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| An average woman and a model entwined, displaying the gaps between models and average women. |
Living things grow and get bigger, and naturally human beings grow and get bigger. But according to a video I watched on ABC News, many of today's models are preventing their growth in order to stay thinner and smaller. What is more puzzling to me, is that a model is supposed to be a representation of an average woman however the average model weighs about 23% less than the average woman does. What is even more stunning is that this gap was at 8% about twenty years ago and it has been steadily increasing since and does not show signs of slowing.
This got me to thinking about my American Studies class and our discussion on the "American Dream" which most of my peers had defined as: being more successful than your parents. So growing and becoming more successful is the way to achieve the "American Dream". But then I asked myself: Is every American family line expected to exponentially grow? Ideally this makes no sense but yes, Americans would like to believe that every generation will be better than the next and the monetary growth will never stop.
This idea of exponentially growing is applied all the time among out society, it can be seen in schools, sports and especially modeling. People are always wanting to be smarter and achieve new standards, or faster and break records, or thinner, smaller, and more petite. Companies are always looking to increase their gains year after year and Americans have the expectation that everything will exponentially grow. It is never "ok" to fail, or not continue to grow, that is frowned upon and that is why so much pressure is developed within our schools, businesses, and society. Americans are always looking to further themselves and not doing so is judged with laziness or inability. But nothing can grow exponentially and we should not be expected to further such growth.
Why do you think there is so much pressure on becoming better?
I totally see your point Jasmine. Models are getting so thin that the clothes are practically falling off of them. The skelital appearance of models convinces teenage girls that thinner is always better and that you can't pretty with out being thin (which quite frankly just isn't true). This not only speaks to the fact that America is always striving to be "better" than the ones before them, but I also think this shows how much Americans think that change is always good. The models in the 1980s/90s weren't a size 00, but they were healthy. Why didn't people see that being a healthy size is better than being rail thin? Why mess with a good thing?
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