I'm Skinny, I'm Worth More: Fashion Models' Experiences of Aesthetic Labor and Its Impact on Body Image and Eating Behaviors.

ABSTRACT: The fashion industry has been critiqued for promoting ultra-thin bodies, yet the relationship between models' aesthetic labor and eating disorder (ED) development is unclear. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, we explored the lived experiences of nine female fashion models including metaphors they used to describe body perceptions and eating behaviors. Four superordinate themes emerged: Shaped for the industry; The body as a market product; Food restriction ("it's almost glamorized"); Toward a healthier modelhood. Models' career trajectories were those of lost childhoods, punitive body rules, inadequate dietary advice, and self-regulated food restriction. Models were "shaped" by agents from an early age to conform to the industry's body rules irrespective of the physiological an

SUBMITTER: Fixsen A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9827487 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature