Korea neglects awareness on anorexic models
.jpg?w=728)
A model walks down the runway during the BNB12 show at the 2015 Seoul Fall Winter Fashion Week in Dongdaemun Design Plaza on March 23. / Korea Times photos by Kim Jae-heun
By Kim Jae-heun
Seoul is competing to vie with world class fashion capitals such as Paris, New York and Milan. The 509.4 billion won ($467.68 million) project at Dongdaemun Design Plaza, which has been described as a Korean version of the Centre Pompidou or even an urban UFO, was designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in March 2014. It immediately became one of the most coveted places for fashion aficionados in Seoul, hosting the city’s biannual fashion week and many other events.
Despite the city’s ongoing endeavor to gain a bigger presence on the international fashion scene, it lacks awareness of an important issue in the fashion industry _ protecting young models who are being forced into being too skinny.
It is an open secret that Korean models diet to the extreme to get an opportunity to stride down the catwalk. One former model, only identified by her surname Hwang, 28, said, “When I started modeling in my early 20s, I was 172 centimeters tall and weighed 50 kilograms, but I was told to shed four more kilograms. Short models like me had to stay a little over the mid-40 kilogram range in terms of weight.
“I literally survived on one potato and few pieces of carrots a day to lose weight for measurement tests every week at a model academy. I was desperate to make my debut and I would starve until my hands shook because my weight would decide whether I could sign my contract with the agency or not,” said Hwang.
Fasting is no exception for teenage models that are still growing and require a balanced diet. At the 2015 Seoul Fall Winter Fashion Week in late March, a model as young as a 14 walked on the runways, and is likely to have gone through a similar fasting process at their agencies, before being cast in the show.
“I know a 15 year-old model, who was 55 kilograms at 175 centimeters in height. She was scolded for being fat all the time,” said Hwang.
An assistant helps a model with his costume behind the stage. The models shown in the photos (both above and under) are not named in the article.
Change of perception
From the mid-2000s, the world has been paying attention to the fashion industry giving the wrong idea that skinny models are the ideal beauty standard and influencing young women to suffer anorexia ― an eating disorder characterized by excessive weight loss.
Spain was one of the first countries to ban ultrathin models from modeling. It also restricted women with a BMI under 18 from participating in fashion shows like Pasarela Cibeles in 2006 after two young Uruguayan siblings starved to death while fasting.
The movement was soon followed by other top-level fashion industry events. A law introduced in Israel in 2013 prohibits skinny models from appearing in commercials and restricts retouching the photos of models in advertisements to look thinner.
European countries such as Italy and Germany joined a global push to discourage young models with anorexia and encourage a campaign to not use women who are underweight.
The French lower house of Parliament passed an amendment to forbid models under the suggested body mass index (BMI) from working earlier this month. The exact criterion has not been set, but the World Health Organization recommends a BMI of 18.5, which means a model has to be at least 55 kilograms at 175 centimeters in height.
French lawmaker Olivier Veran, who is also a neurologist, presented the bill to prevent the growing number of female anorexia nervosa patients in France which totaled almost 40,000 by 2015.
However, Korea is still way behind the international trend concerning an ideal body image perception and ultrathin models, let alone making legislation. When The Korea Times questioned three related departments at the Ministry of Health and Welfare about this ongoing issue, all of them denied responsibility and suggested contacting each other.
“As far as I know, we have no law or regulations on the employment of skinny models,” said an official from the Division of Public Relations Planning. “The welfare system for models in Korea is not as developed as the French.”
The president of Korea Model Association Yang Eui-sig supported the idea of the French bill.
“Designers are making dresses too small for models to fit in them. If fashion designers adjust the sample size, the problem can easily be solved,” Yang said. “Models change along with the industry. Society also has to change its perception on beauty standards.”
However, the BMI level is not the best way to help unhealthily thin models. Some health researchers doubt the regulation’s efficiency and the BMI’s accuracy as the standard to tell whether models are healthy enough to get a job or not.
“The BMI has limitations on measuring the amount of muscle or body fat,” said Ku, a researcher of the Korea Health Promotion Foundation. “The BMI results can differ greatly according to a person’s height, so it does not apply the same way for everybody.
“For example, athletes usually have a high volume of muscle with low body fat and have an abnormally high BMI, while an old man with less muscle with higher body fat can result in a normal BMI,” said Ku.