Despite strides, body image still an issue
Jordan Largey
Mesa Legend
Commentary
If there is something wrong about the world we live in now, it’s how body image is portrayed. Thin, fat, skinny, chunky, curvy, flat. All types of bodies and many more.
But what is perceived as the ideal body type? We have come a long way since the days of 90’s heroin chic, where it was at the height of fashion to look like you had a destructive drug habit. Nowadays, there is a great push to celebrate a variety of body types in movies and magazines and there are is a score of full figured actresses with very succesful careers in Hollywood. But still, everyone wants to be thinner, everyone wants to be skinnier because to society, still, thin is beautiful when in reality, that’s not always the case.
You see it all over the media with celebrities and models promoting some product that can make you thin or to make you more beautiful. People who look up to these celebrities and models will eventually look down on themselves. People get bullied because of their body image when it’s something that shouldn’t even begin to be looked at as gross in any way. We give ourselves the worst criticism. Because in our eyes, we will never be “up to standards.” When in reality, with the use of Photoshop, not even the celebrities in those advertisements are “up to standards.” Why should we be criticized on what we look like when we try so hard to try to fit in?
I challenge all who read this: Give someone a compliment on something they wear.
I guarantee that it will brighten their day by a million times. But something is about to change for the beauty standards. Models from France are required now to weigh a certain way; but in a good way. A law was passed that any person who wants to become a model in France must show up with a doctor’s note to prove that you are at a healthy weight for your height. Rachel Murray said, “One asks a model to fit into a dress and not the dress to fit onto her.” That’s the problem with today’s society. We have it wrapped up in our heads that we need to look a certain way for people to like us.
Rather than body shaming women and men with eating disorders, we need to reconsider the sample size that is shown to the world. True, there are plus size models but not enough. We may be off to a start with the law that was passed in France, the one regulating their models thinness but we have a long way to go.
