Rowan became fixated on food in her teens: Counting calories, weighing herself. She seems to have snapped out of it at age 17, but now she has daughters, 14 and 11. The 11 year old thinks that she is fat. Ms. Rowan writes:

"Oh Mummy, look at my fat tummy," she has wailed, tugging at a T-shirt in an effort to pull it over her waistband. Shopping for a swimming costume is angst-ridden. "Not a bikini," she stresses, "one that covers this up," pointing to her stomach. Her sensitivity is born of comments from her peers. "A friend told me," she confides, "to stop pushing my tummy out. I wasn't." … I ask our doctor if she is too heavy. And I feel ghastly, disloyal, like a vain, competitive designer mummy who wants her daughter to appear as perfect maternal accessory. He regards me as if that's precisely what I am. No, he says sharply, calculating her body mass index; she's fine. I cannot explain that I am asking so that I can reassure my little girl the next time she worries about the way she looks.

What happens when something goes mainstream is that people feel comfortable talking about it. It's a good thing that eating disordered people not feel shame or misunderstanding; but how come 11-year-olds feel it's okay to make comments about each others' bodies? And what message is sent when you take your (normal, healthy) daughter to the doctor to have her weight checked? And should we even be using words like "wannarexic" and "nearlyrexic"?

The Rise Of The 'Rexics': Another Illness We Made Up Earlier [Guardian]
Mummy, Do I Look Fat? [Times of London]

The International Journal of Eating Disorders study was conducted with 274 female students at a large southeastern university and compared the eating-related behaviors and attitudes of varsity athletes, club athletes, independent exercisers, and non-exercisers. Researchers are recommending that university coaches and athletic departments consider prevention and monitoring programs for female athletes and exercisers at universities. "As women's participation in athletics increases, so too does the need for awareness of the link between eating disorders and sports participation among women," says Jill Holm-Denoma of the University of Denver, lead author of the study.

Eating Disorder Symptoms More Common Among Female Athletes And Exercisers [EurekAlert]

Remember that eating disorders are inherently an existential struggle over the very notion of free will.
You can worsen them, and you can encourage them, but you cannot singlehandedly instill them in your kids, nor can you prevent them. The coolest thing about my mom is that she kind of got this. Her reaction to my adolescent 800-calorie-a-day diet was one of concern but also, exasperation; she had specifically taken such great care to rear me on healthy food and ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF MY WEIGHT; I was not even at all overweight, and now, as my big display of free will and rebellion I'd chosen anorexia? She made it clear she thought it was fundamentally shallow, and intellectually, I agreed, but by that point I had almost given up on free will when it came to eating; food issues were just my DESTINY, my curse and fate and blah blah blah. Anyway, that was probably mostly depression. I didn't medicate it, but eventually I suppose it subsided, and my intellect took the wheel again, which was lucky.

With that in mind, ask yourself, are you shallow?
What do you most want for your kid? Happiness and some sort of fulfillment, right? People of all sizes achieve that! The negative correlation between happiness and excess pounds, such that it exists, is totally all in your head, as the field of duh studies has recently confirmed. So if your kids think they're fat, you need to chew on this question: does that have anything to do with you? (Chewing on said question, btw, is a good way to stop yourself from nagging your poor kid!) Like I said, are you shallow? If so, is that the trait you'd most like to pass onto our progeny? (Please, for the good of the country, answer "No.") Conversely, are you so dogmatically un-shallow that they think you just don't have any idea what sort of world world they're living in? That was sort of my problem. In the end it was a good one to have. It was like, hey, the one genetic advantage I have here is that my parents are bright people with strong moral values who don't give a shit how fat I get, except inasmuch as they know I don't exactly have health insurance.

Be honest and remember it's not a big deal.
Acting like a kid's chubbing out is a grave issue that must be discussed in hushed tones is probably not the best idea, especially if they have the sort of grandfather (mine) who will go up to them and play the "Pinch an inch" game. While the Pinch an Inch game is annoying, I never really doubted that my grandfather loved me. I think he just thought kids today spent too much time watching the idiot box and not enough playing elaborate war games in the woods. And he had a point! I asked my friend Don, a former fat kid, whether his mom (a personal idol of mine) had ever said anything to him about his weight, and he recalled a time one summer at the age of 13 when he was eating a piece of pizza while wearing a swimsuit and somehow the topic of his blubber came up. Laughing, she agreed, "Yeah, you really have to do something about that." A few years later, when he stopped eating meat, she worried she'd scarred him; but seriously, Don was picked on his entire childhood for being a fat kid, and she basically played it perfectly, choosing to encourage his positive traits (such as he is fucking hilarious) and accept that he was never going to be as physically attractive as she is. (She is, to be fair here, really pretty.)

Don recommends this movie.
It is, he says, his "Exile in Guyville."

Earlier: Sometimes A Parent's Words Can Bear The Weight Of The World

Image via Skip To My Lou

It occurs to me that frequently in these columns, there is a moment where, finally alone and generally late into the night of a long day, I find myself reduced to tears by some list of knocks and slights. Perhaps this only means I need a new device; I don’t think of myself as such a sad sack figure as all that. But this week, actually the night after my spirit-crushing turn as a volunteer clotheshorse for a designer who most definitely could have afforded to pay me, my sadness metastasized not into tears, but into a rage-inflected political platform that just might transform my industry.

Well, OK, first I cried. Then I thought: models should unionize to work for better conditions and rates of pay.

It’s a common misconception that modeling is easy, safe and highly lucrative — the reality is that the girls with the million-dollar campaigns are so rare I wouldn’t believe they actually existed if I didn’t see them at night clubs during fashion week. Most models I know are lucky if they are working at all; between agency commissions (70% in Paris, 50% in Milan, 20% in New York), travel expenses, and rent in the various pricey cities in which we are required to live, your eventual wages come so garnished I’ve known plenty of models who can’t always afford food. Even the girls who are lucky enough to work every day are doing well if they break even, and can sneak off to Germany or Los Angeles or Hong Kong and make a quick buck shooting catalog jobs every once in a while.

And safe? Once I was staying with a girl from Seattle in a shitty one-bedroom (total number of models: six! Minimum in rent our agency would’ve made from the shitty one-bedroom that month, assuming a consistent model population: $5400!). We were both on option for the same editorial (daily rate: $150 and lunch). She got the job.

She returned home nine hours later, hair and body painted silver. The magazine was doing a “green” issue; this eco-conscious theme was enacted in, variously, shots in which the poor Seattle girl had a tulip plant placed in her mouth, shots in which she had to lie on top of a scratchy 8 ft. hedgerow while the photographer shot from a crane, and shots in which she closed her eyes and shards of broken glass were applied to her face. They put dirt in her mouth and glass on her eyelids and painted her silver from head to toe. My roommate showered twice and vomited once that night.

Models have incredibly short-lived careers, and our collective youth, third-world origins, and the instability of the market we work in makes our bargaining positions, individually, weak. For every 15-year-old wunderkind who stalks 40 runways a season and books $100,000 perfume campaigns for college money, there are at least a hundred girls who turn 25 with a few grand in bank at best, realize their careers are over, and that they never graduated high school.

It’s also no wonder given how close many models are to insolvency that there are areas where modeling shades into prostitution; modeling sort of prepares you — trains you, even — to see your income in your own body. And also to hang around with plenty of creepy, older, rich dudes. A + B can = C. The BBC did an exposé in 2000 that caught Milanese businessmen on hidden camera trying to buy sex from models as young as 13 in night clubs, and uncovered evidence of agency bookers acting as procurers and drug dealers. In the furor that ensued, Gérard Marie and Xavier Moreau, two top executives at the Elite agency, lost their jobs. The industry promised a clean-up. There was talk of “standards,” of girls younger than 17 being accompanied by chaperones at all times, of blacklisting clients who used or promoted drugs.

Gérard Marie — who was filmed soliciting a reporter who he thought was a model for sex — is currently back at the helm of Elite Paris. I do not know if the man who explained his desire to sleep with underaged models thusly: “We are men, we have our needs” has reformed. I do know that such episodes of revolving-door contrition and forgiveness fill me with disgust, and that one of the biggest tasks of any models’ union would be to keep its membership safe.

A union would also offer, obviously, the benefits of collective bargaining. The overwhelming counterweight of the fashion business class’s wealth give models an unacceptably weak negotiating position. A union could help insure models’ best long-term interests are served by their jobs — a union could argue for retirement benefits, and, in the USA, health insurance coverage. A union could mandate that sufficient time be given for models under 16 to attend school, without setting back their careers. A union could also serve as a voice for models’ interests in the ongoing debate over what is perhaps our biggest immediate health issue — the slightly-underweight physique we are required to maintain. A union could protest and shame under- and non-paying clients, a union could mandate that appropriate food be available at every job, and a union could ensure that conditions on the job site always meet safety standards, so nobody has to pose covered in broken glass or eat dirt ever again.

The obvious counterpoint to modeling is, of course, acting. The Screen Actors’ Guild does an admirable job of representing the interests of a workforce that is dispersed over a vast geography, and which enjoys short-term contract-based employment, when it gets employment at all. It’s ironic that one of the reasons commercial modeling — catalogs, television ads and their ilk — is so rewarding when compared with high-fashion modeling — magazine editorials, runway, etc — is because of SAG’s vigilance; commercial castings in Los Angeles are not infrequently stated union jobs. And even the ones that are non-union are pretty highly paid. I have friends who are only able to work full-time in Paris because they have commercials still airing in the U.S., and receive the appropriate checks quarterly.

Individually, we are weak, and wealthy white men manage to make an awful lot of cash off our bodies and labor. Collectively, we could hold the industry we work in to a higher standard, and perhaps even change the nature of fashion itself. I imagine the union would have an awful lot to say, for instance, about those clients who put “NO ETHNICS” on their casting notices, and those agencies who fail to notice, or care, that certain of their charges have eating disorders.

Of course there are plenty of reasons to doubt any of this will come to pass. The economy is especially dreadful right now; any moves to unionize would be viewed as a threat by the class that controls the fashion capital. Besides, every year there’s a new raft of 14-year-olds from countries with economies far shittier than ours, and these 14-year-olds are all six feet tall and very, very hungry. And, through no fault of their own, they exercise a huge deflationary force on the modeling labor market. But it occurred to me, as I was working that presentation for that designer who amuses herself by collecting Picasso, that the reason she was paying the security guards at the event and not me was because the security guards have a union. And I don’t.

I want to at least try my best to change that.

E-mail Tatiana at Tatiana.Anymodel@gmail.com

Earlier: Welcome To America, Models! Tatiana Can't Wait For The Extra Competition. It Was Almost Getting Too Easy.

Related:

Model Bosses Quit After BBC Exposé [BBC]
Girls Interrupted [NY Mag]

Deny.
So it doesn't take Frederic Jameson to recognize in John Prescott some maaaayjor class issues. He talks on and on about his problems with "grammar" which the writer suggests he is actually mistaking for "syntax." The son of a Welsh railway worker and child of divorce, the "defining experience in his life" was failing a test sixty years ago and he only got to Oxford through some deal set up with his union. "I didn't feel adequate. I felt inferior and guilty, and I've always had a chip on my shoulder," he admits to the writer, who helpfully calls him "conspicuously working class." But did any of this secret shame/unease within his context/impostor complex play into his compulsion to consume barbaric amounts of Peking Duck and Digestives cookies only to — essentially the dietary equivalent of cheating on a test — puke them all into a Parliament latrine later on? Nah. Says Prescott of his first visit to the eating disorder clinic:

They ask you about your parents. I wasn't too convinced about all that, and walking into a room full of women was a bit embarrassing, but I did it.

A better idea: maybe get more sleep..
This is a good if obvious point. People always eat more when they're tired because the extra energy/indigestion keeps them awake. But when it's time to sleep, the indigestion is less helpful:

I get so tired. The only thing that stops me working is eating. Remember my box [his red ministerial box] comes at 11 at night, and I'm up at seven. I work my box [until] one o'clock. If you want to relax, you eat. Then you begin to find you've eaten too much and actually get a relief from expelling it, and then you're into that.

Focus bile on the haters. (Who are probably just as fat as you.)
Prescott points out that a lot of the shame of admitting one has an eating disorder is the fact that a lot of eating disorders, for all the psychic havoc they wreak, do not have the desired effect of making you thin, rendering the act of keeping them up absurd. But like, yeah, motherfucker, of course eating disorders are absurd; that's why he wrote the book!

They say I'd failed because I was still fat. Notice how fat they are, the ones who are writing it. You can gain weight. The mistake to make is you assume you expel the food immediately. You don't. You wait. If you look at the letters that have arrived, you're staggered: 'I'm so glad that you've said it. My daughter, who's 19, she's been doing that and now she's come to me and said: if John Prescott did it, it's not so abnormal is it?"

No we can't tell you the price of Sigrid's Just Cavalli jacket. If you have to ask you probably think sprinting in a snakeskin motorcycle jacket and bangle bracelets is a good idea but it will probably only make you die from dehydration and Teen Vogue likes to look out for its readers.

This is ping-pong, "their way." The Etro scarf and Leekan necklace are unpriced and we'd say they're pretty optional anyway, but those yellow Louise Goldin goggles are obviously an imperative so why can't we get a price on that? In other news, that cuff is $439.

Perhaps you always thought beach volleyball players, so ripped and bronze and well-adjusted, exemplified some sort of platonic sportsgirl ideal…

But you would be forgetting the critical necessity of a $225 metallic swimsuit so high-cut you can't wear it without matching booty shorts!

And finally, fencing. Who knew donning puffy white astronaut garb and swordfighting with nerds could be sexy?

Why…Veronique Leroy! Who obviously designed these platform shoes — no we can't tell you the price — with your epee in mind.

Earlier: Vogue's World's Best Bodies
"Girls Hurt": The Soccer Story That Will Pain Your Pretty Little Head
Teen Vogue Message Boards: "I Gained Alot Of Weight Over The Summer. It's Disgusting"
Alexandra Michael Is About 28 Pounds Too Fat For Modeling

So here's the thing: Rachel Moss seems like an intelligent, cool, normal person. What the fuck do such people really want with mocking the fats? Did I not get the memo about how fat-trolling burns calories? I have friends like this. Indie rock listening friends who preach tolerance and limiting their carbon intakes low and desiring change in government — and yeah, Moss is an Obama girl! — who nevertheless disdain fat people and for whom being relatively thin almost seems to be a conversational prerequisite. Because fat people remind them of the suburbs they so detested as hopelessly victimized youths? I guess. But isn't that just so boring? Yes. So boring I wouldn't bother posting about it, except for my fear that such people are totally going to turn into Republicans one day.

The Offending Post
Public Shaming [Amptoons]
The Dimensions Of Hypersurfaces

HOT TO TROT: Can pasty, less-than-svelte legs be buffed, sloughed and depuffed into picture-perfect condition in a mere 24 hours?

Um, I'm thinking your legs have to be a slightly less-than-less-than-svelte brand of pasty than mine, but seriously, what kind of challenge is this even? If you don't have time to give a shit about your legs, don't you just wear pants? And where would you suddenly find the time, money and uh, motivation to buy six kinds of anti-cellulite cream, wrap yourself in Saran Wrap overnight, consult numerous professional bloat-removers and perform thousands of squats and lunges? Well duh, you wouldn't. And that is the point. You are not that ridiculous. Look! Elle just made you feel good about yourself!

Sunday Breakfast 2 poached eggs with 3 slices veggie bacon Lunch 3 oz fresh turkey breast with ½ cup each of chopped cucumber and tomatoes Dinner 3 to 5 oz grilled salmon with ½ cup steamed Brussels sprouts or ½ cup steamed spinach

Monday
Breakfast
1 cup vanilla — or plain — nonfat rice milk and one poached egg
Lunch
2 sushi rolls (about 10 pieces total) of your choice (none should include mayo, nor may you add soy sauce)
Snack
1 cup soy pudding
Dinner
3 to 5 oz grilled chicken breast with ½ cup steamed spinach

Tuesday
Breakfast
1 cup vanilla — or plain — nonfat rice milk and one poached egg
Lunch
2 celery stalks with 2 to 4 tsp almond butter
Dinner
3 to 5 oz fresh turkey breast with 1 sweet potato

How To Lose 20 Lbs in 6 Weeks [US Weekly]

Thinspiration: ♥ So Pretty In Pain ♥ [You Tube]

(The text for this clip reads, "This video was made mainly for myself, but is here for all to view. It is very inspiring and sophisticated. Comments are highly apreciated! Enjoy!")

The biggest problem with adult anorexics is that they are much harder to cure. In Pope's case, she lived alone, and while most of her colleagues noticed that she was very thin and frail, she was so competent they never expected that she wasn't eating. According to Susan Ringwood, the CEO of Beat, an eating disorders charity, "Adults with anorexia can, like Rosemary Pope, be emaciated for years, but still function, and other people get used to them being like tha. Add to this their heightened energy, a very driven personality and the fact that the general public still associates anorexia with adolescents and you can see how it can get missed by others. Even if people do suspect it, they often fear saying the wrong thing, or think that it might actually be cancer."

But back to the young women with eating disorders. On Nerve yesterday, Rachel Shukert posted an essay called "The Anorexic's Cookbook" which deals with the author's former eating disorder in a way that's darkly humorous. Shukert's not the first to meld anorexia and comedy — Jennifer Traig wrote amusingly about her anorexia (alongside a host of other psychological maladies including OCD) in the book The Devil In The Details.

Though these essays and books do make you laugh, the reality of anorexia, as Rosemary Pope shows, is terrifyingly grim. Eating disorder expert Dr. Ira Sacker told CBS, "The fatality rate of anorexia alone is upwards of 20 percent — that's one-in-five who) die. We're talking about the highest mortality rate of any emotional disease known."

A Lifetime Of Denial [Guardian]
The Anorexic's Cookbook [Nerve]

Related: Some Moms In Troubled Marriages Are Starving Themselves To Death
Dangerous Extremes [CBS]

October 5:

November 6:

April 15:

We love the color, Jenna. But you don't need to wear "slimming" hues anymore! Enough with the dysmorphia!

April 20:
Oh, man, Jenna rocks the Faith Hill pose! I think she just might be that skinny. Now I feel like one of those people who monitors celebrity weight fluctuations! I wonder if she's on this "no-diet diet" I keep hearing about...

(The first rule of spotting a manorexic: he thinks people actually believe that metabolism shit, because he is a dude.

Fundamentally, compulsions surrounding the appetite are worse on men because they have bigger appetites. They also have bigger pants. Women, we eat half a box of cereal and maybe a few spoons of peanut butter mixed with Creamy Deluxe frosting and maybe half a can of Dinty Moore and we are like "oh my gosh I'm never eating again" and eventually that gets old but men can really make an achievement out of this shit:

WHAT PREZZA WAS EATING...
DAILY GUIDELINES FOR MEN
Calories 2000. Fat 70g, carbohydrate sugars 90g, salt 2.4g
CARNATION MILK - 397g TIN Calories 1290. Fat 31.8g, carbohydrate sugars 221.5g, salt 0.4g
M&S TRIFLE - 500g Calories 825. Fat 41.5g, carbohydrate sugars 71.5g, salt 0.55g.
LEMON CHICKEN Calories 1400. Fat 13g, salt 700mg
BEEF SATAY Calories 760, Fat 40g, salt: 650mg
SWEET AND SOUR PORK Calories 410.
Fat 30g, salt 350mg
CRISPY DUCK - 650MG Calories 800. Fat 40g, salt 650mg
CHOCOLATE - 230g BAR Calories 1207.5. Fat 68.54g, carbohydrate sugars 130.4g, salt 0.207g
DIGESTIVE BISCUITS - 500g Calories 2355. Fat 106.5g, carbohydrate sugars 83, salt 2.5g CRISPS - 34.5g
PACKET Calories 530. Fat 11.7g, carbohydrate sugars 0.2g, salt 0.5g

John Prescott's Secret Big Mac Binges [Mirror]
Huge Book Deal For Jon-Jon Goulian [Observer]

HAHAHAHA HOLES. FINGERS. DIKES. Sorry. Anyway, The president of the French Federation of Couture, Didier Grumbach, really hates the new bill. "Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny. That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France." Grumbach's attitude seems to be a common one in the fashion industry (see Lagerfeld, Karl), so perhaps it would be more effective to encourage the fashion industry itself to start policing excessive thinness as opposed to writing too-vague laws that, if passed, are ultimately subjective.

France May Make It Illegal To Promote Extreme Thinness [ABC News]

Related: La Merde Et La Mode
10 Things Karl Lagerfeld Could Do Without

Today's Modelslips is entirely spurred by one commenter's question. See how questions are important? E-mail yours to: Tatiana.Anymodel@gmail.com

From Dosido:
You seem to be extremely well-adjusted and body-positive. Has working as a model ever caused you to doubt yourself to the point that you've considered engaging (or have engaged) in the sort of self-destructive behaviors that so many models fall victim to? Things like smoking to kill appetite, drugs (same reasons, I suppose), or anorexia/bulimia?

—-—

Other commentators as of late have pointed to a time in recent memory when, they say, a US size 6-8 woman was standard on the runway; other writers have said that there was a time when models took up space. I don't remember this time. Models have always seemed to me universally skinny, small-breasted and towering, with their big eyes, sharp cheekbones, and protruding hipbones.

As an adolescent, I had no trouble recognizing my body type in theirs. My measurements were 32-24-34 — perfect for scaring my doctor, sending my BMI farther into the chart's nether regions with every inch I grew, and, at least theoretically, the kind of editorial and runway work that requires one to fit into the one-off, uniformly sized sample clothes designers make for their collections' first outings. I had years of periods that came as if I were on Seasonale (I wasn't) and the friend who was my secret crush probably never realized how badly he hurt my feelings when he gave me the nickname that would stick to me through high school — Death. I ate whatever I wanted in whatever quantities I wanted, and didn't even play an all-year sport. For a time, I happened to be as thin as is currently considered ideal in one Western industry.

Until, one day, sometime in college, I wasn't.

When a New York agency expressed interest in representing me, on the proviso that I trim my 26-inch waist and 37-inch hips to some more reasonable approximation of a waif, I went home by way of the library and checked out the first diet book I'd ever looked at. Three months of eating probably not enough and doing lots of yoga and weight training (which didn't help me lose weight, except insofar as muscle gain speeds metabolism, but which did give me quick results that kept me from dropping the whole exercise regime in frustration) earned me a 23-inch waist and 35-inch hips. The same agency expressed reservations about my hip measurement, but I went to fashion week and made decent bookings anyway. This was enough to merit my going on to Paris.

At the other end of a transatlantic flight, I was dropped off at an office to sign a contract in a language I don't read. Then I was introduced to a man who grabbed me by my hips and made loud exclamations in a language I don't speak. Two of the bookers giggled from across the room.

"Your 'eeps, Tatiana," he sneered, exhaling cigarette smoke. "Zey are not ze 'eeps of uh mo-duhl."

He then banned me from show castings. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

I went to the apartment where I was to stay, I lugged my suitcase up six flights of stairs when it wouldn't fit in the tiny elevator, and I crawled under the covers of my living room cot and cried.

The next morning, when, jetlagged, I awoke at 5 a.m., I started looking up calorie counts for the foods I most often consume. I trawled the web for low-calorie, low-fat, high-fiber, high-protein, generally nutritious food. I found diets that should have horrified me alluring. I wondered whether I should consume 1400 calories a day or if I could knock it down to 1200 without provoking ketosis. Not going to castings meant I had a lot of free time, and no chance of getting any work meant I had the excuse of poverty to explain the paucity of my diet.

I exercised on the hard tile floor of the kitchen. With four room-mates filling the living room as well as the ostensible bedroom, it was the only room in the tiny apartment where there was any privacy. It did occur to me, as I did my daily 20 minutes of yoga, my daily two sets each of 20 sit-ups, my lunges with 20 pound weights, my squats, bicep curls, and tricep extensions, that trying to get my measurements within the parameters that were so comfortable when I was 14, was slightly sick. What kind of industry would demand an adult woman forever maintain the dimensions of girlhood? I often thought about this as I counted my push-ups.

I keep a document I created during this period on my desktop. It's titled "1 cup of oatmeal with brown sugar.doc" — my preferred breakfast, even though it is one that doesn't exist in France, was the first food item I thought to analyze — and it contains about 12 pages, single-spaced, of recipes, calorie counts, diet tips ("Drinking COLD water burns extra cals bc your body must use energy to bring the water up to body temp") and other esoterica of a not-quite-right mind. I lasted about two weeks in this phase — long enough to knock a half-inch off my hips and quell the objections of the smoker and get grudgingly sent to a few castings — and I never had body dysmorphia or any of the other diagnostic criteria of a true eating disorder. But I keep 1 cup of oatmeal with brown sugar.doc on my desktop to remind me how easy it is in this industry to slip into disordered eating. You have so little else to do besides watch your weight, and so many opportunities for self-denial.

That was over a year ago, and I mostly remember it as my little Paris freak-out; my reaction to a new and strange and isolating industry and one mean man. I eat more or less what I want now, and I've found that my bookings have grown as a function of my book, and bear little relationship to my measurements, whether actual or those stated on my cards. But there is a tiny way in which I feel the subjective experience of modeling dovetails with the subjective experience of an eating disorder sufferer — at least one area of theoretical accord that underlies the two.

The experience of being a model is largely one of reducing the body to symbol. When you see a model, you don't think "woman": you think "body" and its component parts. "Lips" are here symbolic of "Yves Saint Laurent perfume." "Face" means "David Yurman jewelry." "Legs" on this page represent "Dolce and Gabbana ready-to-wear."

A version of this happens live. Walking the runway is an experience like being in a diving bell: you can see the world around you, but your usual connection with it has been artificially suppressed. You must stare straight ahead, part your lips slightly, and not make eye contact. You have to look through the people who are staring at you and barking commands at you from the photographers' pit. You have to occasionally scan where those people might plausibly be, but never see them. You are, needless to say, mute, but also physically unresponsive to your surroundings. And you expect no response from them.

In 1993, during a Vivienne Westwood show in Paris, Naomi Campbell fell on the runway. The only impressive thing about this, or any other runway fall I'm aware of (save one: Karen Elson's tumble at Zac Posen this February), is that nobody — neither the other models nor the front-row audience members who sit within inches of them — ever goes to help the stricken model, even when they have tumbled from 8" platform shoes such as those Campbell was wearing, shoes that can break, and have broken, the wearer's ankles. Because a fall is not supposed to happen, the production can never acknowledge a fall when one occurs.

Reducing the body to symbol is of course what the anorexic or the bulimia sufferer does. (Or the serious athlete, for that matter.) We remake our bodies as monuments: to hungers overcome, to perceived strengths, to a gendered, formal ideal we've sized up or down to. Bodies no longer communicate want or need: we subject them to our desires, and take pleasure in their submission.

I certainly enjoyed every inch I ever lost.

I also very much enjoy walking on the runway.

But there is one way in which this industry has taught me to take less of an obsessive interest in how I measure up, appearance-wise. The feedback you receive as a model is breathtaking in its contradictions, vehemence, and beside-the-point meanderings. My shoulders, too broad for one client, will be criticized for their narrowness by another. I have been told I have too many freckles, and also too few. I've been too pale, too tan, too old, too young, too brown, too red, too blonde. I'm too tall or too short. My feet are too big or not big enough. At first, this was unsettling, and kind of withering, but it soon became white noise — when a casting agent shares advice with me ("Tie your hair back for castings!" "Walk more smoothly!" "Work out so you have some arm muscle!") I thank him or her politely and do precisely nothing — because I know the next will want to see unfettered hair, a cocky swagger of a walk, and arms that aren't as "bulky" with muscle as mine. It all cancels out, and I'm left with the conclusion that the client will cast whomever they will cast and they'll know it as soon as the right model walks in the door and nothing in my power will change that. The best I can do is show up.

It's a strangely liberating conclusion to have drawn from fashion.

Earlier: Sometimes It's Mom — Not Media — Who Gives Girls Eating Disorders

• Anna Wintour claims she is very concerned about how "pale and thin" the models look nowadays. Don't worry, Anna, next to you they look vibrant and full of color! [WWD, 4th item]
  
• Here's your public service announcement of the day: The ingredient 1,4-Dioxane, which is found in many organic beauty and cleaning products, has been found to be carcinogenic. Go de-green your home now. Just don't mix any ammonia with chlorine in the process! [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• "You could say the baseball cap comes from a jockey cap worn by a Russian princess in the 1760s," says milliner Nasir Mazhar. [Vogue UK]
  
• Designer Giles Deacon says if he wasn't a designer he would be a zookeeper. [Independent]
  
• Ghanian businessman Kwabena Osei Bonsu making handbags from plastic litter he finds strewn throughout Accra. We don't normally endorse "handbag designer" as a profession, but that's kind of cool. I wonder if you could make handbags out of "space junk"? [Independent]

• Whoah USB port engagement rings; I totally want one. For my right hand of course. [Chic Report]
• Oh phew: Hermes profits are up. [WWD, sub req'd]
• MAC and Heatherette: Doing a makeup line together. Oh, Lydia Hearst is going to be all over this shit. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Former Chloe designer Phoebe Philo is apparently itching for a new design gig. [WWD, 2nd item]
• And 6267 designers Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi are rumored to be taking over the reins at Gianfranco Ferre. [WWD, 5th item]
• Ossie Clark's widow Celia Birtwell is designing a limited-edition capsule collection for...Express. Uh, yeah, that'll save your languishing business, Express. [WWD, sub req'd]
• OMG the suspense is killing us; Will Carla Bruni wear Chanel or Dior when visiting UK PM Gordon Brown and his wife with new husband French president Nicolas Sarkozy next week? [WWD, 3rd item]
• Hot deal alert: A $3,509 python skin laptop bag. [Chic Report]

• DKNY Jeans has announced a "partnership" with Rachel Bilson, who will be doing her own denim line for the brand. "Fans of 'The O.C.' really like DKNY Jeans, and I know they make great stuff, so I thought it could be good... I can't draw at all, so I won't be doing any sketches, but I am learning to sew," she says. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Good for designer Bradley Bayou for organizing a forum on the fashion industry and eating disorders. Bayou said fashion editors and the CFDA are at great fault for the growing number of young women developing eating disorders: "We have girls getting very sick because they can't beat the system and look like what's on the cover of the magazine...There are two ways to become a size zero: Starve yourself or take drugs. Or both. And yes, [models] all do it." [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• "She is a very modest woman." That's Fashion Fringe co-founder Colin McDowell on Donatella Versace. Um, sure. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Guess: Launching an eco-friendly capsule collection in April. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Make your own score for Miuccia Prada's trippy and twisted animated short "Trembling Blossoms" on Prada.com. [WWD, 1st item]
• Not gonna lie: I sorta want a Jean-Michel Basquiat Uniqlo t-shirt. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Alber Elbaz has started designing bridal for the House of Lanvin under the label Collection Blanche which — oh the irony — contains very few white dresses. [Vogue UK]
• The 2008 international fur and leather exhibition, Mifur, will be paying special homage to the late fashion designer Gianfranco Ferre, who loved him an animal pelt like it was nobody's business. [Fashion Week Daily]
• French Connection's profits are down 22% this year. FCUK! [Independent]
• Diddy vs. J.Lo: Battle of the fragrances! [BellaSugar]
• Henry Holland Easter eggs: Just what humanity needs. [Sassybella]
• What? Men do more shopping online than women? [WSJ]

Personally, I thought the makeovers this cycle were some of the worst yet. A couple of the girls came out looking great, but in some instances, it was really cruel. Here are the culprits:

And how could I resist this:

When I saw Stacey Ann's hair, all I could think about was Bill Murray's secretary in Scrooged.

And I don't know what Anya could be compared to, exactly, but whatever it is, it's sensitive to the sun, so it creeps around at night and probably collects the souls of little children.

But she did have an awesome photo.

OK, can we just talk about Dominique's confidence for a minute?

She knows this is a modeling competition, right?

She looks like a soccer mom on the sidelines rooting for her kid:

Here's another example of Tyra's cruelty:

Bitch had the airbrushers spend all the time on her.

Related: Parents In Denial About Children's Weight Problems [Science Daily]