The pressure from the fashion industry
The most basic human desire is to feel like you belong. In today’s world, aren’t we all just trying to fit in and find ourselves? There are a lot of instances where we find people being hard on themselves for the mere reason of looking a particular way. From an early age, a lot of people are made to believe that there are certain social norms which they are bound to, to be considered attractive or worthy of love. When people strive to meet these stereotypical beauty standards, the first thing that changes in their life is often their eating habits. In many cases, this leads to people developing eating disorders. Today’s fashion trends are one major trigger for eating disorders.
Men and women all over the world are highly influenced by the fashion industry – whether it’s hairstyles, clothes, or accessories. The widespread use of social media today makes us obsessed with being up to date, on-trend and in a post-able outfit. The problem with some of these clothing items is that they are believed to be better fitted on people with a certain body type, at times they’re even only available for those sizes. Brands should be more size-inclusive so that they don’t promote the use of their products to only a specific group of people, making the others feel uncomfortable, neglected, and inferior. A large contributing factor to this problem is that many people in the fashion world encourage the use of overly thin models in editorials and fashion shows. They portray that either you are picture-perfect thin or ugly – nothing else can be beautiful. For example, when someone spends a lot of time looking at fashion magazines, they can start feeling bad about their body, which can then turn into eating disorder behaviour, like excessive dieting.
From recent studies, it was observed that today’s ‘ideal’ model weighs about 23% less than the normal woman. Most models starve themselves to achieve the “waif” stick-thin figure; it becomes so addictive, almost like second nature, that it further leads to serious eating disorders. Moreover, 54 per cent of the industry are told to lose weight to get their desired job. Not only does their livelihood depend on it but it also creates a very dangerous work environment that can lead to being pressurized into losing weight simply to be considered for jobs. Being pressured to lose wait to pursue your passion is just wrong. Here, I would like to add that there is nothing wrong with being inherently thin (they should not be shamed for that). The purpose of this article is not to say that there is a "right" and "wrong" body type, but that all body types are beautiful and that the fashion industry should not promote only one.
The ease with which people in the fashion industry think that one’s eating habits or the weight they have gained or lost is an appropriate thing to talk to a colleague about is quite shocking. It's essential to stop commenting on other's bodies. It can be extremely harmful to someone battling an eating disorder to hear how great they or someone else looks after losing weight. Changes happen to people's bodies for all kinds of reasons, including health reasons, and commenting on weight loss — no matter how well-intentioned it is — can be hurtful! You may believe you are complimenting someone, but it's time to stop thinking of "thinness" as an accolade. Progress doesn’t come out of hate. It should always come from a point of love, and that’s what we are rooting for here when we talk about body positivity!