What, Then, Do We Make Of This 'body'? The Bodies That Are Idealized In The

What, then, do we make of this 'body'?
The bodies that are idealized in the media are frequently atypical of normal women. In contemporary times, body types are similar to what they were in the past. The primary difference is in what the ideal body image is. It has been estimated that twenty-five years ago, the average model weighed eight percent less than the average woman; compare this with today's fashion model, whose average weight is twenty-three percent below the national average. That is a frightening number in terms of the potential damage that is done to one's body.
Photography and Image Manipulation
Photography has many ways of manipulating images today. Young women who see photographs have no way of knowing the digital manipulation that may be responsible for the images they see. They only see what the advertisers want them to see: thinness. Advances in technology have made this easy to do. This technology creates an exaggerated version of the human body. Digital manipulation is used to make already-slim models appear even slimmer. As such, these are unrealistic and unattainable models for today's women to try to emulate. Software that erases inches and removes flaws may work in the world of photography, but in the real world, there is no such thing. Unfortunately, women refuse to accept this, and so the diet industry is hugely profitable. In television and film, special camera lenses and other techniques are used to make actors and actresses appear thinnerfor example, in the popular US comedy-soap Friends, the filmmakers stretch the film to make actresses such as Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston appear even thinner. There is no such easy way to do this in real life.
In a recent article by Joanne Nathan, we read that 'for the fashion cognoscente, Wintour and Lagerfeld are the ultimate arbiters of taste. Their opinions matter and when it comes to issues of weight they make no apologies for loving thin' (2005). In fact, the women who run this magazine take what they admit is a 'zero-tolerance approach to body fat': 'Wintour once said she wouldn't hire a fat person, even if she was a brilliant editor' (Nathan 2005). Nathan also describes these models as
'mostly young girls whose enormous heads and jutting collarbones are a scary testament to a life lead in the movie or fashion industry. Over the last few years we have seen female stars shrink to ever-smaller dress sizes as they compete with models for lucrative designer ad campaigns and magazine covers'(2005).
In the field of high fashion, we often advocate a kind of exaggerated human body frame. This frame represents not only the fashion designer's illustration, but also outline of the models on the catwalk. When we start to draw fashion illustrations, we are advised to adhere to certain guidelines as part of the trade.