“Impossible” Standards for Models

Aspiring Models…Listen up!

Meet Crystal Renn.  She is a beautiful woman who is 5’9″, and when she was 16 years old she entered the world of Modeling.

To fit into the Modeling Industry’s standard, she developed an eating disorder by starving herself and exercising up to 8 hours a day in the gym. She weighed only 95 pounds, and could have killed herself. Crystal was told at castings that she still wasn’t thin enough. When she was 18, she stopped exercising and starving herself and finally started to eat…and began eating some more. She ended up fitting into a size 14 and became a very successful plus-size model.

Was becoming a plus-size model better, or just as unhealthy as before?

Right now, Crystal is 24 years old and her main focus is being healthy. This last year she reintroduced a healthy amount of exercise into her life, and started eating better. Because of her healthier lifestyle, Crystal started to lose weight, and she now wears a size 8.

Because of Crystal’s weight loss, the Modeling Industry and critics are giving her a hard time because now she is “too thin” for plus-size modeling, yet still “too big” for traditional modeling.

The End or New Boost of a Modeling Career?

The big question now is, will Crystal’s career as a model be over now that she doesn’t fit into either mold of the Modeling Industry?

Crystal Renn is getting more jobs than ever before! Below is a more recent picture of Crystal, who looks absolutely stunning.

I hope that Crystal will maintain her healthy lifestyle, and allow for us all to see models who focus on being healthy rather than trying to fit into a specific size – big or small. It shouldn’t be about fitting into a specific standard. If you starve yourself and over exercise, it’s not healthy. If you binge eat just so you can stay bigger to remain a plus model, that’s not healthy either. Either extreme isn’t healthy, and with proper nutrition and exercise, Crystal Renn is finally coming to terms with how her body should really look. Not too thin, not too big…just right.

I want to make it clear that there are women who exercise and eat healthy that are a size 2. This doesn’t mean that they are unhealthy because they actually do fit into the Modeling Industry’s standard. Again, it’s all about how you became a size 2 that matters. It’s about taking care of your body and being healthy.

Change starts with You

The Modeling Industry is quite picky. You are either too big or too thin. I am hoping that someday, the Modeling Industry will allow women, like Crystal Renn, to just focus on being healthy.

Image Credits: letmeget.com and Harper’s Bazaar shoot for the December  2010 issue

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest