The body standards that women have to live up to are, to say the least, unrealistic. Companies like Victoria Secret push images and ideals of women’s bodies that are in no way healthy or close to what normal, everyday women look like. Continually reinforcing these standards can cause real harm to real girls.

Victoria Secret models consume 700-800 calories, if not less, over the course of one day in addition to working out. The standard amount of calories that is considered “healthy” for someone to eat in a day is around 2000. That’s more than double what the models eat.

(http://www.kglobal.com/blog/victorias-real-secret )

Sizes 00-2 are the standard sizes for Victoria’s Secrets girls, however, the average sizes for women across the United States are 14-16. The World Health Organization has said that a BMI of 18.5 or under is considered malnourished. In fact, several countries have banned girls from modeling if their BMI is not high enough.

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that are more dangerous than most people think. It is estimated that 10 million girls in the United States struggle with at least one form of these disorders. Research has shown that someone dies every 62 minutes because of an eating disorder.

(https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/sta...)

(http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-d..).

The media and other companies play a large role in altering the way people see themselves, especially girls.There is constant pressure put on women to be perfect. Lose ten pounds quickly. Miracle drug keeps you youthful. Makeup product to hide your imperfections. Start working on your beach body now. Pictures of beautiful, skinny, unrealistic girls are always shown.

Most of those girls behind the pictures shown go through diets similar to Victoria Secret’s and go through no small amount of retouching. The truth is, the pictures we see in clothing or lingerie ads, or on the cover of magazines are not real. So why should we force ourselves to try to achieve this unhealthy standard of “beauty”?

However, some companies are trying to reverse the damage done and prevent others from falling into the trap of impossible body standards. Aerie, for example, has launched their Aerie Real campaign featuring models that look like everyday women and have gone through no retouching. This is what it says on their page for this campaign,

“It’s more than no retouching.

It’s about loving your real self.

It’s about empowerment.

We want everyone to feel confident inside and out.”

The company is trying to challenge “supermodel standards” and it seems to be working. Many girls have talked about or tweeted their love for this movement, and lots have been said about it making women feel more confident in their own bodies. Sales also went up dramatically after the campaign came out.

Bottom line is that several companies, media outlets, fashion designers, and society pressures girls into this ideal body type and shape, praising it as beautiful, even though it is far from healthy. Millions of girls get to the point of depriving their bodies of the amount of food and nutrients it needs, and no doubt some of these things are part of the reason why. Society and clothing lines should be moving more toward the direction of Aerie’s Real campaign and away from the restricting lifestyle and body images of Victoria Secret.