There was a time when men were the ones that didn’t really care about how they looked, but it seems that that has now changed significantly with many men having Botox injections, waxing parts that would not have been even thought of before, and having face lifts like they’re going out of fashion. It now seems that some men are just as vain as their female counterparts, and now many people think that there is as much pressure on men from the fashion industry to look good as women.
On one side we have the fashion industry telling us how we should look perfect, on the other side we have the fast food industry making their greasy foods look better than the next firm. There is just no winning, and with so many contrasting messages, we cannot get it right.
In the 1970s, a survey of American teenagers found that only 6% of them were worried by their body weight. By 1980 this had risen to 31% of all teenage boys and girls, and by 2000 81% of all 10 year olds (yes, 10 year olds) said that they had dieted at least once already. The only obvious cause for this that has been found is the increase in the voice of the fashion industry, helped by the widespread media. It is in human nature to compare ourselves, so it is only natural for us to compare ourselves to pictures and try to “fit in” with the crowd by being like the pictures. This isn’t very helpful when the pictures have already been airbrushed to make the models appear better.
A survey of American models showed that they are 23% lighter than the average American female. This just goes to help the image that there are two groups of people – the fashion industry and then the rest of us. Models are getting smaller and smaller – Marilyn Monroe was a size sixteen it is thought, and now most models are around half this. It appears that the average model is getting smaller and smaller, and the number of bulimic or anorexic people is getting bigger – a coincidence?
The fashion industry is seen as the main culprit for our modern day “thin” society, but the fast food industry is just as bad, I think. It is persuading the population to eat its fatty, greasy foods that is creating the exact opposite of the fashion industry – it is creating another group of people that are grossly overweight and so we are faced with lots of obvious contradictions – the Fashion industry saying “be thin – it’s healthy” and the Fast food industry saying “eat the foods you want – they’re tasty”. No wonder so many people are developing food disorders.
I think that as long as everyone is sensible, and eats a balanced diet with not too much of anything, we should all be fit and healthy. Just as long as we don’t all eat chocolate and play computer games all day, we should all be much the same, some people being bigger than others, some being spotty, some sporty. If we were all the same, all girls wearing the same, being the same weight, and all boys enjoying the same things that our friends do, life would be very boring.