Quebec clothing chain Simons has pulled its newest catalogue after getting hundreds of complaints that the models in it were too thin. The genesis of the complaints may have been a story about the catalogue (and complaints) on Radio-Canada (Canada's French-language national broadcaster) about a week ago.
posted on Aug 27, 2008 - View this thread

These women are supposed to disgust you into buying low-fat yogurt.
posted on Jun 19, 2007 - View this thread

"THIN is a photographic essay and a documentary film about the treatment of eating disorders. In 1997, Lauren Greenfield began documenting the lives of patients at the Renfrew Center in Coconut Grove, Florida, a forty-bed residential facility for the treatment of women with eating disorders. She subsequently returned to Renfrew to take more photographs, and was eventually given unprecedented access to film the daily lives of patients". (scroll down or search for "Greenfield"). 2002 MeFi post on Greenfield's previous project, "Girl Culture", here.
posted on Oct 16, 2006 - View this thread

The Shape of a Mother There are a lot of sites out there that document the changes a woman's body goes through during pregnancy. The goal of Shape of a Mother (picture-heavy, NSFW) is to document what also happens afterwards. Women from all over the world submit stories and pictures of how their bodies changed after giving birth and how it affects their self-image. From the site's creator: "It occurred to me that a post-pregnancy body is one of this society's greatest secrets; all we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen."
posted on Oct 14, 2006 - View this thread

Naked is a gallery of sixteen regular people in various stages of undress (using an innovate flash interface). It has extensive interviews with the participants, talking about how they feel about their bodies and being nude in general. It's about as far from being erotic as possible (and rightly so), instead aiming to get viewers thinking about how they confront their own body image issues and how they feel about nudity.
posted on Apr 2, 2003 - View this thread

Which is more scary: that this girl is 20 stone at the age of 11 or that the reporter thinks her friends are an ideal weight at 1/4 of her weight? Take her to 5 stone and a BMI of 11 would put her well below the anorexia threshold BMI of 16.

But would her friends accept they could have a problem? Probably not. What causes Anorexia? Strep? Genetics? Models? Something else?
posted on Oct 29, 2002 - View this thread

Everybody Vogue. Well, really just the thin people. Vogue Magazine gets a tongue-lashing from Slate. Seems the fashion mag attempted a "body diversity" issue, but their idea of a large-size model is a size 8. Excerpt: "If "tall" and "short" and "pregnant" are body types, and Minnie Driver is "curvy," there's no need to admit the existence of the bottom-heavy, let alone try to dress the poor bastards."
posted on Apr 2, 2002 - View this thread

"If every girl who had a Barbie doll had a vulva puppet she'd have a very different view of her body," says Dorrie Lane, the Oakland artist and sex educator who made the 300-pound vulva.

Indeed.
posted on Mar 6, 2002 - View this thread

When Barbie meets ballet...? Mattel are shelling out £85,000 to sponsor the ENO's traditional Christmas run of the Nutcracker, which coincidentally starts just as Barbie in the Nutcracker hits the cinemas. A good way to "interest young girls in the ballet", or a head-on crash between two questionable influences on their body image? (more inside...)
posted on Sep 9, 2001 - View this thread

What are you more worried about: death, or your looks? "University of South Australia health researcher Murray Drummond said while there was a growing focus on young men and body image issues, such as steroid use and eating disorders - older men's concerns had been overlooked. Dr Drummond said men aged 55 to 80 were 'not concerned about how they looked as long as they were alive'. But he said they were concerned about what their bodies were able to do."

As a (young) woman, I definitely have body image issues (noting earth shattering, I'm afraid), and I'm not so worried about my body failing me. What about everyone else?
posted on Sep 4, 2001 - View this thread

A model commits suicide the other night but what's really tragic about this is this is what is considered "plus sized" these days. Aren't the days of 80lb, heroin-chic models over?
posted on Jul 25, 2001 - View this thread