Are You a Slave to Fashion? -The Dark Side of Glamour

The Quest for a Perfect Figure

Those who take fashion too seriously can become overly concerned about their appearance. Fashion modes are usually tall and slim, and their images bombard us constantly.  The "right" physique is used to market everything from cars to candy bars.  Britain's Social Issues Research Centre estimates that "young women now see more images of outstandingly beautiful women in one day than our mothers saw throughout their entire adolescence."  

Note: That is the problem with Society and those who seem to run fashions.  I have seen a few models that were not beautiful.  Model agencies have the wrong idea of beautiful.  Jehovah God looks at people, not by how they appear on the outside, but how they are on the inside. He reads their heart, mind and soul.   Just because you may be beautiful on the outside, does not make you beautiful on the inside. 

This barrage of images can have a detrimental effect. In the United States, for example, a survey quoted in Newsweek found that 90 percent of white teenagers were dissatisfied with their bodies. Some of these will do virtually anything to attain the 'ideal figure."  Yet, the Social Issues Research Center claims  that less then five percent of the female population can achieve the media ideal of weight and size. Nevertheless, the idolizing of the very thin figure has led millions of young women into slavery. It has led some down the slippery slope of anorexia nervosa.  Spanish model Nieves Alvarez who suffered from anorexia, admits:  "Putting on weight frightened me more than dying."  

True, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia can be caused by a number of other factors. However, Drs. Anne Guillemot and Michel Laxenaire state: "The cult of slimness bears some responsibility."  

Clearly, fashion has a positive side and a negative side. It fills a basic human desire to look presentable and have something new to wear. But fashion extremes could lead us to wear clothes that give others the wrong impression. And if we attach excessive importance to appearance, we could subscribe to the erroneous belief that our worth depends on our 'packaging' rather than on our inner values.  "We have  to begin to value more than a person's ability and inner self, rather than a simple wrapping," says Alvarez, quoted earlier.  But such a change  in standards is unlikely to happen soon. How, then, can we find a balanced view of fashion?

Next time: Are You a Slave to Fashion? - A Balanced View of Fashion

From the Awake! magazine