Reflection

When we started with this blog project, I liked the idea and I was really looking forward on doing it, but when Ms. Hentschel told us that we were doing it for a very long time, it disappointed me. Then we were told to choose a topic that was interesting to us, and that we weren’t going to get bored by it. I was very confused and I didn’t know what topic to choose, first I wanted to make it about something fun, but then I realized that there might not be a lot of information about it. And then I thought of the Top Models topic, and I realized that this was a polemic topic and that a lot of people would be interested on learning about it, I also thought that it had a lot of history and information. It sounded like the perfect topic, because we see models everywhere and everyday and I thought it would be fun and interesting learning a little bit more about them. When writing the posts and looking for information, I found out that it wasn’t the perfect topic anymore. I had really hard times looking for reliable information, and when finding information and used it for a post, I noticed that a lot of the web pages had the same info as the one that I had already used, some others were circumlocution and they didn’t give good details to what I was looking for. Also looking for the answers to the question that I had and answering them with exciting and interesting answers was really a pain for me, that made my brain over work. But I’ve learned a lot of interesting facts, and what people think about modeling. I learned from what models eat and what they do to keep their body in “perfect” shape, to what their life is like, which is not easy and it’s full of sacrifices. Also that modeling career depends on what people want to see, and when they decide that thin models are “out” of fashion, thin models are going to have no job, therefore no way to be auspicious. Now I’m looking for issues and challenges that models face, but not the issues that people make them face, but issues in their personal lives. I want to add some good things about modeling that way my blog isn’t just focused on bad things but it’ll be more interesting and fun. I want to look for info of what they think of their lives and whether they have fun when modeling or not. That way my blog is going to be a little bit more interesting and exciting.

What is the greatest challenge to a model?

Being skinny is the greatest challenge for a model, because of the way the fashion industry makes their clothes. Those clothes are really small and only really skinny models can fit in them. Also a having a perfect skin and hair is really important for a model in order for them to be successful.
“During the 1990s the ideal body type for models changed drastically, from ideal models having an hour glass with a 4-6 size figure to bodies really thin with a 0-2 size“(Issues&Controversies) But it does stop there, models mostly weight under 120 pounds, and that is not healthy at all because they are really tall, and healthy women with that height usually weights over 125 pounds. Models are always under pressure since their job depends on what people is demanding. Today people is demanding models to be very tall and thin, and that is exactly why models are always trying to look thin, since their life and income depends on that, models decide to sacrifice themselves from the eating the tasty food that each one of them loves. Experts say that modeling is a career full of sacrifice, where women stop being women, and start trying to reach some kind of perfection that does not even exist, and they are always belying about life and they show what is really happening in their lives. Models are always depriving themselves of eating, they don’t even drink a lot of water because they are afraid of weighting too much. A lot of them spent hours and hours in the gym, so they can burn off the calories they gained when they ate, even when the only thing they ate did‘t have a lot of calories. They only eat small portions of vegetables and some rice, but no more. And after 6 in the afternoon they don’t eat anything else. Models are feckless about their health, and they only want to have an auspicious life. But another important characteristic for a model is having a perfect skin and hair, and that brings up the question how do they keep them like that, even when their body does not have what is needed to keep them healthy? Models have very strict diets that help them to have their hair and skin healthy looking, and they have to sleep eight hours. But actually a lot of them does not even look like their pictures in real life, there are many photo tricks to make them look perfect. Models almost never have fun, either because they have to take care of their skin not to get damaged or because they always really busy looking at how much they weight. Models are constantly starving and they don’t’ have a real life, while modeling they are forgetting to live, and some years later, when they are old to keep modeling, that they are not “perfect” anymore, they find out that they wasted some beautiful moments and events, because they were trying to reach perfection.
Models love their job, and that is why they sacrifice themselves. Some of them either love being known and famous or being perfect and feeling goddess, but the real thing is that, those kinds of sacrifices don’t lead anyone to the perfection, that those sacrifices only lead to deadly illness such as anorexia and bulimia. Models and women should understand that perfection is not a real thing, and that every single person is perfect just the way they are. Models should do what they do if they think that is the right thing to do with their lives, not because society is demanding skinny people to show what is “in”, women should not sacrifice anything in order to become known, they should just live their life and look for the happiness which is the closest thing to perfection.

Works Cited
"Female Consumers Hate the Unbearable Lightness of Fashion Models - Society and Culture Bocconi Master of Science Virtual Open Day." Home Bocconi Bachelor and Master of Science Virtual Open Day. Web. 24 Oct. 2009. .
"How to become a model." Welcome to Webindia123.com, India's Premier Reference Portal - Publishing information related to india and providing services like News, E-Cards, Shopping, Yellow Pages, Classifieds, Career Guidense, Matrimonial etc. Web. 24 Oct. 2009. .
Issues & Controversies on File. "Thin Fahion Models." Issues and controversies on file 12 (2007): 89-93. Print.

Also thanks to http://www.hpb.gov.sg/uploadedImages/HPB_Online/Health_Topics/Food_for_Health/More_Information_For/42-17114959v1.jpg for the picture.

Top Models Survey

Making the Top Models survey made me realize that not many people care about this topic and the ones that do, they don’t really know much about it, not matter if they are students or adults, female or male. According to my survey 7 know a little bit, 2 know quite bit and 1 is an expert out of a total of ten people that took the survey. I realized that a lot people consider thin models a bad influence for young girls and women, 8 out of 10 answered to this question with an absolutely which 6 were female and 2 were male and 5 out of the 8 were students and 2 were adults, one was a student and the other one was an adult. And 2 out 10 answered that they didn’t think they are bad influence.
Another question asked in the survey was about the fashion industry and whether they should adopt strict limits on how thin models can be,7 out of 10 think that the fashion industry should do that, from those 7 5 were student and 2 were adults,6 were female and 1 was a male. But 3 of the ten answered to this question with a I don’t think that would help, and from those 3,2 were male and 1 female, all of them were students. The last question asked in this survey was that if they think that Top Models have a good life. Only one person answered with yes, they’re lucky, it a was a male and he is a student. Half of the people answered with a I don’t know, 4 were female students, and 1 was a male student, but 4 out of 10 answered with a I don’t think they do, 3 were female, 2 were students and only one was an adult, and also only one male adult answered this question the same way.
The results didn’t really surprised me, because almost all of the question were answered the way I would answered them. I also think that the results came out like this because we as citizens don’t really know about the modeling industry, and we only know the most heard topics, also because we don’t really care about what is happening with them, since not a lot of normal people can become a model.
When looking at the results, my next post is going to be about models life and what they think of themselves, how happy they live and how much they care about heir health, because I think that a lot of models are belying about their happiness and I think some of them also are being churlish with their lives.
And I think that would make my blog interesting and helpful when learning abut models.

www.apparelsearch.com

The website apparelsearch.com is an effective, interesting , accurate and credible source for the information on the Fashion Models theme. Since it was created by Apparel Search company and has information from some of the most important new papers like The New York Times is very accurate and credible. It was created in 1999 but it has been updated until today. This page is very easy to navigate and anyone can find information very easily, it has a lot of information and it defines every word very clear. By looking at it, it doesn't look very reliable and interesting to read, but when reading it, it proves the opposite. The information it gives is accurate and matches with other web pages information about this topic, but it also is missing some of the current issues. People can learn a lot from this page, from history to today's different types of models. The page's goal is to give people a better understanding of what a model is and what they do. Even though the web page doesn't have a lot of helpful visuals and it is a little circumlocution it is a very helpful and auspicious page, that makes people understand about models and what their job is.

Works Cited
"Fashion Model Definition." Apparel Search, search for apparel, fashion, clothing, models, new, employment, search engine, shopping, directory, apparelsearch, jobs, clothes, fashion industry, clothing industry, b2b. Web. 10 Oct. 2009t.

Models Today

When thinking of models people think of them like beautiful and perfect. But are they really that perfect?
In recent years, health experts have noted that people in the U.S. have getting heavier, however fashion models have been moving in the opposite direction(Issues & Controversies). Making the image of the ideal women glorify eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa which causes people to obsess over weight over abstemious of food and become extremely underweight, and also bulimia nervosa, which engages in extreme activities such as vomiting to undo the effects of eating(I&C). Experts think that that kind of image is having effect on girls unsecured about their weight, and those girls are more likely to get eating disorders, because most of them want to become famous models and actresses just like the ones from the magazines covers. “Girls today, even very young ones are being bombarded with the message that they need to be supper-skinny to be sexy.(Sharon Lamb). The promotion of the thin, sexy ideal in our culture has created a situation where the majority of girls and women don’t like their bodies, and body dissatisfaction can lead girls to participate in very unhealthy behaviors to try to control weight (Sarah Murnen). Some designers think that women shouldn’t be comparing themselves with the girls from the runways, because those girls are anomalies of nature, they are freaks of nature. They are not average, because they are naturally thin and have incredibly long legs compared to the rest of their body, also their eyes are wide set apart(Kelly Cutrone) Some other have said that runways models don’t have any eating disorder, their body is just as it is and that clothes look better on them, so they say that there is no reason to be worried about, because those girls are healthy, and that’s why they choose them.(us today.com)
Today’s runway models look pretty much alike. They are all pretty girls, but no one really stands out. For runway it is about highlighting the clothes. It is finding the girls that make you clothes look best, says Stephanie Schur. However recent deaths of several fashion models, which had been proved of having eating disorders has intensified the debate over the use of thin fashion models. In 2006, Spain abrogated models that were underweight form participating in fashion shows there. The same year Milan, adopted similar rules, but they were optional. In January 2007 some observers say that unless the rules are clear about how thin models are allowed to be, there will be no solution to the problem. But some other observers think that there is no need to regulate models weight. During New York City’s fashion week, there were models younger than 16, and some specialists think that having them as models is not a good idea, they think that the models under 16 are not fully developed and they are really thin and they don’t weight much, but when start fully developing is a really hard time for them because they start gaining weight and they are not as thin as they want to be, and that leads them to an eating disorder, because of the pressure to loose weight.
“The fashion industry is promotion of beauty as meaning stick thin is damaging to young girls is self image and to their health”(Tessa Jowell) Models are an unseparable part of fashion, but women come in lots of different seizes and shapes and people should encourage and celebrate that…Models will become heavier if that’s what consumes demand. If people decide thin is out, the fashion industry won’t have thin models anymore, because they are only caring about money” (usatoday.com)
“Fashion industry should consider that people want clothes to cover their bodies, but most of them are not comfortable with their bodies”(ustoday.com)

Works Cited
Issues & Controversies on File. "Thin Fashion MOdels." Issues and controversies on file 2007 (2007): 89-93. Print.
"USATODAY.com - Do thin models warp girls' body image?" News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 04 Oct. 2009. . also thanks tohttp://www.peoplejam.com/files/u3264/thin_runway.jpg for the picture.