Until we see healthier-looking models across the fashion industry, she probably doesn't have anything to get too excited about.
Tyra Banks.
(AP / AP)
Vogue editors recently pledged not to publish photos of models who "appear to have an eating disorder." Now, Tyra Banks is applauding their stance in a long essay on the Daily Beast in which she gloats this pact "calls for a toast over some barbecue and burgers!" Except, it doesn't really!
The editors are only promising not to publish images of models who "appear to have an eating disorder." But what you see as an eating disorder might not be what a Vogue editor sees as an eating disorder. Cynthia Bulik, director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program, told Life's Little Mysteries, "You can't tell by looking at someone whether they have an eating disorder." What's more, "Who at Vogue is qualified to make such a diagnosis?" Well, no one. The best thing Vogue editors can do to encourage their readers to have a healthy body image is photograph a range of body types instead of only models who are so thin that they could be ill. Think Bar Refaeli — wouldn't it be nice to see more women who look like her in Vogue?
Bar Refaeli.
(Getty Images / Michael Loccisano)
American Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, who oversees the magazine's fashion shoots, has said that the editors don't want to photograph too-thin models, but sometimes it's unavoidable. "Personally we're not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they're a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they've spun into this anorexic situation," she said. "And you're on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible."
The key word there is try. I believe that American Vogue doesn't want to glorify eating disorders. Yet they eschew a Bar Refaeli body type in favor of women who are much thinner — and it seems unlikely that they want to photograph models who are much bigger than these women, who appear to be standard fashion model size and are some of the most-booked faces in the industry today:
