Why are we still glorifying only one body type in the year 2016? For me along with many others, this has been the year of learning how to love yourself and your body unconditionally. So as we near the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this winter, I look at the models and what they represent in a different light than I have in years past. These models, by the way, look like this as their full time job. To be a Victoria's Secret model means working out twice a day, getting facials, hair extensions, a tan that is strategically sprayed on so as to define your muscles, and an insanely strict meal plan. The regimen is costly, time-consuming, and completely unrealistic for average women to undertake. And yet we forget this as soon as the show is on and beat ourselves up for not looking anything like them. Just 47 models walk the Victoria's Secret runway while millions of women watch at home and feel like they actually need to justify their eating habits and make jokes about how they don't look like any of the models. Isn't that telling us something as a country or even bigger, as a planet? What I do not love about the show is that, in reality, the whole fantasy hinges on making one body type seem completely superior to all the other body types in this world. And then what are the rest of us who do not fit into that category left with? A bunch of young women who feel like they are inferior for eating food on a Monday night while studying for a week full of upcoming finals.
All I can picture when I think about who actually tunes in for the show is what the mother-of-two who is watching has sacrificed in order to look the way she does. And I worry about what I, and the other women around the globe sitting in their bedrooms, will sacrifice in order to look like Adriana Lima. It is scary when you think about it; what we watch on television directly impacts your everyday life whether you realize it or not. Whenever I walk into Victoria's Secret, I see all different body types. There are women that are short, tall, thin, average, plus-sized, curvy, flat-chested, and large-chested. So why are those body types not displayed in the fashion show? When it comes down to it, is the show good for women or bad? Based on the thoughts of many women, the answer is this: both.
The show is a celebration of womanhood and a performance by strong women who have worked hard to attain their looks and confidence. However, at the same time it is incredibly unrealistic for the most us. The show is another example of mass media propagating an impossible beauty standard. Even the beautiful models in glossy ads do not look that way in real life. We live in a time when every single female has body image issues because none of us can reach the impossible standards set. I try not to judge, based on outward appearances, whether or not someone has body image issues. I know plus-sized women who are perfectly happy and slender gorgeous young women who hate their bodies. It is important to remember that body issues are a personal, and often psychological thing, and they do not always follow what we see as logic. Also, sometimes, when one is closer to perfection, the pressure becomes all the more intense, because you are almost perfect. But not quite. You can never attain that last bit of perfection that makes you Barbie Material. Such is the world we live in. Nevertheless, body bashing on any side is not helpful. I believe we need to team up together, as women, united in the belief that a whole, diverse range of body types can be beautiful and shown off on any runway.
