How do you feel about magazines featuring "large-sized" women? Read this NYTimes article.
I’ll tell you how I feel:
- Considering the average American woman wears a size 14, these “large” women are actually average-sized. Many of the comments after the article noted that these “larger” models looked healthy and confident.
- Many (please note, I’m not saying all) traditional-sized models do not appear healthy; they’re underweight, have no muscle mass and bad posture, have eating disorders and drug problems and yet these are the women that we see on billboards and magazines, wearing the clothes that we are supposed to buy and wear, acting as the body ideals for which we strive or yearn for. What I’d actually like to see is models who look healthy and active, who excercise on a regular basis and eat well, who have muscle tone. We have a serious health issue in this country; wouldn’t it be great if models actually modelled how we might and could look if we ate and excercised properly? Women of all heights, bone structures and body types, wearing a whole range of clothing sizes, healthy, empowered and confident (check out this Jezebel article which touches on this). Imagine being surrounded by achievable body/beauty ideals? If only.
- Point is, do I want to see “large-sized” women? Yes… but just as many skinny models aren’t healthy, I’m quite sure many of the larger models aren’t healthy either. What I really want to see is healthy women. Where can I see those?
