Fashion Models: Standard of Beauty?

An email forwarded to us carried these photos of models. After I had cycled through feelings of revulsion (God! That's horrendous) and disbelief (Must have been Photoshopped), I was forced to think.

I guess most of us assume that fashion models establish a standard of beauty. Yet in this case, the eye gives a lie to our assumptions. Is modelling at all about good looks? If beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, whose eye is it?

Even if we assume a purely functional, than aesthetic, view of fashion models - that they serve to drape the clothes, hence thinner is better - that raises another question. Which customers are the designers designing for? When I look around, I am hard pressed to find stick-thin figures. Increasingly, fashion modelling starts looking like an exercise in creating fanstasies, perhaps like playing a game of 'dungeons and dragons.'

Does anyone know what is going on here?

Victim of Abuse? 218 vs 88

Connor McCreaddie, an 8 year old, has made a big splash because of his weight. In December, he weighed 218 pounds (97 kg), three times of the weight of an average child his age. As The Sun fascinatingly puts it, he "has broken four beds, five bikes and six toilet seats due to his bulk" and "cannot even manage the five-minute walk to school without getting out of breath or being sick."

Situation had gotten so bad that last week there was talk of Connor being taken away from his family and put under protective custody of social care authorities. Apparently, one of the arguments was that letting Connor binge amounted to child abuse.

Well, the sages have weighed in. Connor remains at home. But for some, the questions remain: Is it a form of abuse? Is Connor a victim?

There are alleged victims at the other end of spectrum too. The ongoing debate on 'size zero' fashion models and the effect they have as role models has had the government weighing in against the "cult of size zero" and "tyranny of thinness". The BBC news article also shows a picture of the Brazilian model who died weighing just 88 pounds (39 kg).

What happened to old-fashioned images of weight-challenge, namely those of starving children? How do the new victims like Connor and size-zero models compare with old ones? I cannot help thinking that the 'victim culture' is being taken a bit too far.

Also, should the government or state authorities get involved at all? No wonder, even the TV ads have started taking the mickey out of the 'nanny state.'

What happened to the notion of personal responsibility?