Let’s have a look back at the fifties, when women such as Marilyn Monroe had the bodies that every girl wanted. Feminine curves with generous hips drew her silhouette. In fact, the iconic actress weighed around 60kg for 1m64 (over 130 pounds at under 5’4")!
Well, now as we can see, the beauty factors have pretty much changed since Marilyn’s sultry and shapely days. Today, we are influenced by models seen on the designer’s haute couture runways or girls posing for popular fashion magazines, both of which tend to show thin and very tall, young models. Are we influenced by the constantly changing beauty criteria? If we browse the Internet it is easy to bust into the “thinspiration” trend on blogs, which show skinny bodies or even give readers advice on how to lose weight. And if you remember a few years ago, it was almost impossible to gain success online without having endless, thin legs. So the truth is that we are influenced by the mainstream concept of beauty, and not always in a good way.
Should we blame the fashion industry for showing us that type of body, for telling us how women should look like in order to be beautiful? It is of course easier to dress up a thin girl for a runway if she has a model standard body. However, we have all heard about anorexia in the modeling industry and this shouldn’t be the image that other girls want to follow without seriously thinking about it. Let’s also not forget that not every girl can have such a body- it is a matter of corpulence and metabolism.
It is possible to be thin by having a healthy lifestyle routine. Matching daily sport to a good and reasonable diet that avoids starving is the best way to take care of oneself. So even if fashion seems fascinating in the glossy pages of magazines, it is better not to put one’s life and mental health in danger with the ideas of beauty. Staying aware of what you eat and how you exercice while ignoring beauty standards is perhaps the best solution.
With my own personal experience in the modeling world of Switzerland, it is possible to do beauty shoots, walk on small runways or have a fashion blog without being very thin or very tall. The most important thing is to be confident about your body and feel good in it by having a healthy lifestyle. Of course, I’ve received some rude messages from anonymous people saying that I have fat legs, but it is important to ignore those types of people. As long as you feel good with who you are, you do not have to adapt to the fashion rules and fall victim to the ideas of the “perfect” body type.
The skinny type has never been the one for my body. When I took part in the Miss Switzerland 2011 competition I wanted to stay true to myself and to my fitness without being afraid of what people will think about me when they saw me on television. The thing is that I could never resist my favorite desserts, and didn’t even want to try. Those are little pleasure of life— why should we avoid them?
In conclusion, let’s hope that one day fashion will reveal to us, girls that aren’t afraid to enjoy food, that self confidence resulting in a healthy and athletic body will rule not only the blogosphere but also the way that women and men interpret beauty.
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by Kristina Bazan
Image via Kayture
