A report to come out of the US this month shows that nine out of ten teen girls feel pressured by the fashion and media industries to be skinny and that this industry has created an unattainable image of beauty. No kidding! But, as a teen girl do you get that companies are playing on your insecurities and feeding them to sell their products? Listen up and take action!
A rakishly thin girl models swimwear. A half-girl half-woman with the face of a 12-year- old in push-up bra and a sexed up look - is showing off the latest fashion must-haves. It can be any teen mag.
Flick on MTV and girls in barely there clothes and buffed up bods are passing candy to the rapper stars. They smile encouragingly as they are called bitch and whore, or are told how the guy is going to 'stick it to em'.
Now, I'm not sure what exactly happened out their in marketing la la land that made all this acceptable. How did we go from icons like Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, even Madonna, when she was a Material Girl, to a world where models in mags are thinner than 98% of all girls and women?
Your mum and grandma had real women, with real substance, real body shapes to call upon as role models. Today's teen girl lives in a world where, on morning TV, girls are called demeaning names and songs contain lyrics like 'I can make your pussy whistle!' € Seriously, but WTF????
Well, here's the how the scary tale unfolds. Fashion label X needs to sell its t-shirts to girls aged 12-16. Marketing gurus have think-tank meet. A 20-something girl on the team pits the radical concept of using real teens to model the t-shirts in real girl situations -shopping, hanging with friends. The more seasoned marketing pros come up with putting a model in the t-shirt sans everything bar the t-shirt. The creative juices flow and they throw in a hot guy who is t-shirtless, draped all over hot girl.
Fashion label X knows that young girls are vulnerable. There are countless studies to prove it! They know that during the developing years self esteem is at an all time low. So, how better to get these girls to buy into the brand than to feed on those insecurities!
Show her a seriously sexy model, who she just wishes she could look like. Suggest that if you look that seriously hot you have the potential to snare a seriously hot guy. Bingo - marketing gold! Girls will feel they have to have that t-shirt because it will get them that little step closer to being that girl.
The real girl situation gets panned. There's nothing aspirational in being a real girl, right?
So, it seems if you pick up any mag, watch MTV, or drive past advertising bill boards aimed at girls. Despite the countless research studies showing how bad this makes girls feel, despite rising rates of eating disorders, despite the dieting industry generating $40B in the US and with 86% of girls on a diet or thinking they should be -..yes, despite all that, the media and marketing mavens have justification for it all.
Vogue editor Kirstie Clements, in response to the debate about the media influence on girl self esteem said: "beautiful, young people belonged on the escapist pages of a fashion magazine, not real women of different sizes."
It seems real girls don't show case designer fashion as well as girls resembling clothes hangers. What the????
So, let me get this. Girls with 0% body fat, no breasts, hips replaced by protruding hip bones, legs and arms like twigs ready to snap, this is what girls and women aspire to????? Perhaps circa WW2 Concentration Camps? But, no, the thing is girls buy into it and do aspire to this look.
And, let's not be mistaken, this marketing is aimed unfairly and squarely at girls, not guys. Guys love girls with curves and boobs. They don't find boyish hips and protruding limbs generally appealing. Marketers get that it's girls who will believe that they will look better in whatever is being advertised if they too are walking sticks.
So, why do girls get sucked into the marketing evil that messes with our heads? Because, it is body image brain washing. We are shown these images again and again. We only see the latest fashion on thin models. We only see thin models on catwalks. We see our favourite celebrity idols yo-yo in weight to the point of collapse and hospitalisation. We are fed a diet of thin is in. We are brainwashed into this mind set that yes, I will look better in that dress I see in that magazine if I too weigh the same as a child aged 10.
The complete freakin' irony is that "AND LISTEN UP" less than 1% of the population look like these models. So, here's a radical thought. Why not design fashion for the 99% of the population. Oh, and even more incredibly insightful, let's show how it looks on the girls who represent the majority and the norm?
Back to our recent study of teen girls in the US. These girls, aged 13-17, said they would be more likely to buy clothes they see on real size models than on skinny girls. Well, knock me down with a freakin supermodel!!! No kidding.
But here's the thing, the fashion and marketing industry is just not listening. Recently designer Karl Lagerfield weighed into the debate with this pearler: "No-one wants to see curvy women." Mr Lagerfield, no one want so to see a bad tandoori tan either but you've been subjecting us to yours for years! Hello....anyone listening to the girls you are supposedly selling to?
The 1,000 girls in the study said they take their cues about how they should look from models they see in mags or on TV and it is something they struggle to reconcile with when they look at themselves in the mirror. Anyone in marketing land listening - either obviously not or they don't give a shit!
One in three of these girls have starved themselves to try and lose weight. More than a third also said they know someone with a diagnosed eating disorder.
The marketers are not listening and they certainly are not likely to change tact. So, we need to make the change in ourselves. The more you buy into this marketing mind-f@#* the more it will continue as will our feelings of self-doubt and loathing. Ban the brain wash and don't let them into your headspace. Easier said than done.....next month we help you with the steps to start the change!
