Inner Beauty Back By Popular Demand

In the United States, companies are often targeted for pushing unhealthy fattening foods on children and young adults (and for good reason). But what about the other side of the spectrum? Did anyone get upset when the Campbell Soup company ran a 30 second commercial featuring nine year old girls on diets? (In the commercial, adolescent boys offer soup to the girls, who decline saying they can't accept because they're watching their weight.)

Last week, Donna Fish of the Huffington Post wrote an article about eating disorders, focusing on recent research that reveals why some people are predisposed to anorexia. “People with anorexia, or who have the biological predisposition for this in their genetic history, and whom start a diet, may never be able to stop,” writes Fish. “They will, can and do, diet themselves to death.” Scary, considering that many people with the disorder are starting as young as age 6. But I fear that, instead of being a positive finding, it will give people more ammunition to blame the girls, and not the media and/or fashion industry for their part.

Virginia Heffernan’s “The Girls Of Thinspo” piece in the New York Times raised a few eyebrows last month. Thinspo, the glorification of ‘skeletal chic,’ is a growing genre on YouTube that needs some serious attention. In her article, Heffernan wrote, “It's worth trying to figure out how the tragedy of anorexia got woven into the glamour of it.” But is commentary on the issue enough to make a difference? France says ‘hell-to-the-no,’ declaring that Thinspo messages are no longer protected as freedom of speech. In March, the French National Assembly recently adopted a bill that would make it an offense to encourage anorexia or extreme thinness through on websites, magazines and in advertisements. (Looks to me like Vogue may need to rethink it’s pictorials for the next twenty years.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers. The only thing I know to do is encourage my readers to support causes that shed light on the issues surrounding eating disorders. Here is one that Trend de la Crème readers might appreciate:

In 2004 Los Angeles-based artist, Karin Collins, began working with collage as means of therapy for her eating disorder. Today, her collage work has evolved into beautiful spoon-inspired pendants which can be purchased online (and which supports NEDA – the National Eating Disorders Association).

Collage Pendant Necklaces at spoonfedart.com

Silver Logo Necklace at nationaleatingdisorders.org