thin

Kate Moss, fairly or not, has been a symbol for heroin-chic and anorexia since the mid-90s when, at the tender age of 14, her modeling career took off.

Making her the symbol for unhealthy thinness has always seemed unfair to me for many reasons. Some healthy teenagers are scrawny looking; Kate's body type has always been on the waifish side (especially compared to the size-six early '90s glamazons like Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford); and since then, her slender '90s frame has been replaced by the truly skeletal clothes-hanger body types on the runway.

But her body and its symbolism is back on the table: a recent article makes a connection between a heftier Kate Moss (yes, that's supposed to be visual evidence right there) and the economic crisis. Want to understand the reasoning? Then read more

We learn a lot about relationships from our immediate family. Not only do we learn how to relate to other people, but also things like money and food. If fact, researchers have found that sitting down to regular family meals can help prevent eating disorders. Ahhh . . . but the home front isn't always so sweet and homey, and negative lessons can be learned in there as well. I think of the painful mother-daughter relationship in Spanglish, where the character played by Tea Leoni buys clothes many sizes too small for her daughter.

How was the family dynamic around food and body image in your house while growing up? Did anyone pressure you to lose weight? If you're a parent, how do you talk about your weight in front of your kids? How do you talk to them about their food choices? For being one of our basic needs, food can be quite an emotionally-loaded subject. Share your stories in the comment section below.

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While we all know French women don't get fat, now they might be forbidden by law to appear too thin. The French parliament's lower house passed a controversial bill today that will make it illegal for anyone — that includes fashion magazines, advertisers, and websites — to publicly encourage extreme thinness.

If the bill passes the French Senate, the no-thin law will be the strongest of its kind. The measure was proposed in partial response to the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model. Her death has spurred efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the impact of glorifying and showing ultrathin models.

The Conservative author of the law went so far as to argue that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court. The bill will give judges the power to imprison and fine offenders up to $47,000 if found guilty of "inciting others to deprive themselves of food" to an "excessive" degree. To see the fashion industry's response, read more

Women are made to feel awful about their healthy size. Who could blame them with all the super thin models and celebrities glorifying their bony frames? When we go shopping, the latest fashions of tight leggings and skinny jeans are no help. Of course, smooth-skinned size zero plastic mannequins, reminding us that we could never look like that, are modeling them.

Of course, in our hearts, we know we wouldn't want to anyway, because we know how models get to size zero. These stupidly thin fashion dummies contribute to the perception that skinny is the only way to go, which in turn contributes to eating disorders. Well I can tell you that starving myself is not on my list of things to do.

Madrid and Milan banned ultra-thin models from their fashion week runways late last year, and this year the Council of Fashion Designers of America announced guidelines designed to help models eat and live more healthfully (wa-hoo!).

I was happy to find out that Spain is also taking a step towards banishing this unachievable standard. I didn't know this but about 1 in 5 Spanish women between the ages of 13 and 22 suffer from an eating disorder.

One step Spain is taking is to get rid of the super skinny mannequins in clothing stores. All mannequins will be replaced with ones that are no smaller than a size 6. They are also planning on dealing with the issue of sizes. In one store a size can fit you just right, but in another store, that same size can be too tight. So all sizes will become standardized in all stores.

Spain is aiming to make the standard go from unreal and unhealthy, to a standard of healthy beauty. Italy is becoming interested as well. I'm hoping that these recent moves made by Spain will encourage all of the world's countries to make the change to support healthy women's bodies.

Liv Tyler recently talked about dieting and motherhood. She said, "I've been on a diet my whole life." Being in the public eye, she spent years worrying about her weight, that is, until she became a mom.

Many women can relate, comparing themselves to skinny models, and forever being on a diet and working out to shed pounds. The thing is, models are getting skinnier, so women think they need to too, even though it's unhealthy for their bodies and their self-esteem.

Liv Tyler doesn't agree with it. She said,"I definitely think the girls look too skinny now. I'm friends with Helena Christensen and Linda Evangelista, and I remember Linda telling me that when she was a model (in the '90s), a sample size was a 6 or an 8. Now a sample dress size is a 0 or a 2. That's pretty alarming. There's a lot of pressure on the models. It's not healthy. I can't even imagine what that's like."

I'd like to find inspiration in Liv's thoughts and in her sister, Mia Tyler. She's a gorgeous and sexy plus-size model who's healthy and confident. It's great to see celebrities who represent real women. You know, for all of us who'll never have a model's strict BMI, not because we can't, but because we know it's unhealthy.

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Eating disorders affect 5 million people in the U.S. More than 10% of those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa will die from the disease. Seeking to put a human face on these sobering statistics, acclaimed photographer Lauren Greenfield went inside a Florida treatment center to tell the stories of four women who are literally dying to be thin.

The devastating documentary film titled Thin, reveals her findings. It is captivating and you are drawn in by the heart-wrenching stories of these girls and their painful struggles as they each try to recover.

You can purchase Thin, a groundbreaking book about eating disorders. Greenfield's photographs are paired with extensive interviews and journal entries from twenty girls and women suffering not only from their eating disorders, but from the personal struggles that lead to the disorders in the first place.