Skinny Models: Telling It Like It Is

I remember when I was overweight and I'd look at fashion magazines and just WISH I could look like those models. I thought "If only I were thinner.." Well, to be honest, I'm never going to look like them because they do not eat anything and do not exercise and are born genetically tall. I'm short, muscular and compact. I'm also small (5'3" and 105 lbs) and thin, but I don't look like a model. I do like my body, but it took me a while to grow into it and accept the fact that I wasn't a model underneath the fat. I wish fashion magazines showed more real women...not necessarily different weights, but different heights and proportions as well. Not everyone out there is 5'11" with olive skin, people. Magazine editors know that too, so I don't know why they aren't doing more about it. They'd sell WAY more magazines that way.

I'm 35 and it's only now that I'm starting to like my body. I'm tall (1.8 m/ 5'11") and lean, but I'll never be a model - my shoulders are too broad and my waist is too short, according to the experts.

Some women envy me for being tall, but all through school I felt like some sort of freak-show amazon woman. All the guys I liked were shorter than me. So on the one hand there were all these images of tall, skinny women; and on the other hand, I was too tall and gangly to get a date!

I think the truth is, society creates these 'perfect' images so that we will NEVER be happy with our own, beautiful bodies. Now I'm 35, and I only wish I'd taken the time to appreciate who I was, instead of trying to be something I wasn't.

All women are beautiful - short, tall, thin, fat. We need to throw these 'beauty' magazines on the compost heap, and grow some flowers with the mulch we make from them :-)

...and has anyone noticed how now the Hollywood film industry is influenced by this skeletal-model 'standard'? Since a few years now, actresses (note not the actors) who once had nice figures, albeit slim are now boney, jaw lines so severe it is painful to watch their faces. Nude scenes - protruding spines, boney shoulders, knees etc and not to mention the ribs one can count.

This is attractive? This is desireable? No wonder the youth today - not having much life experience or self confidance enough not to follow the crowd - are under such pressure to look bulimec. They no longer understand what 'normal' is (albeit a vague concept). Normal for them now is what one used to call underweight, overly skinny. If you can't count the ribs and the stomach is not concave - then you are fat...according to a youth magazine interview.

When are women going to accept that women's bodies have curves, not angles?

Very sad.

This is very closely linked to 'fat bashing', it's just the opposite end. People are so repulsed by flab that they take things to extremes!
Yes there are 'pretty' skinny people, but there is also 'pretty' overweight people!
Fat people get treated in cruel and demaning ways, and this is how people treat themselves inside when they are obsessed with being skinny.
There is no easy answers, but you are right - The Mass Media, especially Fashion Magazines literally trade on this, and make billions on suffering.

"Craving is... an arrow. The poison of ignorance spreads its toxin through desire, passion, & ill will." - The Buddha

Skinny people can be really "fatty". It really depends on how much body fat they have in relation to their lean muscle mass, with regards to health implications. So, don't despair. Regardless of body size, we can still be healthy. Furthermore, for the ladies out there. Don't complain if you've got big thighs and bums because being a "pear" shape puts you at lower risk of chronic diseases or cardiovascular diseases compared to someone who is an "apple" shape. Some models may be stick thin but if you notice, they are parallel and absolutely verticle. They are blessed with smaller bone frame but that also means that their width of their waist is almost the same as their bums and thighs? Hmm,...that's definitely not pear shape. If they were shorter, they'll be an "apple",..so,.. go figure... :)

...so how do we begain to CHANGE this, people?!! None of us like to see it; everyone KNOWS it's NOT 'normal', so where's the campain to stop this kind of marketing of annorexia?!! I have dealt with body image issues, as sooo many of you, for pretty much my entire life... Why, as educated, 'normal' people are we continuing to allow this sh*t to go on?!!! It is obvious that there are so many more of us (the physically imperfect ha-ha) than there are of THEM (the skeleton girls), so why are we still buying the magazines? Why do we still pay $15 to see the movies? Can we do something? Can I get some direction as to where I can go to start this movement?!!! It took me moving to the middle of nowhere, turning off the cable and not subscribing to any form of media to finally realize that I love my body, and who's inside of it! It would be sooo great if I could help my "less than skeletal" compadres out there who can't do the same. Blessings to all, no matter what shape; I'd rather be a glowing orb than a fading candlestick.

You know, it's pretty funny this post (along with all of the comments) has come around. I was just in Charleston SC with my future wife (shopping of course) when we walked in a store filled with ultra skinny plastic "models". I made the comment that I would bet that the store would sell even more clothes if they included a few different shaped women. After all, more than a handfull of people look at the manniquins and think "Those clothes aren't meant for people like me".

What's even funnier is the fact that some of those same clothes look awful on the "model" but would look great on someone with a little more "curve".

What a $mistake$...

i been anorexic when i was 16 then i was bulimic at the moment i put on weight am 7st my height is 4ft 8 i might be healthy but i feel fat fat so just like the way you are from dorothy

i dont really get how they become sooooo skinny cause sometimes they are not so thin and from one day to another the are really skinny, i mean i know a lot of them have anorexia and bulimia but how does anorexia and bulimia work? it's really hard to develop a disease like those , how do they work so fast?

hi yah it's true i' am thirteen and am 98lbs and 5'3 i want to be a model when i'm older and alot of people think i' am pretty.I'm in the seventh grade and a lot of girls are toothpicks so i think im fat sometimes but i am between skinny and average. but i don't think i am tall enough or skinny enough while you are living in a society of tooth picks who are anorexic or bulimic so i think girl's in the magazine should be average girls and average girls are the normal skinny girls in life who are truly happy and the one's who don't barf to get there.

Okay being skinny isn't as "great, and perfect" as everybody thinks. I am a naturally skinny girl, I mean I could eat a pig and stay the same weight. i know some people dont find that difficult to believe but its true. I actually love the way I look I mean i'm a skinny girl with curves lol, but with people in this world assuming every skinny person has some kind of eating disorder is wrong and shows a lack of knowledge. Most of the time telling a naturally skinny person "you're really skinny" or "bony" is hurt ful, to me thats like calling an over weight person "an fat ass". I'm skinny but i'm no different than any fat person other than my size of course lol. I mean i'm intelligent, I have a great personality, and i'm healthy. I dont BARF UP ANYTHING KIND OF FOOD WHAT SO EVER... b/cI would like to keep my teeth, and keep my breath smelling fresh. Okay society does portray most runway models as tooth pick skinny, but what about the models that do print, some of them are average sized people (or what society portrays average size to be). I'm just here picking up for those skinny girls out there like MYSELF who are being put in a category of having some kind of eating disorder and lives' are being made difficult by those who claim to know everything when in fact they dont know shit, but only what the media shows them. I am 5'7 and i weigh 109 pounds, I dont have an eating disorder, i'm beautiful, I LOVE TO EAT, and I just want people to see people like me who happen to be skinny as any other average sized person, by whats inside, and not by my body size.

A frend of mine recently came back from 2 weeks at a rehad for bulimia. She walked out. Being there away from her family, and unable to relax herself by purging became to hard. I know i cannot change her, but i wish i could. Seeing this happen to her hurts but she has to ultimatly be the one to change.

People need to stop concerning themselves with weight so much. We see a teen at 125 pounds as overweight and stress the population with obesity adds everywhere you look. What is one to to do when adds like these are shoved in your face but to start dieting, which is where it begins. So you have to think, whats the real killer here, obesity or anorexia, because stressing someone to be thin in my opinion is worse than stressing them to gain weight which is something we very rarely see.

Okay what is the big killer? Anorexia, or obesity? Theres no differece, they both are eating disorders, they both kill, and they are both hard to control after a while. You just dont become anorexic, that is something a person chooses to do. Just like you dont just become obese, its some where in your jeans and if you dont learn how to control it, then it gets out of hand. And first off a 125 girl isn't considered overweight unless shes like 4'8 tall, this just shows how IGNORANT you are. You cant label people based on what you think, because most of the times you'll probably be wrong. Unless you're in the medical field and instead of being in the career of reading magazines and finding out whats healthy and not from local celebrities, then its not your place to put anyone in any type of catergory, such as Overweight or Anorexic. Pushing some one to gain weight is just as bad as pushing some one to be skinny. Both ways you make people feel bad about their bodies, and insecure. It all depends on how far you are willing to go to get there, that is whats going to make one worse than the next. Stressing some one to be bigger or gain more weight is actually not rare, its just not as publicized.

Heh, I'd just like to offer my congrats to Kenya. You have been delt some pretty stellar liberties, and you seem to be genuinely happy (while the prospect of scarfing an entire pig nauseates me slightly). I like hearing from optimistic, stable-minded chicks evey once in a while; 's like finding a sand dollar!
I agree, "it" isn't easy from any perspective. As we change and adapt, new issues will unveil themselves accordingly, and that, I believe, it what keeps life interesting. We as humans are capable of achieving so much, but, paradoxically, we often find ourselves blocking the road.
I suppose what I'm trying to propose is that life is what you make it, and change, how you take it. :D Be compassionate, and find health through what it is you love most.

I have an important question....Why do guys prefer bigger girls over skinny girls like myself? I actually really want to know, because thats a question my friends just can't answer. This may sound a little insecure of me, but i'm just curious so someone help me out, and give me your opinion!
thanks