When I was in sixth grade, my chorus teacher told the class that we needed to sit up straight in our chairs. It would help us sing better, she said, and it would make us look thinner. She added, “but you’re too young to think about that anyway,” as an afterthought.
Most girls (and boys, and everyone else, but I guess I’m mostly talking about myself here) spend their entire lives being told they’re not good enough. From the time we’re old enough to understand, our bodies stop belonging to us and start belonging to a society that wants to control them. We are bombarded at all times and on all sides by images of women whose looks we are supposed to strive towards. Thin, beautiful models who are so heavily photoshopped that they are, largely, not even themselves anymore – this is what we are told we’re supposed to be.
We need to talk about plus sized models, because they’re changing the game, and it doesn’t feel like anyone is paying enough attention.
The first thing the media has to do, in order to sell us anything, is take a shot at our confidence. They do this by surrounding us with images of women we’ll never be and insisting that they are the ideal, regardless of how impossible their body types may be. Once we’re insecure and unhappy with ourselves, the fashion industry can sell us anything, so long as they convince us that what they’re selling – those shoes, that top, the dress – will make us feel better again. This is what the industry is designed to do – and this is what plus sized models help to combat.
Straight sized models (those are the ones we’re used to seeing, by definition size 6 or under, but in reality rarely above a size 4) have come to be synonymous with desire. The beautifully thin women we see on billboards and in magazines every day are rich, successful, desirable, happy, glamorous – because they are thin. All of their success, all of their worth, hinges on their size. I have absolutely no qualms with straight sized models, but I’ve got a huge problem with the industry behind them. When we start to equate self worth with thinness, which, by the way, is exactly how the Mayo Clinic defines anorexia nervosa, we run into trouble.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Anorexia in particular is the most dangerous eating disorder for women aged 15-25, with a mortality rate 12 times higher than all other causes of death in that age range. The fashion industry and the media are literally killing people, and this is why plus sized models are important. We need to see people who look like us. We need to be shown that people of all sizes are beautiful, valuable, and desirable the way they are.
When we see people who look like us in the media, we don’t have to fall into the trap that has been set for us. When we see that beautiful, fat women like Tess Holliday, Denise Bidot, Ashely Graham, and Candice Huffine are just as successful, desirable, and happy as their straight sized counterparts, we can start to repair the damage done by society to our minds and bodies for so long. With the rise of the plus sized model, we can come to feel more comfortable and confident in our own skin – an important, and much over due development that, in many ways, breaks down the means by which designers sell their products to people around the world. Representation is important. Plus sized models are important.
When Aerie stopped photoshopping their models and started a campaign based around natural beauty, their sales skyrocketed. Literally, they went up 9% in a single quarter. I’m not a business major, but my business major friend says that’s “a lot,” and I believe him. Aerie still uses fairly thin and conventionally attractive models, but they’ve taken an important first step that shows how effective showing something realistic in the media is. We’ve been told for so long, “skinny sells.” Aerie is showing us that this might not be true.
Size, also, is not an indicator of health, and I am not here to listen to people argue that plus size models “glorify obesity,” or make people think it’s okay to be unhealthy. Someone’s weight is no one’s business but their own, and there is no excuse for shaming or belittling other people for their size. There is no excuse for the way we dehumanize fat people in this society.
Plus sized models are important because they are reclaiming the female body as their own. In that way, plus sized models are inherently an important part of feminism. These women are reminding us that we can be beautiful, healthy, happy, and loved at any size. I think this will literally save lives, and I think it needs more attention. Big is beautiful.
For more inspiration, take a look at Plus Sized Fashion week, or check out plusisequal.comÂ