"The Industry Standard"? YOU are what I'm fighting.

Have you ever come across a sizist that just made you want to rage? On Model Mayhem, the main site that I currently go through for shoots, I was browsing images (and there are some truly stunning ones) when I came across a very interesting one. I clicked.


Begin rageface.


Not only did the photographer, in his profile, come across as very rude,but his ideas about beauty embody everything that is wrong with the industry. Embodies everything that I fight against when it comes to the media's abuse of women and young girls. His requirements for working with models? 5'9" or taller and no more than 120lbs- he stressed that this was the absolute max he would take a model at. More so he stressed the need for 100% flawless skin, "politely" informing us "don't waste your time if you don't fit the description".

size 4 model

Okay, for a moment, let's ignore the flawless skin comment. While it's beyond moronic to require flawless skin for an image that you're going to retouch anyway (and he does retouch his photos, of course) the weight and height requirements which, he points out, are the industry standard, are what really got me going. Just for fun I decided to type in his minimum requirements of 5"9 and 120lbs into a BMI calculator. While I don't advocate using one of these on yourself as they are, by and large, pretty useless on measuring health, it was interesting to see that it came in at a status of underweight. Of course, he prefers models who are thinner and taller so let's try 110lbs and 5'11" and you begin getting severely underweight,.

Ana Carolina Reston Marcan size 0 model
who was still modeling until her death due to
 complications from anorexia. 

Now, I want to take a moment to point out that some people are naturally very tall or very thin or both. They eat well, they exercise, and they are healthy. Their bodies are simply no good at storing energy and they should, in no way, be belittled for their natural shape or size. However, the problem here is that the occurring of people like this naturally is fairly rare. The average size of a woman in the US is 14. That means that half of all women are over this and half are under this. I don't know the statistics on just how many people are a size 0-4 (extra small and "the industry standard") but I can assure you, it's not most women.


There is just something a little disturbing about a photographer who requires his models to be underweight and contributes to the attitude among female models that they must starve themselves in order to achieve this magical fantasy of thinness. In 2006 Uruguayan fashion model Luisel Ramos finally reached the coal of size zero and, shortly after a fashion show, died of a heart attack as a result of her extreme dieting. 

size 12 model

Add to this that 80% of elementary age girls feel like they're too fat or need to lose weight and that eating disorders are becoming an epidemic in this country and you have to wonder how people like this can sleep at night.  Seven million women and about a million men in the US are estimated to have an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulemia. These numbers don't even count disordered eating like over eating or binge eating which have less severe physical effects but similarly severe psychological and emotional effects (especially when considering these tend to be dismissed and even mocked leaving the victim feeling more at fault and less likely to seek help). 


This is exactly why I decided to try my hand at modeling and why my profiles all say that I'm here to knock down societal walls. Women need to be evenly represented in the media. They need to know that they should not try to attain anything more than health and happiness and that this "standard" is impossible, ridiculous, and unattainable. More so, they need to know that all bodies can be beautiful and sexy and wonderful.


I'll end this post on a more comical note- the photographer in question also refers to himself in the third person. Yes, you can feel free to laugh and commence eye rolling.