Give that woman a hoagie, I beg you.

[apocalypsos]

The stunning size 12 model branded "too fat" for TV competition.

Two models wear a gold lame swimsuit (gold lame being something that will bring out every horrible flaw your body has if you wear it). The curvy size 12 model looks brilliant in it. The skinny model? Oh, man, I want to feed that girl a sandwich and introduce her to sunlight.

There's this girl I team up with a lot at work who's underweight. She started out at ninety pounds and when it got that bad (though not through an eating disorder, fortunately -- unfortunately, she's been to doctors and nobody has any clue why she dropped the weight like she did), she worked hard to regain weight until now she's up to a hundred pounds. Her goal weight is to make it to a hundred and twenty pounds. I weigh a hundred and twenty-five. If I ever have the passing idiotic self-conscious thought that I might need to lose weight, all I need to do is remind myself that I am some much skinnier girl's picture of a healthy body weight.

Stupid modeling industry. Bah. Wake up and smell the chili cheese fries.

Ooo, now I want chili cheese fries.

Comments

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

And that's a British size 12, so an American size 10 - really not fat by any stretch of the imagination!

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Honestly. I waver between an American size 8 and 6 depending on the day and I'm the skinniest person I know other than that girl I work with, and everyone (including her) is dying to fatten her up, for health reasons and because in the wrong light she looks practically skeletal.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Even more so -- an American size 10 about 20 years ago. These days, more like an 8 or even a 6 off the rack at the mall, depending on where you're shopping. It's all just completely insane.

:: steps off vanity sizing geekery soapbox before this gets loooooong and out of hand ::

[lots42.livejournal.com]

American clothing sizes mean nothing.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I work with girls that have eating disorders and while their disease can not be attributed to media and society alone, it doesn't help that we glorify the skin-and-bones look. And the most awful thing about it is how it's perpetuated mostly by women. So many of us think we should be thinner, eat only green stuff, and perhaps never ever be happy again. I'm a bit annoyed that I put on weight due to my medication, but I'm happier with my 160 pounds than most people are with 120.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Agh! You had to say "chili cheese fries!" I haven't had those since I left the US more than two years ago.... I will now have to seek some out when I visit next year.

[random-serious.livejournal.com]

The winner looked fabulous. The other girl though... I have no doubt she has the body for making clothes look really good on camera, but the body beneath the clothes is... well, horrific. She is skin and bone! All protruding. And how dare Rachel Hunter critise the winner! Hunter was a model herself when models weren't so sickly thin.

[callie-chan.livejournal.com]

I looked at that picture and went "my god".

How anyone, looking at that skeleton - hint to all women everywhere: if anyone at any time, including yourself when standing naked in front of a mirror, can see your skin hanging off your bones like thin cloth on a wire hanger, YOU ARE WAY TOO THIN - could actually approve of that is beyond me. As far as I'm concerned, that woman is hideous; it doesn't even matter what her face looks like because I can't get over the fact that I can trace the entirety of her pelvis with my eyes. That anyone could call that a "sensational" body, when there's barely enough body there to qualify as one...

Thank god the woman with actual flesh won. Maybe we'll start seeing an end to the strutting skeletal frames.

[random-serious.livejournal.com]

I wish so too, but I doubt that day will ever come. (For example, I mean, have you seen the teenagers these days? They are all thin and wiry and tiny, and the flak, of you're not...) Every image we see everywhere perpetuates this attitude.

[tronella.livejournal.com]

Gah, the skinny model looks really disturbing. I want her to eat some food.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're about at what I should be, but I've been chronically underweight all my life. It's not a picnic.

[saturnalia.livejournal.com]

*sigh* The modeling industry confuses the hell out of me at times.

On an utterly random note- hey, apparently the size 12 model is from Wigan! *brief moment of hometown pride*

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

Well, the UK size 12 model looks lovely. But yeah, the other girl needs a sandwich, stat. Damn. I think I need a sandwich just looking at her.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

That's disgusting. That "size 12" woman looks perfectly healthy to me. She's not "a larger woman" by ANY stretch of the imagination, she's a normal person-size. And I'd definitely think of her as "slim" if I saw her on the street.

I remember being out shopping with my (now ex-) boyfriend sometime last winter. We were in a KMart, I think, and we saw this girl walk by. She was so clearly, clearly anorexic. The size-0 clothes she was wearing hung off her terrifyingly, the itty bitty boots had her fleshless calves swimming in them, and it was painfully clear to both of us that this poor girl was probably going to die within half a year, without some SERIOUS and immediate medical intervention.

But most of the world would still rather I looked like her, dying in slow motion, than look like me (a size 14 at my skinniest).

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

I would love to be as "fat" as the size 12 model, instead of as overweight as I am now. She's absolutely gorgeous. I would never want to look like that poor skinny model, who looks like she's been starved for months - which is probably not inaccurate.

[prairiedaun.livejournal.com]

Man, she's gorgeous.

I have to wonder though, at how the pictures themselves were chosen (I assume that as part of a modelling competition, there are plenty.) Because the lighting in the first is much more complementary to the skin tonr. The outside light just makes the second look washed out. Also... the first is smiling and the second isn't. It just adds to the whole healthy/sickly paradigm they've got going on.

But still, I'd rather look like the first than the second.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

The article said something about how "this was the first time [the size 12 model] had worn the suit since competition", so I assumed that her photo was from a later date of her choosing and the skinny model's photo was from the original shoot.

[thespatz.livejournal.com]

There's some photo galleries here (http://www.five.tv/programmes/makemeasupermodel2/models/) if you want to get a broader view. Marianne just looks so *tired* in all of hers, and her limbs are so skeletal it makes me want to cry.

[wtfbrain.livejournal.com]

Jesus, that "skinny" model looks like she was just released from a concentration camp or something. Granted, the fact that the size 12 has really good lighting and a better pose, but still, I don't think they could actually make her look that much better with anything. Cripes, woman, eat a sandwich.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

I think what makes the skinny model look even worse is that you can tell by her frame and the size of her hips that her ideal HEALTHY weight is around the same as the "fat" model's weight. Being so drastically underweight just accentuates the fact the her hip is practically wider that her shoulders.

[marag.livejournal.com]

OMG, if I looked like that "fat" model, I would be hot hot hot. Dude. I'm a size 10/12 American, and I can assure you I don't look anywhere near that good! I can't believe how hot she made a gold lame bathing suit look!

That skinny model makes me want to tie her to a chair and forcefeed her food. Ugh. So not sexy. ::shudders::

[wyldkyss.livejournal.com]

Bones + swimwear = creepy!

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Urgh. That skinny model is hideous. I'm overweight, but in a voluptuous boobs and hips kind of way. While I am currently dieting, there is no way on Earth I'd take it that far. My ideal weight is 150 pounds.

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

I was a size 0...in sixth grade. Why is it that people labor under the delusion that the middle schooler look is attractive on women?

-blue

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Jeebus. I was just watching an episode of Angel on DVD the other day, and it had Lilah in it -- this reminds me that she was replaced by Eve in the 5th season because the WB bosses felt the actress who played Lilah was A) too old and B) too fat.

Eve had a semi-nude scene at one point and her legs were like the skinny model's legs: very 12 year old boy-looking and NOT sexy.

[fyrdrakken]

Keerist. That's the first I've heard about why Lilah got replaced by Eve -- those execs were fucking loonies to trade a brilliant character in for a cardboard cutout.

[callmesyd.livejournal.com]

I inherited my dad's uber-metabolism and don't get very much exercise, so for a very long time, I was hovering between 90 and 98 pounds (I'm 5'2"). I've since gotten myself up to a steady 105-106 between food and going for walks, and I feel SO much better. Look better, too, if I do say so myself. I'm trying to get up towards 115. Wish me luck.

With regards to the girl you work with, my brother recently dropped a tn of weight, too - he's been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I want to have more faith in doctors than to have to ask if they've tested her for it, but I live in Georgia, and a lot of our experiences with doctors out here would make the baby Jesus cry.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Good lord. And skinny miss bones is scowling like she's trying to figure out why she's starving. How is that attractive?