Fashion Industry Influence

Posted by Lori Henry Oct 16, 2006

This weekend, Bryan Lask, emeritus professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at St. George’s University of London and one of Britain’s leading authorities on eating disorders, equated the fashion industry’s role in promoting disorder eating to that of the tobacco industry’s endorsement of smoking.

"If the question is: 'Does the whole emphasis within our society on being thin, does that play a part in the development of anorexia?', then the answer is undoubtedly and absolutely 'yes,'” he comented.

"The massive increase in eating disorders in the last 20 years has to be attributed to the whole issue of the pressure to be thin." He affirmed that the fashion industry needs to take responsibility for the dangerous ideals they promote and start making some drastic changes.

Patients at the Cygnet Hospital Ealing’s Eating Disorder Unit, ranging in ages from 21-57, note that although seeing waif-like models didn’t cause their disorders, but they certainly exacerbate the problem.

One patient said, "You look at them and think, 'God, I wish I did look like that. I really want to look like that.'"

Another young patient commented, "Why aren't they in hospital getting treated, like we are? Why can they be like that and we can't?…We're all sectioned and have tubes put down our noses to be able to eat, and we have people out there who have lower BMIs than us."

What a succinct comment, indeed. Read the original blog post about banning anorexic models in Spain and Italy or the news on the death of model Ana Carolina Reston.

Click here to read about the ban of ultra thin models in Italy.

For a list of all coverage, click here.