What?
The modeling industry contributes to the onset of the “pre-eating-disorder” stage as individuals begin to internalize expectations of body size. Social pressures from the media impart unrealistic “norms”. The omnipresence of mass media is an important socializing agent for children as well as adolescents. Adolescence is a transition stage when boys and girls learn gender role attitudes and behaviors. Interpreting images from mass media can illustrate the process of gender socialization. In many cases, ultra-thin models are either a result of photoshop or the eating disorders of the models themselves. While Vogue has banned underage and underweight models and bans of ultrathin models were declared in the 2006 Madrid Fashion Week and 2007 London Fashion Week, banning models suffering from eating disorders may be considered contradictory to those protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The laws that are put forth are criticized for their paternalistic nature or their infringement on constitutional principles such as commercial free speech. These bans may be considered myopic in nature. There are inadequate policies in the modeling industry to promote workplace safety.

So what?
Imagine your high school homeroom with thirty students, one classmate could be struggling with an eating disorder. Imagine your university auditorium with three hundred students, upwards of fifteen people in that auditorium could be struggling with an eating disorder. In western countries eating disorders have about a 5% prevalence rate. Cultural values, such as the overvaluation of slimness, contribute to the development of the disease. Bulimia nervosa is hypothesized to be a cultural-bound syndrome, nonexistent before recent times. Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of psychiatric disorders with cause of death being medical consequences or suicide. Eating disorders are highly resistant to change and relapse is a critical problem.

What if?
Only around 15% of individuals have no preoccupation with dieting, weight, or shape. Imagining back to our classrooms, this means that subthreshold levels of eating disorders may be more prevalent. What if this 15% was higher? Eating disorders impair the lives individuals; individuals with eating disorders have bearings on family members; the well-being of households influence society; society impacts the world on a global scale. Commercial advertising is a crucial part of the complex social ethos concerning thinness. The use of photoshop to distort body features has received public outrage. Public opinion can pressure the modeling industry to cease the distortion of bodily features. Policy can require a noticeable disclaimer of its use, required on the advertisement itself. Rather than banning models under a certain BMI, education schemes and support systems should be accessible to models, to protect their health in the workplace. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity”. With the inclusion of “social well-being”, there is the assumption that health can be compromised to comply with beauty standards. This calls for the reevaluation of beauty standards. “Beauty” is associated with thinness and health but an educated public would recognize there lies no beauty nor health in eating disorders. A revision on the meaning of beauty could then be translated into the modeling industry. A transformed public opinion on “beauty” could pressure commercial advertising to embrace all body types and shapes.

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