For the past 10 years, people have complained about models being too skinny in the media. I agree that there are underweight models in magazines, but lately it seems as though they are getting dogged for it. I haven’t heard one good thing about Lindsay Lohan being so skinny. But I’m not talking about models being too skinny. I think they are showing models just fine in the media.
Some people may look at a skinny person and think he or she is not eating healthy. Well, that’s not always true. Just because a person is skinny doesn’t mean she is anorexic or malnourished. Open up a woman’s magazine, and three-fourths of the models in there will be normal or even a tad bit overweight.
There is nothing wrong with being overweight unless it’s caused from not exercising, sucking chocolate cakes down all day and washing everything down with a coke, even a diet one. You always hear that young people, especially women, see models and want to look like them, so they quit eating. Who’s to say that a young woman won’t see an overweight model and think it’s OK to quit exercising or eating healthy?
Personally, I have never really been affected by models’ bodies. I might see a woman’s figure in a magazine and admire it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to change my own body in a drastic and unhealthy way. I do understand that some people have very low self-esteems and think that body image is the only way to feel better.
Instead of taking skinny people out of the media, why don’t schools start having programs that teach young people how to take care of their own bodies and make themselves feel physically better? Tell them what a healthy weight is, and show them examples of people who are in their categories of weight, and I can almost guarantee you that their self-esteem would rise.
I have much sympathy for the people who have diseases that impair their weight and health. And in this I include anorexia and bulimia because in my mind they are diseases. I will admit, if I saw an obese person on the street, my first reaction would be that he doesn’t eat right or exercise at all. But I would soon think that they had a problem that they couldn’t fix.
It’s hard to remember sometimes that all people don’t have the same body type, but everyone is made completely different. Being a person that I guess could be considered skinny, I can tell you that people think I don’t eat a lot, but I’m going to tell you that I could eat more than a lot of people reading this.
People are always going to complain about how models look in the media. If people are comfortable with being 20, 30 or even 40 pounds overweight, then good for them. But if they are unhealthy at the same time, then they shouldn’t be OK with that. Same goes for someone who is 20 pounds underweight. I think people should be more concerned with how healthy they are rather than how they look to other people.