Over the last decade, the media industry has squeezed some serious mileage from the female form. Promotion of an unachievable female ideal sparked by impossibly skinny catwalk models throughout the naughties, was enough to reduce adult women to strive for the waistline of a 7 year old girl, or as it's more commonly known, the size zero. Cue scores of female celebrities who fell victim to eating disorders. Nicole Richie, Mary-Kate Olsen, Alexa Chung (is she, isn’t she?), and Tara Reid have all successfully induced international shockwaves with their increasingly - fashionably - emaciated frames.
More recently, the skinny ideal has been subject to a backlash from the opposite extreme, with plus size models such as Emme Aronson and Nina Blakemore pitching more and more in favour of the Big is Beautiful campaign.
Still, however, the media fails to properly provide representation for the girls that are neither skin-clad skeletons, nor adorned with a wealth of curves. Continually, speculation in the press is focussed around either one extreme or the other, when what really should be celebrated is a healthy body, plain and simple.
Only this week, everyone’s favourite tabloid ran a piece on Brazil’s new plus-size beauty pageant models, juxtaposed with an article critiquing the slender form of Keira Knightley’s back, as, it seems, the world's media continually fails to represent a healthy attitude towards body image.
But now the ‘Thinner is the Winner’ campaign, and the pioneers of ‘Big Is Beautiful’, must step aside - there's a new obsession on the block.
We've all seen - and gasped audibly at - the recent pictures of Jodie Marsh. But she seems only to be putting a famous face to a growing trend. Ladies, I give you the female body builder:
Once a petit size 8, Rene Campbell is a self-confessed ‘Bigorexic’, who won’t rest until she hits 20 stone. ‘It’s an art form,’ she declares, ‘I see 20-stone guys in the gym and think I want to be that big.’ She currently weighs 13.5 stone, works out for 2 hours, 5 days a week and consumes 4,200 calories a day.
So is Rene's bodybuilding a harmless regime, or an addiction? A psychological obsession? If so, does she represent another life gripped by the female population's fixation with body image? And could bodybuilding be the next chapter in a never-ending story of the female form?
It seems to me that as women, we continually push the boundaries and focus on extremes. As if anorexia, bulimia, or addiction to food wasn't enough to worry about, we're now threatening to add 'bigorexia' to the mix. As Stella Newman points out in a recent article, females base their self-worth on appearance more than any other domain, leading to constant comparison of oneself with others. Isn't it time, then, that we all just stop competing with one another and concentrate on being healthy?
If you don't mind, I think I'll stick to my recommended 2,000 cals per day, eat some fruit and veg and try to stick to 30 minutes exercise, 3 times a week. If that puts me at a UK size 12 then by Jove a size 12 I will be.
It seems to me that as women, we continually push the boundaries and focus on extremes. As if anorexia, bulimia, or addiction to food wasn't enough to worry about, we're now threatening to add 'bigorexia' to the mix. As Stella Newman points out in a recent article, females base their self-worth on appearance more than any other domain, leading to constant comparison of oneself with others. Isn't it time, then, that we all just stop competing with one another and concentrate on being healthy?
If you don't mind, I think I'll stick to my recommended 2,000 cals per day, eat some fruit and veg and try to stick to 30 minutes exercise, 3 times a week. If that puts me at a UK size 12 then by Jove a size 12 I will be.
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