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This is awesome. Next week we will be blessed with a “size issue” of V Magazine, to be released Jan. 14. The photos posted for the preview on Models.com are pretty phenomenal.
And I am ashamed to admit that when I first saw these pictures, I wondered whether these women are within or over the recommended body-mass index range for women. Apparently, against my will, the constant barrage of stick-thin models in the world have sunk their claws into my brain and skewed my perception of what’s healthy. These women are built like me, and I am healthy, but seeing them in print my knee-jerk reaction to them is probably exactly what the fashion industry/media fears: mild shock at their size.
But after my momentarily lapse, I saw the beauty. For me, this really made the classic argument about media affecting women’s body images hit home. Here I am, a feminist woman aware of the influence the media has on us, and yet still involuntarily susceptible. But the awesome thing is our ability to adjust our perceptions. Give us a string of photos of normal weight women, and we have a whole new reference point. This is one trend in the media that I hope continues.
However, these women are exceptionally beautiful and fairly flawless. They appear to have perfect skin tone with zero cellulite. There are still plenty of ways in which readers may find they don’t measure up compared to the models. So the question is: where do we draw the line of seeking realistic models? Is this taking it far enough, or should the photos be un-retouched and include a wider array of body shapes, or ages, or wrinkles?
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I must admit I don’t know how to feel about it. They are clearly gorgeous, way more gorgeous than most models, but at the same time I look at their bodies and I think if they lost 5kg they’d look so much better. I’m torn!
That’s exactly, what I thought!
um…this is the other side of an extreme coin. these women aren’t ‘healthy’. carrying extra weight, especially around one’s middle is a precursor to heart disease. not to mention all the other unpleasant diseases that come from being overweight.not trying to implicate that these women aren’t beautiful, they have very pretty faces. i’m all for realistic models. i think it’s, well, wrong, to keep telling women that they need to be a stick figure to be beautiful. but this isn’t a champion move either. we should be exalting those who look like they actually eat a proper balanced diet and get a decent amount of exercise, not those who aren’t rail thin or those who are overweight just for the sake of difference. oh, and i’m sure they airbrushed all the cellulite out. you can’t carry around that kind of weight and not have cellulite.
Actally, you have absolutely no idea how healthy these women are.
You cannot look at a person and think you have performed a physician’s physical exam on them.
I take issue with people who make assumptions based on someone’s appearnance. It’s an ongoing fallacy; fat people can be unhealthy, but that doesn’t always means it is unhealty to be fat.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1066937,00.html
There was no public outrage when Paris Hilton shoved a disgustingly fatty burger into her face for millions to see (which actually promotes unhealthly eating) because she is thin, so she must be healthy.
I have never been denied a job because my employer asked about my eating habits or my level exercise (in which case I would be eternally unemployed), although those who are overweight are constantly put at a disadvantage because of assumptions made through their appearance.
It is more important to promote healthy living in our society than to scorn those who are overweight.
These women are gorgeous, all over, including their rolls and protruding stomachs.
Excellent observation, Wicked.
And the article that you linked to is great.
Just one quote from it that seems to be so very appropriate for this particular post – and for this forum in particular:
“Perhaps the key to the fat-and-fit movement is that there is no one key. In our effort to get healthy and look great, we have created an environment so hostile to the idea of obesity that overweight people have become marginalized, giving up on their well-being and sometimes failing to show up even for such routine tests as Pap smears and mammograms for fear of being hectored about their weight by their doctors.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1066937-4,00.html#ixzz0c3GbUIP0
Most of these women (a couple are) are not carrying their excess weight in their stomachs. They’re very well proportioned. So that isn’t the increased health risk associated with carrying weight around your middle.
And skinny chicks have cellulite too.
You can’t assume that every person who carries some extra weight is unhealthy. I have a friend who is the most active person I know. We have the same workout routine and we eat fairly healthy (an occasional ice cream splurge is not below us). We regularly run in 5k races and have even ran a few marathons. I’m lucky enough to have a naturally slim body, so when I work out, it pays off pretty quickly. My friend is around the build of these models, but no one who knows her would ever even assume that she’s unhealthy. So don’t go around judging people because of their weight and calling them “unhealthy” when you know nothing about them.
I have a friend who’s at least a size bigger than me. At least. Her weight is not carried around her middle, she surfs, snowboards, plays soccer and dances.
I’d bet a lot of money that even though she’s bigger than me, she’s way more healthy.
When look at old pictures of Marilyn Monroe,she was closer to them than most modern day models. I do agree that they could loose a bit,15-20 pounds max.
Why don’t they just go with the old sports illustrated look circa 1985? Women like Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford and Kathy Ireland were healthy, fit and not photoshopped. Promote fitness over “thinness”.
Totally.
What if they started featuring women who were *GASP!* good, kind, giving people, instead of focusing on LOOKS. Why are we focusing on that? I’d much rather see an unattractive cancer survivor who climbed Mount Everest than a pretty face. I find that inspiring, not someone’s body, be it rotund or thin.
I think a few of the pictures are just unfortunate. The ladies all look fine, just not in some of the scrunched-up positions the photographer’s stuck them in.
As for rolls indicating unhealthiness, well, The Wicked 7 already covered that one. I’ll add that all kinds of circumstances can leave a perfectly in-shape person with rolls too – pregnancy can cause the muscles of the abdomen and the skin over it to detach a bit, leading to a looser stomach even if the woman exercises frantically to get back in shape. Rapid weight loss sometimes ALSO leads to little flappy bits because the skin tension can’t catch up with the fat disappearing. And frankly, a perfectly healthy stomach scrunched up in the position some of those women are in ALSO leaves some modicum of roll – I refer you all to the un-Photoshopped magazine cover they posted here not long before this post. She’s miss world or whatever, but she still gets a scrunchy roll when she sits down like that.
I’m all for healthy women in magazines, but as 7 said, there’s no way to just look at someone and pronounce them healthy or not, contrary to popular belief. We need to really re-evaluate what constitutes “healthy,” frequently used as a cover for “skinny” much like “curvy” is used as a cover for “fat,” because we’ve clearly gone off the deep end as to what health actually is. Not surprising, considering the more you narrow down the definition of health, the more money you can make off of people you’ve just marginalized who now think they’re not healthy and will pay you to get them there (or try fruitlessly to do so).
I’ve never understood why it has to be thinner or bigger, they can’t seem to put together a magasine with people sizes 0,16 and everything in between. Why is it that during the annual ‘fat’ issue, there isn’t a thin model to be seen and the rest of the time there isn’t anyone above a size 4? Except in Cosmo when they have “Jeans to Flatter Any Size” when they go up to an 8 (oooh, huge). And of course, if you’re bigger and you don’t have huge tatas, you feel like you’re put together wrong as well, all these bigger woman are curvy with big hips and big breasts to match, few people are built like these two extremes.
I won’t even get started on the perfectly airbrushed complexions…
I agree. These women are pretty, but it seems strange that it’s all or nothing. Either it’s the 11 months of stick think, or the annual “real-size” issue featuring much, much larger women. They make it seem like they just plucked these “average weight” women out of crowd… but where’s the every-where-in-between? I’m not saying that these women are unacceptable or unhealthy, or that they aren’t beautiful, but I don’t think the are really representative of “average.”
Take for example Lizzy Miller. I think this is more what “average” actually looks like.
Read http://experiencelifemag.com/issues/january-february-2010/fit-body/just-right.html
Then again, the issue this post was about was entitled “Curves Ahead” I think, or something like that… so maybe it isn’t supposed to be representative of healthy at all?
If 95% of the time fashion mags showcase unhealthfully skinny models, why would be assume that the other 5% of the time, when they attempt to throw the “average women” a bone, that they are picking those subjects based on healthy standards?
That said, I’m not making any judgments on the health of these women… I’m just saying that if usually they don’t have a grasp of what is healthy to begin with, why should they magically understand one month out of the year?
The Glamour model that you mentioned (Lizzie Miller) is more of a true representative of an average woman, in my opinion. However, she is considered to be a “Plus Sized” model. To me, she looks healthy and normal.
The models in this particular spread are a tad chubby and it seems as if it was intentionally accentuated by poorly thought out posing and disastrous wardrobes.
I don’t even bother buying any fashion magazines anymore. I’m actually glad to see women with curves in this magazine, though. I’ve come to embrace the fact that I’m not going to be stick thin. I’m a size 18 in pants, and 5′7″. Sure, I don’t love my hips when I have to go pants shopping and can’t find anything that fits over my hips and doesn’t gap at the waist. But you know what? It is my body and I love it.
I know many skinny people that aren’t necessarily healthy. I also know overweight folks that have perfect blood pressure, blood sugars, etc. Being fit is completely different than having a good BMI. Even when I was playing sports and solid muscle, my BMI said that I was obese. *Shrug*
Ok, ignoring the entire healthy/big/skinny/unhealthy-issue, I still have a problem with these pictures. It’s a fashion shoot, right? It’s supposed to be about the cloths and about how great the cloths look on women. A fashion shoot should be about selling the cloths.
Even though I’m probably closer to the bigger models above than to the thin ones, I wouldn’t even be interested in trying on this stuff. Some of the cloths look horrible and don’t suit the models at all (this has nothing to do with their size, skinny people can look horrible in the wrong cloths, too!). They should have found some better cloths.
Some of those photos are so horrendous that I’m wondering if the wardrobe people were protesting having to clothe fat girls. That woman in the silver thing, third down on the left, just looks awful. I’m sure she’d look perfectly nice in a nice outfit and a good pose but she looks awful. Skin tight metallic body suit would be bad enough but hunched back to make her belly stick out and accentuate her fat rolls? They had to be deliberately trying to make her look bad.
Now we all know that I avoid stirring things up, however…
Psssssssssssssssst!
SAMANTHA!!
There is a picture of a less than svelte chic up there ^^^ in LEOPARD PRINT!
And it sure looks like a stretchy mofo to me.
Just sayin’ :-D
Geez Blurry, warn a girl to put down her soda before you make a crack like that will you? I just about choked.
Goddamn, Blurry. Couldn’t you have at least posted that comment about an hour earlier so that I could champion it in the Zingers post? :)
I apologize sincerely to you both.
It was an accident, I swear.
(smirk)
HAHA Blurry. She’s not fat enough. When Rosie O’Donnell wears that shit you’ll need to knock me out with an elephant tranquilizer.
Why must we always have the extremes? Yay, now they are showing models with rolls! Except not yay. While some women are healthy at this size, most would be a lot healthier down a few more pounds. When the ‘normal’ or ‘average’ woman is overweight, I see no reason to glorify or show her in ads. Show differently shaped women of various sizes, sure. But unless it’s a catalogue ad for plus-size, I see no reason to go into rolls terrain.
Sure, some of them are in bad positions. But some of them are pretty bulbous even in a nice standing position.
And in one photo, there’s over-jean spillage going on. A fashion shoot couldn’t even give the girl the right size? How on earth is the youth going to learn???
Agreed. “Over-jean spillage” is just not acceptable, no matter what the size!
I keep seeing more and more articles in magazines/online about men really AREN’T as obsessed with woman’s weight. When I saw the first picture, I immediately thought that she had a very pretty face and despite the fact that she looks rather large to me (I’m a bean pole and therefore bias), I still found her rather attractive. However, I am in the room with two other college age guys and they bother thought she was extremely unattractive. Both in the face and the body. One commented that she “looks like a manatee.” I have to admit that I was extremely surprised.
Well, I certainly don’t think the woman in the picture looks like a manatee, but….even still, manatees are frickin’ adorable! Who doesn’t love manatees?
Everyone loves manatees. They just don’t want to date them.
Yeah. I mean, you’d have to buy scuba gear. They hardly ever surface. And who wants a 12 month gestation period? No thanks!!!
;)
[...] old V Magazine bit has made its way to the Washington Post, where writer Robin Givhan poses several interesting [...]