I read the interesting fallout from this post on Wonderlandblog recently. It’s a shame because the underlying story of ultra skinning mannequins is a lot more interesting than the Daily Mails repeated inability to remember to get permission to use photos. As the Guardian shows with this topical piece about a diet book aimed at pre teens, the worry about encouraging eating disorders is at a high. I absolutely love Metropolitan Mums Malnourished Monday where she highlights fashion pushing unhealthy body images.
At the same time though I’m struck by some American statistics, because we follow on from the Americans in pretty much everything a year or two afterwards. The obesity epidemic in America sees the obesity rate in children currently running at between 16 and 33%, triple what they were 30 years ago and 20 years ago the most obese state ran at 19.4% of its population clinically obese, now the best state with the lowest rate of obesity is higher than this at 19.8%. It really is a mixed message, high street displays like the one I photographed in St Albans show models with legs thinner than my arm and even whilst I look at them obese people with arms fatter than my thighs walk past me. I can’t reconcile the two, it’s beyond me.