The fashion industry is notorious for its anti-fat (and I use the term fat loosely) sentiment. There is an obscene amount of pressure placed on women within the realm of fashion to maintain almost impossible standards of beauty. Arguably, at the core of this beauty ideal is weight.  It is practically mandatory that women in the fashion industry be thin, or frail to be more precise.  Accordingly, we are repeatedly bombarded with images of pin-thin models, elegantly demonstrating to us what is supposed to be fashionable. Unfortunately, much of the message gets lost in translation. We often are unable to see past the charade that is fashion, and instead get sucked into it.  Instead of realizing that it is the clothes that are fashionable, we absorb the entire image, including the obscenely thin nature of the women acting as hangers.  At this point many of us get stuck in the frame of mind that it is just as in style to be skinny as it is to wear all black everything this fall. There is an unequivocally damaging amount of pressure being spewed from the fashion industry and it has embedded itself into mainstream culture.

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Singer Ciara just did a photo shoot with fashion heavyweight, VOGUE Magazine.  In one of the early pics from the shoot, she is pictured standing visibly uncomfortable, in an overly cinched belt that makes her waist appear to be 5 inches in circumference (if that). While VOGUE is known for pushing the limits of their fashion spreads with very haute couture shoots, the image demonstrates nothing appealing. Ciara looks uncomfortable, and buy default, ridiculous.  Her painful attempt at waist cinching is on display much more that the clothes pictured.  While the premise of the fashion industry is to highlight clothes, accessories, trends etc., it appears that its influence is as strong on our bodies as it is on our wardrobes.

What are your thought? Is there too much pressure to be thin? And how much of this pressure is coming directly from the fashion world?

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