Size Zero = Not human/womanly/normal!
Duncan SampleThis is a personal rant about my thoughts on size zero women. From seeing 2 programmes on TV about it in as many days, I need to rant!
Both last night and tonight there have been programmes on TV about taking normal (as I would call them) women and making them lose enough weight to fit into a size zero dress (UK size 4). Here are the two programme descriptions
BBC3: SuperSlim Me: A Mischief Special
Writer and TV presenter Dawn Porter is on an all consuming mission to see what it takes to shrink from her curvy UK size 12 figure to the much-touted super skinny Hollywood zero. Surviving on a diet of just 500 calories a day she hunts down the stylists, designers and agencies who are responsible for making skinniness not only appear possible, but the ultimate goal for any dedicated follower of fashion.
ITV1: The Truth About Size Zero
With the scarily skinny silhouettes of some celebrities making the headlines, Louise Redknapp, a petite size 8, confronts the current obsession with being dangerously thin. She attempts to drop to a UK size 4, the elusive American size 0, in just 30 days. Along the way, she is subjected to a gruelling bootcamp fitness regime, talks body image with one time anorexia sufferer Mel C and visits the Rhodes Farm Clinic for eating disorders, where she witnesses how lethal the current trend can be.
First, I'll have a rant about the programmes, and then I'll rant about my issues with size zero in general. Things might be a bit disjointed, but afterall, I'm ranting here, so forgive me :o)
Both programmes had the same format... Take a healthy, normal woman - in the first programme, a size 12, in the second, a size 8 - both women looking fantastic (and quite thin) already, and have her starve themselves in the hope of fitting into a size 0 dress. They both do this as an experiment and you see all of their experiences (mostly unpleasant).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Both women did this as an EXPERIMENT, and didn't plan to stay size zero afterwards
Both went to America, found that (suprise suprise) they couldn't fit into a size zero yet, had a size zero dress especially made for them. Both were introduced to the same specialist trainer - Barry, and both were given the same rules for their severely calory-controlled diet (500 calories per day), and also given a very strict excercise regime which I think even an olympic athlete would fall fowl.
Both girls got very grumpy, and generally unhappy with everyone around them, everyone, and after a couple of weeks even their doctors were telling them to stop, one saying:
My simple advice, stop... stop now. You're losing a dangerous amount of weight
The doctor continued to tell her that she was also losing muscle mass as well as fat in equal portions and that it was really unhealthy for her to continue. After hearing this, Louise broke down in tears, but because she felt so strongly about the 'size zero issue' she forced herself on.
7st 10lb, lost 6lbs to get to 7st 4lb in 7 days, which gave her a BMI of 18.5 (a BMI of 18 being counted as dangerously thin), within 2 weeks she was into a size 6 dress and a BMI of 18.
By the end of the time they gave themselves, they fitted into the dress, and Louise ended up at 6st 13lb, with a BMI of 17.6 which is categorised as anorexic. Louise, when she tried her dress on, only kept it on for about 5 minutes, having associated the 'damn dress' with all the bad times she'd had while trying to get into it, and that evening, she threw it away and went out for a real meal with her girlfriends.
General Size Zero Rant
Now, for my general rant about size zero freakiness. If you read any of this and take offence at my 'picking on skinny women', sorry, but this IS intentional... not because of the size you are, but because you want to be that size.
It is not normal to have your ribs visible through your skin, and it's definitely not normal to have your arms hanging from your shoulders like you've eaten a coat hanger. It's just not healthy!
Watching Louise's progress through the before and after photos, she went from a beautiful, curvy woman, to a boney, figureless, skeletal person, with a personality change to match. Even her husband, footballer Jamie Redknapp made the remark:
I don't know any man who likes a skinny lady
Indeed, who in their right mind would want someone who can hardly hold their own body upright? Muscle and fat is there for a reason, it's not just there as waste which needs disappear.
Madrid has put a ban on women with a BMI of less than 18 going onto catwalks, but the London fashion show organisers "don't want to interfere with the way designers work", even at the detriment of the country's women being mislead into a dangerous lifestyle.
A question: Do designers design dresses to be worn, and to sell lots to real people? I'm presuming, since I'm not sitting next to Yves Saint Laurent, that the answer is yes... So what the %$#@* are you doing designing things to be the best when it's in a size zero!? The usual response I've heard is that "the dresses just look better on that size model", surely that's a fault of the designer, not the human form. If you want real people to wear your produce, start designing for real people!
What I want to happen
Right, here are my demands, not that I think anyone will take a bit of notice, so I'll set my sights high:
- The international fashion industry acknowledge the danger of having fashion icons of such a small size and will ban all models smaller than size 10 on catwalks
- The fashion industry also dictate that the majority of photos in magazines must be at least a size 12.
- Shops stop stocking the nicer dresses in the smaller sizes, to encourage women to fit into the larger dresses.
- Schools teach nutrition, focusing on the benefits of having adequate amounts of fat and muscle.
- Society in general with voice more of an opinion of what they want to see, and people will treat women who are too skinny with the same respect that is usually associated with people who are overweight.
- Ribs will no longer be visible outside the body other than on a restaurant menu and women will get their figures back.
Comments
Even though I have t**s and A** now Im not gonna just let people diss thin people. When I was thin loadsa guys fancied me and my petite 6-8 friends, plus if no men like thin women im not sure where all these known and unknown models get all their boyfriends and admirers from!!
How about help for people who are overweight and people who are unnaturally underweight and stop with the cruel, nasty comments?
Now, obviously people need to feel better about themselves and their failings. Since the dawn of history, we've had scapegoats. In this case, we have the size zeros to beat up on, inflating the perception of a crisis, when it's nothing other than a societal counteraction in the fringes in compensation for the dramatic increases of obesity.
We don't need to worry about implementing change to teach girls about healthy body weight, lol. We don't need to encourage them or validate their self esteem or self perception about their already too fat bodies. Rather, the crisis is exactly the opposite and it costs all of us dearly. Out of ever health care dollar (in the US), 10 cents goes to the costs of treating smoking related problems. 15 cents goes to treating *everything else* EXCEPT for obesity. Obesity costs 75 cents of every health care dollar! The size zeros running around are not taxing the health care system but fat people are. So why are people up in arms over the zeros? From here, it looks like they're jealous.
In summary, Duncan and anyone else who watched the shows, it was just a way to increase your sympathy, which lets people who are getting increasingly fatter, off the hook. You're also less likely to resent the percentage of your taxes that go to support other people's negative obese habits. I don't know why people are up in arms over the costs of smoking when obese people cost us seven times as much.
I'm not saying I support size zero-ing. I'm saying it's a red herring.
And in case you wonder, I am a formerly morbidly obese person. I lost 150 pounds over 25 years ago. I write extensively about body sizing but there's no place to include a link to one's own site here.