Super Skinny VS Normal Size

Everywhere we look these day’s these days the media are telling us that we’re too thin or too fat so it should come as no surprise to hear that a French model has died due to anorexia and another  model is suing their modelling agency for saying she’s too fat. 

But it does still come as a shock.

That is because deep down we know that a person’s worth should not be calculated by their weight and it is really not the most important aspect of their being.

 If we were looking through the eyes of the media it weight would arguably be the most important aspect or at least in the top three aspects but when we look through our own eyes we know there are more important things, like staying alive. 

Issabelle Carro died at age 27 after fighting the illness anorexia for 19 years.  You might recognise Carro from the episode of Super Size VS Super Skinny that she appeared in.  

However she is most famous for the ‘No anorexia’ campaign she took part in.  The photos were taken by controversial photographer Oliviero Toscani and showed Carro’s skeletal frame.  Carro was so far gone with anorexia that she was almost transparent – you could see her vertebrae clearly. On Super size VS Super Skinny she spoke about how it was painful to sit down due to the lack of fat on her bottom.

(Issabelle Carro)

The campaign was launched during fashion week in Milan and was banned by the Italian authorities.  They argued that the advert commercially exploited the illness. 

On the other end of the scales though...

Ananda Marchildon winner for the fourth series of Hollands Next Top Model is suing Elite Modelling Agency on the grounds that they allegedly did not give her the prize money she was entitled to due to her hips being 2cm too big and therefore deeming her ‘too fat’.

Marchildon stands at 6ft and now has hips of 92cm, 2cms above the maximum limit of 90cm; she was sacked by the modeling agency because of this. The average European woman has hips the size of 102.9cm.

(Ananda Marchildon)

The agency argued their case by stating that they are obliged to work with Marchildon “as she looked in the final.”

Dieuwke Levinson-Arps, who is representing Marchildon, claims her client was told by a lawyer working for Elite that she was sacked because "although she has a nice face, she has a fat arse”.

It would appear that in today’s society an anorexic model is not acceptable and a model with hips smaller than the average woman but bigger than the average model is not acceptable.  It no surprise that as many as one in twenty women have eating habits that are cause for concern. 

The media dictates to us what is socially acceptable and at the moment it is an unattainable weight for most women.  If a professional model struggles to maintain this sought after weight and has a “far arse” then what chance does the average woman have?

It is nice to see the recent development by Lingerie Company Ann Summer’s in using plus size models in their window displays.  It will be interesting to see if other stores will follow in their footsteps.

A balance needs to be found between the skeletal arse and the ‘fat arse’ – there is a gap in the market for healthy sized models.  Here’s hoping that some normal sized bums fill it soon.