930s, women were starving to death in some cases, and being a consumptive was not fashionable. But being heavy was never the standard even then. If you ever read about women movie stars of the day, one of the most common issue they had was their weight struggles. Under the old studio system, they had weight clauses in their contracts.
I’m very surprised you actually expect the fashion industry to embrace cellulite and 45″ hips. It’s just not going to happen, not even if every woman in this country turns into a big lard a**ss. And there are plenty of industries catering to the modern day large woman. There’s those body shapers, the diet industry, Lane Bryant . . . . But don’t look to Vogue or designer fashions or haute couture.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for advertizers to embrace heavy women. Curves might come and go from decade to decade but overweight has never been in.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:18 am
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