The Cost of ‘Beauty’

As many of you already know, eating disorders are extremely common among those who are a part of the fashion industry. Because the fashion industry normally only shows models who are super thin, whether they are like that naturally or not, that is what society sets as its standard of beauty. There is not a lot variety among models, and because of this some women (and men) do not have a very good self-image. They try to imitate the bodies of models, and some do not go about it in a healthy. Depending on the model they are imitating, it may not be possible to achieve it in a healthy way.

Back to the topic of eating disorders. While a portion of the fashion community may see the result as beautiful, it comes with a heavy cost. There are many people, both models and the average person, who have suffered many health complications due to eating disorders.

Models Who Are Casualties of Eating Disorders

Ana Carolina Reston

Ana Carolina Reston

Ana Carolina Reston was a 21-year-old Brazilian model who died due to complications from anorexia nervosa. She died on November 15, 2006 and weighed only 88 pounds at the time of her death.

jeremy-gillitzer

Jeremy Gillitzer

Jeremy Gillitzer had battled eating disorders for almost his entire life (since the age of 12). Despite the fact that he wanted so badly to beat his disease, he lost the battle against it on June 1, 2010 at the age of 36.

ramos-sisters

Sister supermodels Luisel and Eliana Ramos died with about half a year of each other due to complications from eating disorders.

 

Models are not the only ones to fall victim to eating disorders. Thousands of everyday men and women battle against these horrible diseases every sing day. Katy and Maria Campbell, who are identical twins and both trained as doctors, have suffered anorexia since around the age of 11 when they heard their father talk to their mom about how they were becoming young women because they were starting to get hips. In 2011, they were 33 and still had not conquered the disorder.

 

Something needs to be changed about fashion industry. One possible solution to this problem is requiring a minimum weight requirement  for models to meet in order to book jobs. Yes, some women are just naturally skinny and they should not be victimized because of the body they were born with, but if a minimum weight requirement were set then hopefully models would have less pressure to be skinny. There also needs to be more education about eating disorders. Pretty much everyone is aware of them, but many people do not really understand how deadly they can be. People took the initiative to go and do research on topics like this and are informed, then maybe the fashion industry will start to feel the pressure and make a real effort to change things.