Model Coco Rocha recalled the horrifying instructions she received when she entered the modeling industry as a 15-year-old.

‘I felt pressure early in my career,’ Rocha said in a 2011 article on the Vogue Daily blog. ‘I was told: ‘The look this year is anorexic. We don’t want you to be anorexic, just look it.”

With Fashion Week in full swing in New York City from Feb. 9-16, the issue of eating disorders and the intense pressure placed on young models is again being brought into the limelight.

The standard high-fashion models walking in New York now range from size 0 to 4. At the moment, a size 6 is considered plus size. The season’s hottest color may change every few months, but the fashion world’s attitude toward the size of models has been thoroughly ingrained for many years.

In response, the Council of Fashion Designers of America released a statement just before Fashion Week as part of its health initiative. In 2007, the CFDA began to address unhealthy thinness and eating disorders in fashion models. Working with people like Rocha, the group has set guidelines for the designers that are part of the CFDA to help models and to raise awareness.

One focus of the initiative is only casting models who are 16 or older for runway shows. The CFDA encourages designers and casting agents to ask all models for their ages because young models are especially susceptible to industry ideals of being thin.

In a 2011 interview on Anderson Cooper’s talk show ‘Anderson,’ Rocha explained that girls pursuing modeling careers leave high school and their parents just as their bodies and minds are beginning to develop.

‘They’re not told, well, you’re supposed to change. You’re supposed to get hips and boobs, and you’re supposed to turn into a woman,’ Rocha said.

Without guidance, young models often develop eating disorders. In this year’s health initiative statement, the CFDA describes warning signs of eating disorders and encourages the fashion industry to help with early detection and treatment.

The initiative’s efforts are admirable, but the CFDA’s position has its limitations. The statement admits that the health initiative ‘is about awareness and education, not policing.’ Awareness can indeed be raised, but commitment to the initiative is only voluntary pledging and doesn’t guarantee action.

Even those who try to hire healthy models don’t always succeed. In a 2009 public talk, Grace Coddington, creative director at Vogue magazine, said it’s challenging to find healthy models.

‘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,’ Coddington 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?’

With stories like that, it is difficult to feel that the actions of a few designers or magazines can affect such a huge cultural problem. Constant exposure to a certain type of image normalizes it, said Harriet Brown, a professor of magazine, newspaper and online journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She’s also the author of ‘Brave Girl Eating,’ a story of her daughter’s struggle with anorexia.

When her daughter’s weight dropped dangerously low, Brown became accustomed to her daughter’s thinness. Essentially, we accept thinness because we see it all the time.

If the media and fashion industry portrayed more realistic images of beauty, cultural acceptance would expand.

‘If the models (we see in fashion) were size 6, we’d get used to it,’ Brown explained.

Though the fashion world is a long way away from taking drastic action, the CFDA’s initiative seems to be a step in the right direction. Pushing designers to change their practices would potentially make things easier for models.

‘There’s been increasing pressure on designers not to see models as hangers,’ Brown said.

The people behind CFDA talk a lot about the idea that health is beauty. If they can practice what they preach, perhaps a change in the industry can be achieved.

Ian Simon-Curry is a sophomore public relations major. His column appears occasionally. He tries not to look a mess, but he is not above wearing sweatpants to the dining hall. Follow him on Twitter at @incrediblyian. He can be reached at insimonc@syr.edu. 

Published on February 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Ian: insimonc@syr.edu