Eating disorders and the world of fashion magazines

On 14 July 2011, a 14 year-old schoolgirl from Somerset, Fiona Geraghty, tragically hanged herself. According to various school counsellors and doctors who had been in contact with her, Fiona had developed bulimia and self-loathing issues – although there was a suggestion from her parents that this had been brought about by bullying at her school – particularly attacks over her weight, the coroner, Michael Rose, unusually dismissed this as the likely cause of her having taken her life. After declaring Fiona’s case as one of the most tragic he had dealt with in his career, Mr Rose was unfaltering in pointing his finger at whom he felt the blame lay with.

14 year-old Fiona Geraghty

Recording a verdict of misadventure, rather than blame those who tormented her at school, Rose attacked the fashion world. ‘The one class of person not here who I hold directly responsible for what happened is the fashion industry,’ he said.

‘The problems of eating disorders amongst young people, particularly girls, did not exist before the 1970s. From that period onwards the fashion industry and the magazines promoted thin models and the thin figure.

‘I do ask, particularly the magazines in the fashion industry, to stop publishing photographs of wafer thin girls. I do implore it, because at the end of the day for their benefit, families like this must suffer. It is, I am afraid, an increasing problem and until they control themselves it will continue."

This was a bold and provocative statement aimed at a multi-billion pound industry which, on the surface at least, epitomises glamour and sophistication. The fact that the coroner chose to lay blame at the door of the fashion industry, and not at her classmates, is controversial to say the least.

Behind the veneer of gloss and perfection, Michael Rose in his comments, has highlighted once again, a darker side of an industry that is in many ways, anything but glamorous. Behind the shiny pages of glossy magazines, fantastical fashion shoots in glorious locations, and the aspirational advertising campaigns that draw us in, lies a world that is undoubtedly distorting the way some women, particularly more vulnerable girls, view themselves.

An often quoted statistic from a famous 1995 study in America reported that after three minutes of looking at models in glossy magazines, 70 per cent of women said they felt depressed about their weight to the extent of feeling guilty and ashamed.

Earlier this month, a parliamentary report based on data taken from Central YMCA, the world’s largest youth charity, found that women as young as five spent large amounts of time stressing over their weight and appearance. It confirmed that over two thirds of adults suffered with negative body image. And where did it apportion most of the blame for this saddening set of statistics? Again, directly with the fashion industry and associated media.

Indeed, the problem has got so bad that last week the Home Office issued a booklet advising parents to teach children about airbrushing used in magazines and movie posters in an attempt to counteract an obsession with obtaining the ‘perfect’ body.

Maxine Frith, former editor of Australian Grazia, has first hand experience not only of the industry at the receiving end of these accusations, but of the mindset of those who work in the industry who promote such negative body images. Formerly a newspaper journalist, she describes her moving into the glossy magazine industry as a ‘shocking initiation’ into a world totally out of touch with the reality it sells itself to and to an extent, claims to portray. She writes in the Telegraph of her experiences:

‘The fashion world’s outlook runs counter to everything we know about women’s bodies. The average size of a UK woman is 14 yet ‘sample sizes’ – the ones designers and stores send out to magazines – are a tiny size six or less.

Fashion editors, when defending their use of tiny models, say they have to employ them because they are at the mercy of the designers and the size of clothes they send out.

But magazines and those who run them perpetuate the problem too; they genuinely believe that thinner is better. Just take a look at how tiny most editors are.

Another problem is the age of models. The various international editors of Vogue recently announced with much fanfare that they had drawn up a ‘health pact’, agreeing not to use models under the age of 16 or those they ‘believed’ to have an eating disorder.

To my mind that pact is not worth the designer notepaper it was probably typed on.
I once raised my concerns about a swimwear shoot in which I thought the model looked extremely young. The person who booked the model was called over and asked how old the girl was as we and other magazines had agreed not to use anyone under 16.

‘Sixteen and a day,’ she said without batting an eyelid.

Women are being sold an utterly impossible ideal – and that’s even before the pictures have been airbrushed and retouched.

Of course, it’s not just the editors who are to blame.

When one of the leading brands used a young actress in an advertising campaign last year, my editor bravely ran a piece in the magazine saying she thought it was wrong to use girls to sell clothes to adult women.

Within hours, the fashion house had contacted the magazine company who owned Grazia to say they were pulling all their advertising. She was hauled over the coals by her bosses and told never to do such a thing again.

Grazia ran an annual body survey in which we asked readers about how they saw themselves, and the results were always heartbreaking.

The vast majority who responded were a size 10 or under, yet the majority thought they were overweight and two thirds said they had pulled out of an important social occasion because they felt “too fat” on the night.

Anorexia affects one in 10 of the female population and has the highest death rate of any mental health illness. Research conducted by the London School of Economics, and due to be published in the academic journal Economica later this year, has concluded that the eating disorder is a ‘socially transmitted disease’ and a ‘potential epidemic’ because of the widespread circulation of unrealistic body shapes in magazines.

With its one dimensional vision of beauty at ultra slim, and its use of slimmer and slimmer models - in many cases pre-pubescent girls, as well as the countless stories of models with eating disorders, and even cases of models so starved they dropped dead on the catwalk, it is easy to see why the fashion industry is an easy target at which to lay blame. Undoubtedly, there need to be checks and guidelines to protect vulnerable young models as well as impressionable readers. And the fashion industry needs to acknowledge itself as part of the problem rather than denying its responsibility for perpetuating certain ideals of female body shape.

 lt is true that there would appear to be higher proportions of women suffering from eating disorders in the Western world right now, however, than at any other time in recent history. But is laying the blame solely at the door of the fashion world too simple a solution? Does it ignore the significant psychological, biological, and other socially generated causes of the disease. Surely anorexia is more complex than starving yourself to look like your favourite model? While it may play a part in some cases, it is certainly not the catalyst for all cases, nor indeed the only driving force in those cases where it does have a role.