We don't know how we missed this important article from Newsweek two years ago in which it is revealed that the reason Americans have gained weight is because of skinny models. That's right. Skinny models are making you fat. It's all their fault. Now, let's walk through the steps of how this happened. Remember the skinny model controversy? Models were passing out and even dying from trying to be skeletally thin, so there was an outcry and demand for minimum weight limits for runway and print models. That, of course, never went anywhere, but it certainly got a lot of headlines at the time.
Well, according to Newsweek, seeing skinny models all the time makes young girls go on dangerous diets which never work and set up a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and binging. That leads to weight gain over time.
While the travails of the thin and beautiful almost always make for good copy, we should remember that only about 1 percent of the American population is anorexic, while nearly two thirds of adults are overweight or obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So it's not as if skinny models have inspired an epidemic of slimness. In fact, the real danger may be that the contrast between the girls on the catwalks and the girls at the mall is creating an atmosphere ripe for binge dieting and the kind of unhealthy eating habits that ultimately result in weight gain, not loss. "You always [have to] look at the discrepancy between the real and the ideal," says Cynthia Bulik, a clinical psychologist who heads the eating-disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "If [kids] see themselves gaining weight and then they see these ultra-thin models, the discrepancy between how they see themselves in the mirror and how they feel they have to look is bigger. And that can prompt more extreme behaviors."
Unfortunately, that gap between the ordinary and the elite is growing rapidly. As American women have gotten heavier, models have gotten thinner and taller. Twenty-five years ago, the average female model weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman, according to researchers. Today, models weigh about 23 percent less than the average woman. Models are also leggier than before. Usually about 5 feet 10 inches tall, they are a good five inches taller than they were 10 years ago. Meanwhile, a typical woman is about 5 feet 4 inches and weighs 155 pounds, according to a 2004 SizeUSA study. The trend is enough to make any woman feel like a hobbit in comparison to what they're seeing in magazines.
But even the models can't live up to the new beauty standards, because their best photos are massively retouched. All moles, freckles, hairs, wrinkles and any imperfections are digitally erased. Thin models are made to look even thinner in fashion spreads. This is why most actresses look totally different in paparazzi shots of them going to Starbucks than how they look on the cover of Vogue.
