How Thin Can We Get?
“Not thin enough” is the motto on the world’s most fashionable runways as young eastern European girls are dying for the chance to make it in the affluent west. Time magazine essay by Belinda Luscombe points out that there is plenty of blame to go around for this drive to be or at least aspire to be ridiculously thin. You can blame media, which is easy, or the stylist or the photographers or the designers who give us bubble skirts. Maybe we can even blame ourselves for believing that the ideal woman is ultimately not only silent on the cat walk but invisible. Closer to home in Texas, I do wonder how a forty year old mother of two manages to weigh a meager 105 pounds and maneuver a giant SUV. There is a power theme in here somewhere.
October 1st, 2006 at 10:34 am
Yes. I struggle to understand this each and every day. The only thing I have found that helps is to read whatever I can get my hands on that touches on this topic… a few that have been helpful to me: “Unbearable Weight” by Susan Bordo, “Appetites” by Caroline Knapp, “Fasting Girls: A History of Anorexia Nervosa” by Joan Jacobs Blumberg. And of course, I am currently in the middle of your book.