“I was thinking, Daniel, all our models featured are less than 20. Would it be SO bad to feature a woman of about 35?”

 

Kudos to the producers of Ugly Betty, once again.

The latest episode of Ugly Betty was another cry for a change in the unhealthy images of women portrayed by the fashion/media industry.

Fashion Week for Mode.

Fashion Gets Real – featuring the everyday women we see in our lives. The women who can live, eat, be herself in her own skin, in her own shape. The women who can laugh on the catwalk, as well as on the sidewalk, instead of pouts and faces set with determination – the look of ‘success’ and ‘beauty’ somehow always seem to be in relation to looking cold and ‘refined’.

A fashion show, fashioned by Betty and Daniel Meade to raise its publicity, and for responsible journalism. The impact of the fashion and beauty industry on young girls is profound – magazines are what they grow up reading, the cosmetic counters and mannequins and advertisements are what they are surrounded with when they hit the malls and other public spaces, the people whom they meet are too subject to the industry’s influence and help to further drive home the messages of ‘thin being in’ and ‘dieting being the norm’. Alongside with a healthy upbringing in schools and at home, the environment must be changed to remove stereotypical images of thin, white, young models donning ads, magazines and tv shows. The magazine industry, as well as the media governing boards and the government, all have parts to play to make a difference in the landscape young girls are brought up in.

 

Where can we start? Eliminating the Barbies and the introduction of dolls representing the diversity of the world’s women today; eliminating the use of models with only one body type; educating children to understand the term ‘diversity’ and respect peers of all shapes and colours (how many of us had friends calling us names?); regulating the advertisements and entry into industry of the slimming parlours (c’mon, how often do these things work?).

 

Nutbeam defined health promotion as the process of enabling of people to be more able to increase control the determinants of health and thereby improving health, with the term ‘health’ referring to social/mental/emotional/physical wellbeing. Health promotion classes ought to include helping young people to achieve a secure sense of self, to respect and accept all shapes, colors, sizes, cultures, etc, for it is in educating and nurturing the younger generation that we can foster healthy future communities and environments on Earth.