America’s unrealistic weight standard
According to inch-aweigh.com, the average American model is 5’11’’ and weighs 117 pounds. The average American woman is 5’4’’ and weighs 140 pounds. Is something wrong with this picture?
For years, young girls and women have been bombarded with images of rail-thin models who look nothing like them. Instead, fashion magazine readers are offered images of models that often look like they are a size negative zero instead of the typical size eight. Sadly, not only do these models appear as if they are starving for more than a diet that consists mostly of cigarettes, mentos and soda water, they also appear to be suffering from serious, and in most cases, life-threatening eating disorders.
Many impressionable young girls and women also fall victim to some of the same eating disorders while attempting to achieve a beauty and weight standard that is impossible to reach. However, this weight-standard may be changing as more curvy women enter the fashion scene.
The beauty curve
Lizzi Miller, a 20-year-old plus-size model sparked great interest and controversy as she bared it all in this month’s issue of Glamour Magazine. Posing for an article piece that Glamour did on women and body image, Lizzi smiled for the camera in a sexy, playful yet conservative manner. And without a hint of airbrushing, Lizzi still exuded natural beauty, innocent grace, and a beaming smile while revealing her tummy and even some of her stretch-marks (a risk no fashion magazine editor or photographer would ever consider).
Worth the risk
But the risk was worth it, as many female readers and even men with an appreciation for the true female figure were ecstatic to see a real woman featured in a well-known magazine. Women readers were especially pleased to see a model gracing the pages of a notorious magazine whose body resembles their own.
Thanks to Lizzi, real women now have a new role-model and advocate in their corner. And if more magazines switch from negative-size models to plus-size models, the norm of beauty and weight may also slowly but surely begin to change; a change that would be a plus for all women.
Just my Size…………nothing wrong with that.
What a great article. Lizzy looks like those beautiful women in Renaissance Portraits. Women are like flowers. There are so many different kinds, yet all of them are beautiful. That’s what the media needs to get out to the public. Everyone woman is beautiful in her own way. Wonderful article.
Great article with great insights! Good job Sophia.
This would be a great article, except that you make it sound that any woman thinner than the “average” size is not a “real woman” and doesn’t have the “real beauty”, as you say, of a real woman. I thought that the whole point of Glamour putting a plus-sized model in their magazine was to show that ALL sizes of women are beautiful. I am 5′10 and 106 pounds, and no matter how much I eat, I can’t gain weight, are you saying that I do not have “real beauty”? Am I too thin to be a “real woman”?
All I hear about in magazines recently is how it is so horrible how over-weight women are treated and how children are pressured to be thin. Well I never hear stories about the women who are naturally very thin and have been teased and ridiculed their whole lives for it, like my self. Where is the fairness here? Every one is different and every one has their own healthy size. I don’t think it is your’s or any one else’s right to decide what is real beauty and what is not.
Next time please consider the people you are leaving out or hurting when you state something as if it is fact.
Kaite, thank you for your response. However, with all due respect, I believe you missed the overall point of my article. I merely explained how women and young girls have been and continue to be constantly bombarded by the media’s fabricated images of beauty and images of rail-thin models. I never said anyone who is NOT of average size isn’t a real woman or isn’t beautiful. I never stated what true beauty is, I merely stated the facts; women are affected by the images they see in the media.
I also wanted to congratulate plus-size models like Lizzie who are not afraid to show their true beauty – a beauty that goes beyond the typical model-size that all women are made to believe is the only size they should aspire to be.
I did not mean to offend anyone in any way. If anything, I’m an advocate for all women of all sizes.
Every woman, no matter what her size, is beautiful in her own way.
And just to clarify, when I say REAL WOMEN, I mean women who are not the typical model height and weight we usually see in the media. Those models are obviously real women, but not ALL women share a model’s shape and size.
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