Andreas Lebert, editor of Brigitte, the German magazine being scrutinized by Lagerfeld, said the average weight of a typical model was “23% less” than that of the non-models he is going to be using for his magazine. This criticism still comes with the fact that most models are 5-foot-10 and are a size 2, which means if you don’t fit this ideal you aren’t considered “beautiful.” Whether knowing it or not, the designer hit a painful nerve with many women and girls who trying to the change the modeling industry and how it affects a girl’s sense of self. The designer also claims he has never seen any anorexic models, but only extremely slim ones. Lagerfeld claimed that magazine was “absurd, and driven by overweight women who did not like to be reminded of their weight issues.” He also called the non-models “fat-mummies who with their bags of crisps in front of the television.” Lagerfeld, who has been using stick-thin models for decades, claims that models “aren’t deliberately skinny because they want to be models, they’ve probably had family problems or suffered from other traumas.” Karl Lagerfeld, a European fashion designer, recently issued a statement criticizing a German magazine for using regular, relatable women as models, rather than the stick-thin, sized-0 models that usually grace the advertisements. “And body dissatisfaction can lead girls to participate in very unhealthy behaviors to try to control weight.” A research study performed by Todd Morrison and Emer Sheahan recognized that “sociocultural norms and values in Western societies, particularly those portrayed in the mainstream media, are often proposed as major contributors to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among women.” These researchers also concluded that the thin-body ideal, which refers to “the extent to which an individual cognitively buys into socially defined and unrealistic ideals of attractiveness,” has a correlation to girls developing eating disorders. So if a young girl, still growing into her own body, looks at herself in the mirror and doesn’t see that, what exactly is she supposed to think? “The promotion of the thin, sexy ideal in our culture has created a situation where the majority of girls and women don’t like their bodies,” says body-image researcher Sarah Murnen, professor of psychology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Most girls that strut down a runway are between the ages of 14 to 19, 5-foot-10 and 11, with an average weight of 120 to 124 pounds. I propose that the United States should begin to issue stricter rules on how models look in advertisements and on the runway, so young female audiences can be content with their body. This pressure has unfortunately caused many girls to develop eating disorders, like bulimia, anorexia, and dismorphia, to look like the models on the runway. The modeling industry gives young girls, particularly those under the age of 16, the pressure to acquire a perfect body type. Model Filippa Hamilton's head looks disproportionate to her body in this Photoshopped image from Ralph Lauren apologized for the image getting into the public’s eye before it was ready for distribution but he never apologized for giving Hamilton a skewed body image. However, in April of 2009, Filippa was fired from the fashion company because they said “ was overweight and couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore.” Why was Filippa fired for being overweight, if the 5’10” model weighed only 120 pounds? In October, the distorted image of Hamilton accidentally appeared in a Japanese advertisement, where bloggers quickly got a hold of it and criticized Ralph Lauren for the Photoshop blunder and poor taste regarding a girl’s body-image.

In fact, she had been working for the company since 2002. Why would a fashion mogul, like Ralph Lauren, want to create a photograph this damaging to a girl’s sense of self? The model in the photograph, Filippa Hamilton, is no stranger in Ralph Lauren advertisements. Although it was very clear the image had been digitally altered, the ethics behind creating an image like this perplexed me. It looked like a stick trying to hold up a boulder. As I looked at the image plastered across my internet browser, I couldn’t help but notice how large this model’s head look compared to the rest of her body. As inconceivable as this statement sounds, it was completely true. “Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis,” wrote Xeni Jardin, blogger for the Website Boing Boing.

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