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“Voluptuous women needed… for student photography project (no worries, no nudity). If you’re in your 20’s, got real booty, boobs or hips, please help me out!”

So read an advertisement posted by communication graduate student Kristin ‘Lou’ Herout last fall throughout buildings on her Northern Illinois University campus.

The 23-year-old graduate student and professional photographer replicated advertisements from Cosmopolitan, Elle and other women’s fashion magazines using not industry standard size-zero models, but rather “curvy” and “realistic” women to accompany a scholarly paper on the subject. “Basically, I just want people to see what it would be like if plus-size models were represented similarly to slim models,” said Herout.

The Dekalb, Ill. native boasts her own photography company startup, K Lou Photography, and teaches courses as a teacher’s assistant at NIU on audio and production. She’s also a photographer for one of Chicago’s premiere wedding photography companies, Essence Photography and Video. I caught up with Herout as she prepares to move to San Francisco this summer to complete her master’s degree in photography at the Academy of Art University to talk about her provocative project.

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The Associated Press reports that French fashion industry representatives have signed a government-backed charter pledging not to encourage eating disorders and to promote healthy body images. The government-backed document asks signatories to promote “a diversity of body representations” and “not to show images of people that could help promote a model of extreme thinness.”

While the move stops short of similar actions undertaken recently by Madrid - and the agreement is non-binding - it nonetheless represents at least a small token of acknowledgment for the role the media plays in eating disorders. I do not believe ultra-thin models are to blame for eating disorders - they’re far too complex in origin - but I do believe unrealistic images of women saturating the media contribute to the sheer popularity of eating disorders.

France’s parliament will consider another tougher and more contested measure against eating disorders later this month. The proposed a bill would make it possible to convict people responsible for Web sites or fashion ads that promote anorexia, with penalties of up to two years in prison and $47,178 USD in fines. The bill, which has the health minister’s support, is set to go before the National Assembly next week.

I’m not sure exactly how viable this last measure is or how it will be enforced. Who determines which ads promote anorexia and which do not? Will the French government enact similar punitive measures for ads they feel promote obesity? Will the government scour pro-ana sites to determine which are hosted or authored by French citizens? While the law in theory sounds groundbreaking, the execution of such a feel-good move is ambiguous at best.

Still, the actions of the French make the U.S. look sophomoric by comparison. New York legislators did pass the “Skinny Models” bill last summer, but the law only places restrictions on the age of models, not on BMI or other health standards. New York City legislators also introduced Res. 0692-2007, which calls on sponsors of NY Fashion Week to adopt a healthy models awareness education campaign and to ban models with a body mass index of lower than 18.5 from walking the Fashion Week runways. However the city’s website shows the resolution was sent to the city’s health committee in February of last year with no further update or action.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America have spurned any legislative attempts to regulate the use of models, although last year it did release recommendations targeting healthier models. The suggestions, which are not mandatory, include keeping models under the age of 16 off the runway, educating industry professionals to identify eating disorders, developing workshops on eating disorder awareness, and to require models identified as eating disordered to receive professional help. In other words, the council gave lip service to eating disorders while stopping short of requiring designers to enact any real change.

Banning ultra-thin models from the runway isn’t likely to make a sizable dent in the rise of eating disorders. To address and correct the larger, underlying reasons why girls and women develop eating disorders requires a far greater public health effort than simply banning super-skinny models. But nor should we glorify or glamorize eating disorders or parade victims about as images of aspirational beauty.

Hoorah to Miss Plus Size Elite Jenna Vaught! The blonde bombshell dropped a bombshell of her own on reining anti-obesity zealot MeMe Roth on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (h/t to Joy Nash).

Vaught appeared with the same guests I appeared with back in January, Roth and Dr. Jennifer Ashton. I thought it was very telling when Juliet asked the good doctor: “Can obese people be healthy?” Ashton responded with “For someone who is morbidly obese, I don’t care if they’re exercising and eating carrots and not smoking, by definition they have set themselves up for risk factors down the road…”

Once again, it’s an artful dodging of the question and a gross exaggeration of fatness. I would agree that someone who is morbidly obese - read a BMI of 40 or more - may be at risk for weight-related health problems, but that was not the question posed. Juliet pointedly asked if obese people can be healthy - obese is usually signified by a BMI of 30 to 39.9 - not if morbidly obese people can be healthy.

Roth, with her usual blind fanaticism, insisted that “plus size is no reason to celebrate” and compared obesity to yellow teeth stains from smoking cigarettes. But the real highlight of the show comes at the segment’s end. Vaught, a training physician-to-be, took Roth to task by pointing out Roth’s complete lack of medical expertise:

I don’t see why I shouldn’t celebrate my life. I am a single mother. I have come from nothing. I am a future physician.

Guess what? This morning, I’ve already run four miles. And I eat 1,800 calories a day. So dont judge me because I still carry a little extra baggage. As far as I know, I’m the only - along with this doctor here - future physician. So stick with your social judgments.

Watch the video here

As for Vaught, she’s a Weight Watcherer, but it also sounds like she subscribes to the Health at Every Size Approach. She also plans to launch a plus-size fitness series sometime during spring. Taken from her website:

As Miss Plus America Elite and a future physician, I know the crisis our country is having today concerning the obesity epidemic. Many people have asked me about my stance on obesity and weight. Although I believe that every person should find joy and happiness within themselves, at any stage in life. I also believe in fitness and healthy eating at any stage in life. For me, it is not so much your weight or jean size.

Let me say from personal experience, it’s very difficult keeping your cool in such a situation and especially with someone who is quite vocal in her opposition to your very existence. Vaught acted and reacted quite regally in the face of such hatred - just as a queen ought to.

Readers here are probably familiar with the awful and scary Faith Hill photoshopping controversy that circulated the blogosphere recently. And of course, many of us have seen Dove’s Evolution video, which chronicles the transformation of an ordinarily pretty woman to billboard supermodel in under 60 seconds.

But you’d think a celebrity like Keira Knightly, who already fits a cultural mold unattainable for 98 percent of American woman, would need no additional digital manipulation to airbrush her into even more of an unrealistic perfection. Apparently not, according to This is London’s Evening Standard news.

The news organization reports that editors from top-selling “glossies” are to hold a summit to discuss a voluntary code on digital manipulation. The concern comes as the British Fashion Council demands magazines act after last fall’s Model Health Inquiry gave a “stinging” critique of the industry’s unhealthy size-zero culture. The move also comes at a time when eating disorder specialists issue cautions that cultural obsessions with extreme slimness are pushing more and more people into dangerous diet-binge cycles and even eating disorders.

Professor Janet Treasure, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, said such disordered behavior may permanently alter the way people’s brains react to “rewards,” making them susceptible to other addictions, such as drugs and alcohol.

And finally! Someone with a degree makes the connection between the promotion of a thin ideal and the so-called obesity epidemic. Whenever I’m interviewed by reporters about issues related to obesity, I’m inevitably asked for my thoughts on why America is fatter. I always respond by asking, “What came first? The so-called obesity epidemic or dieting?” Treasure also makes this chicken-and-egg connection in the British Journal of Psychiatry, where she also urges the British government to tackle society’s obsessive eating habits.

“Although it may take time to change the ‘thin ideal’ we should remember what has been achieved with cigarette smoking. People are just beginning to listen to the wealth of scientific evidence about the harm that fashion industry images cause.”

Treasure isn’t the only one speaking out. The anti-obesity scourge has attracted the concern of the American Medical Association and most recently, this Canberra Times editorial for the potential harm such zealousness may have on young, impressionable children. As editors there opined:

Education about healthy eating and exercise is an important tool for any young mind, but how much of it now veers to scare tactic? And how much of it takes into account the rising levels of eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia?

Regular blog readers may remember a September posting on a publication of the Women’s Forum Australia titled “Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s Magazines.” The report found that thin, sexualized and digitally enhanced images of women are linked to poor body image, depression, anxiety and eating disorders amongst girls and women and contributes to self-harming behaviors and poor academic performances. For young teenage girls, such images inspires desires to lose weight and the initiation of dieting, regardless of current body weight. Finally, the five year study found that reading dieting advice in magazines was associated with eating disordered behaviors in teenage girls.

As for the British magazine summit, eating disorders activist Susan Greenwood isn’t holding her breath. The chief executive of the eating disorder charity Beat warned that the industry - much like the Council of Fashion Designers of America - has a history of paying lip service to the issue. As she noted:

“There was a summit at Downing Street back in 2000 on digital manipulation and body image issues with fashion magazine editors and what’s changed since then? Nothing.”

Change is glacial, for sure, but for our sake and the sake of future generations, I prefer Treasure’s more positive outlook.

News organizations and bloggers alike are crowing about Chloe Marshall, the first “plus-size” girl to make it to the finals of the Miss England contest. The national competition isn’t until July, but Chloe’s triumph has already incited comments denigrating her as “overweight” and “unhealthy” and insisting she “shouldn’t be happy with that at such a young age,” and sparked fears of a fat “backlash.”

There’s just one tiny niggling problem: Chloe Marshall isn’t plus-size. She isn’t even fat.

Granted, by fashion industry and beauty pageant standards, Marshall is gargantuan. But at 5′10″ and 12 stones 8 pounds - or 176 pounds - Marshall’s BMI registers scarcely a blip above average at 25.3 - the U.S. government defines normal weight BMIs within the ranges of 18.5 - 24.9. At though Marshall wears a size 16, American audiences must keep in mind that she wears a British size 16. In the U.S., this size would translate into a women’s size 12/14. A size 14 is generally the starting point of plus-sizes, but can also indicate the high-end of misses sizes.

The average American woman stands 5′4″ weighs about 140 (BMI 24) and wears a U.S. size 14. The average British woman is also 5′4″ weighs 147 pounds (BMI 25.2) and wears a British size 16. The “ideal” woman - portrayed by models, actresses and Miss America - is 5′7″, weighs 100 pounds and is classified as scarily underweight by WHO standards. In fact, while the height of Miss America contestants has increased by 2 percent through the years, her weight has fallen by 12 percent so that the BMIs of contestants today generally fall in unhealthy underweight ranges - more here.

Given the above, let’s call a spade a spade. Chloe Marshall is not plus-size; she’s average-size. She is not the first “plus-size” girl to make it to the finals of the Miss England contest, she is the first average-sized girl to make it to the finals of the Miss England contest. What does this say then of the competition’s past and current contestants? And what does this say of the aspirational messages and images the pageant presents to its average-size viewers?

Fatfighter MeMe Roth likes to casually toss out accusations that society “glorifies obesity,” but in the case of Chloe Marshall and not too long ago, Sarah Hartshorne, are we glorifying obesity or normalizing extreme thinness?

If for no other reason than the hilarious quote above, I am posting this great article on plus-size model Crystal Renn. Four years ago, Renn epitomized the size-zero super-wraith model: 98 pounds and about to starve herself even thinner. Now back to a healthy size 16, she’s on a mission - and, ironically, more sought-after than ever. Writes interviewer Judy Rumbold:

To be honest, I expected Crystal Renn to be bigger. All right then, fatter. In the mind’s eye, the term ‘plus-size model’ is liberally coated in doughnut batter, and I had her down as a gloriously buxom woman-mountain. Along with a name that sounds as if it’s jumped off the embossed-foil cover of a Danielle Steel bodice-ripper, I’m anticipating a formidably blowsy, lipsticky package.

So when the 21-year-old American walks in, I am taken aback. She’s not particularly large. With scrubbed skin, a serviceable ponytail and clothes that look like the result of an absent-minded scramble through a trucker’s overnight bag, it’s hard to recognise the glossy pout and hourglass curves that have made her the most in-demand plus-size model in the world, a favourite with Dolce & Gabbana and Jean Paul Gaultier - probably the only girl over size eight who gets fashion stories in American Vogue.

But at a healthy size 16, she’s no bigger than any other woman in the street. It’s only in the skewed world of fashion that her proportions count as ‘plus-size’. She’s philosophical about it. ‘I use the term because it’s the one everyone recognises. But plus-size is normal. It’s every girl.’

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Donatella Versace, sister of slain fashion mogul Gianni Versace, is this week’s profilee of Time’s 10 Questions feature. After her brother was killed in 1997, she took over the family business and built it into a global brand - but not for a global demographic. Asked one Time reader:

Q. Do you think the fashion industry should make clothes for plus-sized women?

A. Plus-sized women shouldn’t think of themselves as a size. They should think of themselves as women with rich goals in life. Size doesn’t mean, really, anything. You can carry your size with pride and dress in a way that you like.

After reading this I thought, “Wait a minute - Does Versace even make plus-size clothes?” Note that Donatella never quite answered the reader’s question and the company’s website doesn’t specify. Neiman-Marcus carries Versace, but doesn’t offer the brand in plus-sizes. Nordstrom also offers the line, but stops short at size 14, the size at which plus-sizes start.

So, how exactly can women wear their “size with pride and dress in a way that [they] like” if your fashion line doesn’t make clothes to fit their bodies? You can dress as you like, as long as what you like isn’t Versace? And I find this oh-so-empowering response to be rather disingenuous coming from the same agency that embraced the arrival of heroin chic and regularly features waif-thin emaciated models in its advertisements and on the runway.

You’d think that after daughter Allegra Versace was diagnosed and treated with anorexia last year the Italian clothier would be a bit more cognizant of the powerful and negative ways in which society and media make women feel about their bodies. If actions speak louder than words, what does the Versace line say to girls and women?

All hail the Denton Record-Chronicle’s Lucinda Breeding for, you know, getting it. Check out her article on the rise of the fatosphere here.

It doesn’t take too much time spent lurking on the blogs to see why they liken their struggles to a fight for civil rights.

In fact, they are fighting for our civility.

…The fatosphere will likely take a continued thrashing because it dares to challenge the assumption that media ideals have imposed: that there is one way to be healthy, and one slender size to prove you’ve embraced the dogma that thinness guarantees long, healthful life.

Newsweek also has an article out this week, Rise of the Real People, which highlights the emerging trend amongst fashion designers to use a greater diversity of body types and people as models (although diversity still often ends where plus-size begins).

Fashion-industry folks say the trend of using real people to sell clothes attests to a fatigue with skinny, expressionless models in ads and on runways.

…Now, with New York’s Fall 2008 Fashion Week arriving this week, fashion watchers say we may begin to see subtle indications of the trend on the runway: the models will still be thin and gorgeous, but they may look more like thin, gorgeous versions of real people than like stereotypical models.

And in case you haven’t seen Alexandra Erin’s hilarious new satire site, THINSpeak, go there now.

We do not wish to moralize, but if you are reading this and you are fat, not only is your life extremely likely to end in death, but when it does you will go to hell and that is a tragedy because if you had only put as much effort into diet and exercise as you did into your blog you would be a thin person.

Here’s a good fact: a nationwide dependence on potatoes as a food source in Ireland directly led to one million deaths between 1845 and 1849 and led to many more grossly obese people fleeing the country for the distant, then-healthy shores of America.

Unfortunately, these new “Irish-Americans” brought their fondness for potatoes and godless idolatry with them. For years, America was able to keep obesity at bay through discriminatory hiring practices and the occasional pogrom, but Ireland’s deadly little secret is now firmly entrenched in our national eating habits.

Meowser of the blog FatFu doesn’t post often, but when she does, it’s well worth the wait. In her latest post, she tackles the shoddy, irresponsible and sorry article that calls itself journalism published in this quarter’s Bitch magazine. Read Meowser’s thoughtful and highly critical analysis of the article “Big Trouble: Are eating disorders the lavender menace of the fat acceptance movement?”, written by Lily-Rygh Glen.

Readers of The-F-Word are well aware that on this fat acceptance AND eating disorder awareness/education site, an eating disorder poses absolutely no threat to the movement. Perhaps if Rygh Glen had bothered to do a simple Google search, she might have discovered this site and others. Or maybe she did, but since it did not fit within her pre-conceived agenda, she conveniently neglected them.

Fans of America’s Next Top Model will see a few twists with Bravo’s new reality show Make Me a Supermodel, premiering Jan. 10.

Hoping to set itself apart from the competition, the show, hosted by supermodels Tyson Beckford and Niki Taylor, includes both male and female models and lets viewers decide who wins the $100,000 prize.

But one thing viewers won’t see are too-skinny models. Judges for the show eliminated one woman who hoped to make it to the final 14 because she was judged to be too thin. And none of the final 14 models are younger than 19. In an interview with ETonline, Beckford said:

“We definitely want to set a good example and let people know that the eating disorder models are not what’s hot. I don’t care what they think. It is not hot to me to be anorexic. And to those designers that are still using them, shame on them.”

Bravo introduced its new series last week with a behind-the-scenes look at its nationwide casting calls and the final selection process. Frankly, I thought more than a few model wannabes – including a few who made it to the final 14 – appeared overly thin and certainly none of the models remotely resemble even the new “plus-size.” And while the judges did say the one woman was too thin, they advised another already-svelte contender that she needed to lose weight.

Of course, we should all keep in mind that weight isn’t always an indicator of an eating disorder. People of all sizes and shapes can be eating disordered, and eating disorders can be serious and even deadly at all weights.

The show seems to be responding to recent changes across the worldwide modeling scene. In September 2006, organizers of the Madrid Fashion Week enacted a new regulation banning models with a BMI of less than 18. The World Health Organization says that a BMI below 18.5 signifies underweight.

The 2006 death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston spurred Italian government officials to ban the hiring of models under the age of 16 and to specify that all models be checked for eating disorders.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) thus far have spurned any legislative attempts to regulate the use of models, but early last year did release recommendations targeting healthier models. The suggestions, which are not mandatory, include keeping models under the age of 16 off the runway, educating industry professionals to identify eating disorders, developing workshops on eating disorder awareness, and to require models identified as eating disordered to receive professional help.

For more on recent regulations, read here or here.

Bravo’s new show is hardly the poster show for diversity – of the 14 models selected, only two appear to be non-Caucasian and all models are very, very thin. But while the fashion industry has been glacial in adjusting to a less-thin thin model, the show’s exclusion of an overly-thin model and children in its competition is encouraging.

Change takes time, even in the fast-paced world of fashion. Hopefully other designers take heed of this new and more positive direction forward.

Neither my husband nor I have an iota of fashion sense, but we’re both addicted to Project Runway. Last night’s episode, “What’s the Skinny,” challenged the designers to re-style the favorite but now-too-big outfits of 12 women, all of whom have lost a significant amount of weight.

Each woman introduced herself along with the amount of weight she’d lost, which ranged from 30-something to 160 pounds. The designers ooh’ed and ahh’ed, particularly at the women who had lost the most amount of weight. It was as if the dozen had singularly solved the crisis in the Middle East or cured cancer.

It seems each new season of Project Runway includes the now obligatory challenge to design for “average”-sized or even plus-sized women. In each scenario and in each season, most, if not all, the designers look like they’re going to pee their pants when the challenge is announced.

Despite that the designs for challenges involving non-model-sized women are, for the most part, abysmal, I really appreciate that the show does take an effort to include size diversity, even if it is just a token episode each season.

But what bothered me about last night’s episode is that the premise wasn’t about designing for the “everyday woman.” It was presented much more as a congratulatory gift to weight-loss success stories, who, by virtue of newly-svelte figures, “deserve” to now be rewarded with a new look.

Once again, the act of weight-loss is celebrated and heralded as a feat to be admired, envied and imitated.

Several weeks ago, I was trapped in a Coach limo with four women all engaged in diet and self-deprecating talk. Because I was there in a professional capacity, I didn’t feel comfortable trying to convince them otherwise.

But after finding it impossible to ignore the women, I interjected with a few feeble attempts before revealing that I have maintained a weight loss of more than 100 pounds for nearly five years without dieting, killing myself at a gym and/or self-restriction of any kind, and tried to talk to them about Health at Every Size.

It got their attention, though they missed my point. One woman actually tried to high-five me, as if I’d done something monumental or noteworthy. She appeared genuinely puzzled when I didn’t return her enthusiasm and instead, just shrugged.

I’ve overcome a difficult childhood and championed against both depression and an eating disorder. Despite struggling day-to-day with ADD, I have succeeded in earning my bachelor degree while both working and attending school full-time. I am a former volunteer emergency medical technician and plan to resume my volunteerism after graduate school. I have a professional and accomplished career. My husband and I own our own home and we contribute both our time and money to various charity organizations.

There are many achievements in my life I am proud of. Weight-loss ranks low on the list of them.

This isn’t to say that the women featured in the Project Runway challenge aren’t deserving of the make-over they received. For all I know, they’re absolute saints. I truly hope they found the experience to be an empowering and enjoyable one.

But instead of celebrating women for losing weight, let’s celebrate them for what really matters. And what really matters can’t be found on any digital scale.