Secondly, the link between size zero and a Body Mass Index (BMI) of eighteen is misleading, as indeed the label “Size zero model” when most runway models, being five feet ten inches (5ft10ins) or taller, simply do not have skeletons small enough to fit into size zero clothes. Yes, models are very thin, but I have yet to see a runway model that is a genuine size zero. The suggestion that all women with a BMI less than eighteen are size zero, which is that campaigners for the BMI restriction laws claim, is completely false. My own BMI is 16.9 and I am a UK size six (A US size two) With a BMI of eighteen, I would definitely not be a size zero. Dress size cannot be extrapolated from BMI with much accuracy.
But the fact of the matter is it’s now chic and cool to be a size zero. What’s wrong with that? Will impressionable teenage girls try to emulate their bone-thin celebrity idols? It’s likely, but they’ve been doing that for years, and to be quite honest, statistics on childhood and adolescent obesity suggest that Kate Moss, Nicole Richie etc. all have most certainly not spawned a mass wave of look-a-likes. Will the new emphasis on size zero influence girls with eating disorders? Of course it will, but that’s nothing new either. Back in the 1960’s, Twiggy was blamed for anorexia, and the web’s thinspiration galleries were already full to bursting before Nicole Richie slimmed down. Eating disorders are deep-rooted physiological illnesses that cannot be developed by wanting to look like thin celebrities, and eating disorders will exist no matter what body shape is held up as ideal. Will the rage for size zero cause eating disorders? No. You can starve yourself as much as you like, but that alone does not make anorexia; I return to my earlier point about obesity being far more rampant (and costly, to public health) than anorexia and bulimia.
Some women are just naturally very thin, just as others are naturally fat, and my guess is that most of these women wouldn’t thank you for telling them that their body shape is “disgusting”. It’s amazing how much “thin-bashing” one can get away with; it’s considered acceptable to speculate about whether or not Victoria Beckham still menstruates, but I can imagine the kind of reception waiting for anybody who dares to suggest that Dawn French is risking diabetes, heart disease and arthritis by being overweight, or that she might be battling a binge-eating disorder.
For the majority of people, it is unhealthy to be either underweight or overweight; smaller percentages find that they are perfectly healthy with a BMI below eighteen and a half or above twenty-five. Some of these individuals may be working in the model industry, and it would be unfair to deprive them of employment simply because their natural build does not fit a certain standard.
I would like to call equality and tolerance regarding weight and body size. If we have fat-acceptance, let’s have thin-acceptance as well. Let’s stop branding people who like being thin or who find thinness attractive. Let’s make it acceptable for women who celebrate their bones instead of their curves. If we’re going to have to have a minimum BMI for models, let’s have a maximum BMI as well. To ensure that designers aren’t sending out the message that you need to be obese to be attractive. Let’s allow thin people the same amount of politeness and discretion, we allow fat people with all the force and venom we direct towards the thin.
Failing that, could we all just try to maintain some semblance of a sense of proportion? Perhaps it would eventually filter through to the authors of the shrieking, doom-laden articles on “The Horrors Of Size Zero”
Yours sincerely
Allegra Hicks
Fashion Design Assistant
Reavley
AH