What's the skinny on the Kate Moss hullabaloo? You've probably read it by now. Kate Moss was quoted as saying "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." The PC media police, misguided activists, and even some in the eating disorder field are acting shocked, as if the phrase had never been heard before and that legions of young girls will now leap headlong into a lifestyle of anorexia and bulimia.
As Will Shakespeare might have noted, this is much ado about nothing. First of all, the phrase has been around for decades. Did they think Kate made it up? Nearly every diet program or health club has the same or a similar phrase posted somewhere as a motivational tool. Why is so much attention being given to the fact that a model who has earned her fortune by being a human hanger might believe or say this? Who cares?
In the UK, The Sun termed the utterance as an "idiotic mantra" of Ms. Moss, and The Guardian ran a story titled "Kate Moss's motto gives comfort to 'pro-anorexic' community." They say this despite the fact that anorexia is a mental disorder in which one NEVER feels skinny, no matter how emaciated and close to death they get. As for bulimics, they tend to enjoy how things taste. That is why they binge on the things they like and then purge themselves by vomiting afterwards.
As for Moss, she is an undeniably beautiful woman who is also a size zero. An article in China Daily says that Moss and friends have combined the words "sexy" and "anorexic" to form the new word "REXY" to describe their ultra-thin physiques. And why not? She has made millions by being ultra-thin because the media and the fashion culture glorify emaciated thin as the epitome of beauty. They take it even further by photoshopping pictures of the models to make them appear even thinner than they already are. (Are you paying attention, Ralph Lauren?) And they further the absurdity by acting and writing as if the whole world should sit up and take notice of whatever a model says or does. Hello! She's a human manequin, not a philosopher or nobel prize winner. Then again, Einstein and Ghandi did not make their names on the catwalk, either.
In 2005, Kate Moss was all over the news because of being video-taped partaking in the use of cocaine. As the photo to the left shows, the UK's Daily Mirror dubbed Ms. Moss as "Cocaine Kate." If a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, Kate might very well have been saying that "nothing tastes as good as a bunch of peruvian flake, especially since there are no calories in cocaine." The point is that Kate Moss long ago demonstrated that popular culture should not look to her as a role model. She is indeed a model, maybe even a supermodel, but she is not a role model.
By the same token, the media's obsession with models, their behavior and their words is much more likely to influence young people than anything that the models might actually say. And any parent who wants to blame their child's eating disorder on Kate Moss had better look closer to home to find the real culprit.
Anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, and body dysmorphia are all serious, life-threatening conditions. They represent extreme emotional eating or lack of eating which can lead to health conditions ranging from underweight and starvation to obesity and even heart failure. We marginalize the dangers of eating disorders by acting as if a random, taken-out-of-context, quote from a model really has a major impact on the real world.
As for the claim that "Pro-Ana" sites on the internet jumped on the quote from Ms. Moss, it's a lie. That quote has been there for years and is one of the most benign pieces of thinspiration or thinspo they have. Visit a few "Pro-Ana" sites to see how disturbed the folks suffering from eating disorders really are. For family members living in ignorance or denial, those words at the sites promoting anorexia or bulimia as lifestyle choices can be the strongest motivators to making a loved one seek medical help for their eating disorder.
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Comments
THANK YOU for pointing out that "nothing tastes as good as skinny (or thin)feels" is repeated constantly at Weight Watchers meetings. In fact there was a hilarious Saturday Night Live skit about a WW meeting with host Delta Burke that repeated the phrase over and over.
Hurray Mark Rubi!
Your "fair use" statement doesn't hold up. You can't just grab photos from the Web and use them by yelling "fair use." Don’t employ “fair use” unless you fully understand how you’re using it.
I think this hullabaloo is people's anxiety over Kate's comment, not because they don't realize the line and its similar forms have been around for long, but they do know that it has already been around for long. Only that they start spazzing over it now because they expect Kate the aphorist to know that it is dangerous and to actually say it out like that is like deliberately flouting the unspoken rule of not saying it, ever. Don't speak the evil - that's what the brouhaha is all about. It's as bad as saying "Drugs saved me." an actual T-shirt slogan and if Kate were to be punk-rock enough to say that - by punk-rock I mean that "I don't give a fudge ha ha!" attitude - then we'll be witnessing the same hoo-hah times 1000. But after Philip Green's chastisement and the disapprobation from the boyfriend, and the business sense of realizing how any comment, behaviour or dressing can jeopardize your trade, thanks to power of the people, Kate might be so punk-rock. Maybe a few years later.
Correction: Kate might NOT be so punk-rock.
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