STYLE
From Issue #4
Anatomically
Incorrect!
The Unattainable Look
By
Hilary Rowland
(Check out Hilary.com for more of
Hilary's stuff)
It's
bikini season again and this year the trend to be thin is more
pronounced than ever.
The
newsstands are displaying magazines of which almost every issue
has a thin, gorgeous swimsuit model on its cover. Your television
is showing more and more unhealthily thin actresses. Bones are
jutting out and implants are taking the place of real breasts.
Most of these supermodels and actresses are so unnaturally thin
that they risk infertility, osteoporosis and, ultimately, kidney
damage.
Jennifer
Aniston's former trainer says "[Jennifer's] new figure
did not come from working out with me. She lost body fat (seemingly
all of it) by drastically reducing carbs in her diet - a way
that's not healthy in my books."
This
obsession with thinness seems to be a sort of domino effect.
One actress looses weight to please the media, next all her
co-stars are losing weight to keep up. Courtney Thorne-Smith
(size 4) has said that if she were not on TV show Ally McBeal,
she'd be 5 pounds heavier but won't risk it for fear she'll
look big next to her size 2 co-stars. "I would run eight
miles, go to lunch and order my salad dressing on the side.
I was always tired and hungry," says Courtney.
Meanwhile,
her co-star, Calista Flockhart, has discovered spinning - vigorous
workouts on stationary bikes. "At first it hurts your butt,
but you become addicted to it like a maniac," says the
size 2, 5'6", 100lb Ally McBeal star.
oes
anyone ever think about how the overload of these images in
the media affects the everyday person? Well, for many women,
and an increasing number or men, it doesn't exactly have a positive
effect. In fact, the idea of the media's (and consequently,
everybody else's) "ideal" woman often makes "normal"
people self-conscious -- even if they have nothing to be self-conscious
about.
What
most people don't realize is that every image of a model or
actress in a fashion or beauty magazine has been touched-up
using the latest computer technology to remove 'flaws' like
bulges, pimples and stretch marks. Elizabeth Hurley even admitted
that her breasts were electronically enlarged for the cover
of Cosmopolitan magazine.
"On
my last Cosmo cover," she recalled in a recent Details
mag interview, "they added about five inches to my breasts.
It's very funny. I have, like, massive knockers. Huge. Absolutely
massive."
Christy
Turlington explains to Elle magazine. "Advertising is
so manipulative," she says. "There's not one picture
in magazines today that's not airbrushed."
"It's
funny," Turlington continues, "when women see pictures
of models in fashion magazines and say, 'I can never look like
that,' what they don't realise is that no one can look that
good without the help of a computer."
Beyond
that, there are about 100-300 professional photographs taken
for each published image you see. They are taken from the absolute
best angle in perfect lighting with the clothes pinned just-so.
And as if that wasn't enough, the models hair and makeup is
always professionally done and is constantly touched up by a
makeup artist and hair stylist standing by to make sure nothing
looks less-than-perfect.
According
to Prevention magazine, a "healthy weight" for a woman
who is 5'9" is 129-169 pounds. An average 5'9" model's
weight is somewhere around 115 lbs.
Cindy
Crawford is an example of an exception to the rule: she is a
model and she is not stick-thin. She has lots of muscle, and
it looks good. She is the kind of woman more magazines need
to have on their covers and in their editorials. She projects
strength and beauty.
"I
am not the skinniest model," says Cindy, "but I have
had success as a model, so I feel more confident putting on
a bathing suit and standing in front of a camera. In life, I
have all the insecurities anyone has. It's a cliché,
but we're our own worst critics."
