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Government Should Ban Skinny Models To Curb Anorexia, Say Researchers
smoothjazz writes "Governments are justified to prevent very skinny models from walking the catwalk and ban photographs and advertisements suggesting that extreme thinness is attractive, according to a group of researchers who found that social and cultural environment influences on young women is largely responsible for the spread of chronic eating disorder."
For example, they may be skinny because the government is spending on healthcare rather than spending on hunger.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs starts with the physiolgical (food, clothing, shelter), which is more important than safety (which is where public healthcare resides): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
It's always bothered me that people consider universal healthcare more important than universal food, clothing, and shelter. It's also bothered me that it's remained that way since Richard Nixon first proposed universal healthcare as an ide: http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/09/ted_kennedy_richard_nixon_and.html
-- Terry
Why is this article here?
Does it include neato new technology?
Does it review some new CPU or video card?
Does it discuss a new or old computer game?
Does it include high-energy physics or cosmology?
Does it include something about programming languages?
Does it include cryptography or security breaches?
Does it include anything at all about computers?
Hell, does it talk about Bitcoin?
Might as well just post scans from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue that's out right now.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
My wife is anorexic. She's stable, and she's become a successful practicing MD. Understanding the problem doesn't cure it.
She grew up in a home with two half-sisters under a frequently single mother who went through many marriages. Her (now also anorexic) mother has career success, ridiculously low self esteem, and she married at least two physically abusive men. The worst of them was a churchgoing man who physically abused all his daughters/stepdaughters and repeatedly raped his own daughter (thankfully my wife did not endure that). He hid it from his wife/my mother-in-law and everyone else (except the girls) for several years. When my mother-in-law finally understood it was happening, she divorced him as soon as she felt she could without physical abuse as a repercussion. I don't think that was right away. And because of fear, he was never reported or punished. I don't think he even quit attending church.
My wife had no control of her life in her childhood. She could control her appearance. She became anorexic to give fulfill her need for a sense of control in her life.
Banning the ads would help reduce the draw of that manifestation of the need for control. But the root problem is very commonly associated with domestic abuse and/or unhealthy childhoods like the one my wife grew up in.
Why is it that Euro cosmopolitans have this desire to have that "concentration camp" look.
The more skinny the models are, the more the design of the clothes stands out. If you have a curvy model that takes away the focus from the clothes and distorts the indented shape of the clothes.
Actually, as I understand it, it doesn't necessarily have to do with the "beauty" of the models, it has to do with how the shape of a skinny person shows off the clothing. Basically, they want walking coat-hangers.
Skinny is fashionable now for the same reason being heavy was hundreds of years ago.
Fat is the opposite of attractive now because it's unhealthy. You don't pick an obese woman to marry these days because you don't want to find her dead at 45.
This problem of glorifying anorexia will go away when we solve the obesity epidemic.
No. It is *ridiculous* to hold person A responsible for what person B thinks.
What society needs to do is imbue its members with a healthy sense of self that doesn't go gibbering into a corner when someone expresses a contrary opinion or otherwise says something that isn't a "good" thing in someone else's personal opinion.
When some child (or adult, for that matter) goes off the rails and pulls a Columbine, and we are sure they are the party that did the deed, we should hang them high and give them zero publicity. That kind of acting out is the province of the subhuman.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This is just one consequence down the road. If I *don't* get ill, I won't need to be able to afford the healthcare.
Sure, I've got 5k available. That's enough for one good ER visit, maybe a cast and an ambulance ride, or just a few minutes in the OR. $5000 isn't even a drop in the bucket in terms of potential financial liability for healthcare. The only way to make sure that a health problem doesn't rain utter financial destruction on my family is to pool the risk in a sane way.
FTFY: "You know what the United States health insurance reform mainly did? It made catastrophic coverage "not enough" .. its going to be illegal to play it clueless and assume you know what tomorrow will bring."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Consider: If you're 150 pounds overweight, it's likely to cut 20 years off of your life. If you'[re 150 pounds underweight, you're probably already dead
No shit, sherlock.
I personally don't think the problem is with the skinny models, it's with the photoshopping that goes on in the industry. It's absurd - look at this for example - scroll down a page to first photo..
I mean, she was skinny to begin with... but attractive - with the photoshop, she's just odd looking. And that's what they're aiming for.
And, in terms of looks, consider that Marilyn Munroe would never get past the reception desk of most talent agencies today
Her chunkiness has been exaggerated. First, remember that when she died she was 36 - she had already moved from modeling to movies by age 20, so those pictures of Marilyn that you see in the JFK era are when she was well past the age that she walked past the reception desk!
I'm hardly a Marilyn fanatic, but I've seen enough of her movies to know that she's all over the place weight-wise, and in the early 50s you find pictures like this rack-o-ribs that show her looking rather emaciated.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I think Spock would agree that you don't understand the gravity of the situation.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Is any form of free speech harmless?
Religious free speech harms many by advocating positions that cause people to not act in their best interests. This includes such activities as PRAYING for something to help them rather than spending that time DOING something to help themselves (esp. when they do something like eschew doctors and rely on religion to cure their cancer resulting in their unnecessary early demise and possibly significantly more pain in their final days than necessary).
Or should political speech encouraging or protesting gun control (each side claims the outcome the other side promotes harms people) be banned?
Should people be banned from such religious or political speech or required to somehow "take credit" (i.e., pay for the damage they cause - as anything else isn't really "taking credit" if they continue to spout such nonsense).
The fact it causes "harm" just isn't sufficient reason to ban speech IMHO.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Then again, it is still better than a government run system, as I at least have choices of carriers and coverage.
UK, Australia, NZ, Canada all have some degree of government run healthcare systems, two of those countries have lower tax rates than the US, the other two have tax rates not much higher meaning you still have money left to buy private health insurance, it costs much less and it still gives you your choice of doctor and hospital. Government healthcare is just a service, it doesn't cost all your money and you don't have to use it if you want a different treatment. Plus, if the government is not willing to pay for elective surgery, you can still go to its hospital as a private patient and it's still way cheaper since you just have to pay a surgeon their hourly rate. Oh, and you can buy medicine from a regular store for the same price that HMOs pay since the government collectively bargains.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Keira Knightley is the actress from the Pirates of the Caribean with rather small breasts. For another role, there exists a rather famous comparison picture in which her breasts are photoshopped to be a couple of sizes bigger. It was done against her will, she agreed to some touching up but not to go from A to C.
Is she pretty? Your tastes might differ but a lot of people would say yes...
So... does this stop all the girls out there from worrying their tits are to small? Hell no. For that matter, most super models got modest chest sizes. Does that stop girls from worrying? No. So WHAT image from the media is telling girls that they need to have big tits? Not a famous movie star, not super models.
Yet the claim stands that thin fashion models influence how girls view their body but not the breast part? No, it is a load of bull.
Some people feel insecure about their image, they then find anything out there to justify themselves in feeling bad about it. For a rather extreme and dangerous example, how many black people claim they are kept down by discrimination when the most powerful man on the planet right now is black? Somehow the fact Obama got elected president of the US does not factor into the claim of racism.
Mind you, things are never black and white, there is racism and the media and society put a lot of expectations on how people should be. This isn't just looks, many a person keeps looking for the magical love where violins suddenly start playing. I have met people who really thought that when they became adults, there lifes would be like that in Friends and other sitcoms, sitting around all day drinking coffee with the occasional visit to work if it suited them. Reality? You want to be able to afford even a single coffee, you work so hard that all you want to do in the evening is sleep.
Does this matter? I don't know if the term loverboy is universally known but these are men who seduce young girls with money and a flash lifestype and then get them into prostitution. The girls affected really believe the movie lifestype. "He always got money" and "He always was ready to have a good time" never makes them question how the two combine. It doesn't matter in sitcoms so why should it in real life that a guy with no job has plenty of girls and all the free time in the world and a lot of spare cash?
People who aren't to smart use the media to justify their insecurities, neuroses and world views, and ignore the bits of media that don't match. Porn girls have big tits so big tits are the norm and all the porn with small tits, every single super model don't exist. In comedy, fat ugly women often have attractive wives... of course the BBC series Miranda doesn't count where a very tall and none to skinny rather plain woman has not one but TWO hunky guys interested in her. And gosh, she NEVER goes after men who are overweight or plain looking or, horror of horror, to short.
Media isn't realistic. Or rather it is but we tend to look only at the bits that offend us. Porn is young girls ignoring all the granny and MILF porn. Super stars have big tits except for the ones who don't.
If we start to censor the media to be realistic... then what about those of us who are naturally skinny? Who are just plain good looking? Should they be subjected to a media showing that only ugly people can be happy?
Silly? It isn't the fat chicks or plain looking ones who tend to suffer from insecurity, it is the pretty girls. After all, the fat chick might not get a lot of boys after her but the one who does is probably really interested in her, the person. Where as the pretty girl only gets the guys after her who see her as a trophy and the ordinary guys do not approach her. Being pretty is no guarantee for happiness. See the lives of many a movie actress ending in misery.
There are a lot of things wrong with ads but the biggest is that so many people take them to serious and lack the capacity to look further then their own insecurity at the real world. Believe on pretty people ca
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.