Real Women, Real Beauty – It’s Time
Now that another model has died of complications of anorexia, the media are abuzz again with tragic tales of starvation diets and lots of head shaking.
Ana Carolina Reston, was a beautiful 21-year-old with dark hair and big eyes. She was 5′8″ tall and weighed only 88 pounds. The young model was trying to earn money to help her family in Brazil.
In August, Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died of heart failure at a fashion show. She had been starving herself – trying to be thin enough.
Then in September, a furor in the fashion world began when prior to a fashion show in Spain, officials in Madrid set a guideline BMI(body mass index) for models who would appear on the runway. Models with a BMI below 18 were banned from the show. A BMI of 18 is considered underweight. A BMI of 15 is considered to be starvation level. Ana Carolina Reston’s BMI was 13.5.
These girls’ deaths are tragic, but perhaps the media attention they receive is a warning that the fashion industry will finally heed.
By contrast, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty sets a standard for beauty that is realistic and attainable. The focus of the campaign is that real women come in all shapes and sizes. The message: Be happy with who you are.
In June, Linda Ellerbee, 62-year-old journalist, best-selling author and television producer was the recipient of the 2006 Dove Real Beauty Award.
Dove is working to help change our perceptions of beauty, to encompass all that a woman is and to reveal the distortion and deception in the images of beauty the media churns out.
Watch Dove’s “Evolution of Beauty” video.
I may be male and the one who posts these articles by Andrea (actually, I’ve written a couple for it too – try to guess which they are!) but I found that video so revealing that I had to comment. There is something so cynical and evil about the way advertising manipulates our natural desires that it really is time limitations were imposed on the industry. My best wishes for success go to Dove’s campaign.
By Clive on November 17th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
You’re absolutely right, Clive. It isn’t just women who are affected. We are constantly being inundated with images of beauty that no woman can hope to achieve. Not when the images have been manipulated and enhanced and stretched to create a woman who in reality, does not exist. They aren’t just giving women impossible standards to try to live up to, they are also conveying this image of beauty to men. How can these images not affect their perceptions and as you said, natural desires?
And I do thank you for throwing these posts up for me daily. It’s a great help and enables me more time to write all these articles while dealing with the rest of my busy schedule. I don’t remember offhand which posts you contributed at the moment, but don’t point them out, people might notice how much better they are than the usual fare.
By Andrea on November 18th, 2006 at 11:42 am