The other day I began searching through blogs on various websites and I found several posts from girls struggling with anorexia, bulimia, and other body image issues. I couldn’t help but ask myself, do they really want help? A lot of them were complaining about how fat they think they are and the guilt they feel when they overindulge themselves. But then, I saw that many of them were trying to offer each other advice on how to lose the weight and many others asked questions on how to lose a significant amount of weight fast.
I’ve had thoughts in the past where I found myself consistently thinking about my weight and for a while I tried to figure out ways where I could outsmart the system. I would eat very little and then eat a big unhealthy meal when I couldn’t take it anymore. I wouldn’t exercise on a regular basis and I wouldn’t call my lifestyle healthy, obviously.
At one point in my life, about two and a half years ago…I was approached by a very talented photographer. Following my last blog, it was at some point after I felt I reached the “beginning” of my modeling career. He wanted to meet with me to possibly do a “test shoot”. At this meeting, he told me everything I needed to fix myself. My hair needed to be all one color and longer, my teeth whiter, my skin needed regular facials, and I needed to lose about 10 to 15 pounds in which he suggested I get a trainer.
Of course, even today, I still feel that most of these things were very legit. I mean to be a model, you need to be close to “perfect”, that is your job. When I say “perfect”, of course there are “imperfections” that make a model a super model, but there are certain criteria necessary to the job. As for the weight, I knew that would be a difficult issue for me. At that point in my life, I didn’t know how to lose weight properly. I weighed around 135 pounds at that point but lied and said I was 125 pounds. But still girls who were my height (5’7″) needed to be ideally 115 pounds or so.
It’s a huge deal when someone tells you that you need to be at least 15 pounds lighter when you already think that it’s tough enough as it is to stay at your current weight. Being that he was “high up” on the ladder, I took him very seriously and vowed to contact him again when I felt I was ready. I had no clue how to do this properly. I mean what I was doing obviously wasn’t working and so I started eating a lot less but only lost like 5 pounds over a long period of inconsistent dieting and exercising.
Over the course of a couple of years, I could not make up my mind if I really wanted to pursue this. At some point I did contact him back but he kept reminding me to call him when I was completely ready. I just wanted to get into the industry already. Maybe I could fool them? But, deep down there was always something holding me back.
Eventually, I met up with him, did the shoot that cost me $600. Over the last year or so, he became quite popular so it was hard to schedule something with him but I knew that he was the perfect connection and was almost certain this would lead me to my goal. I applied to an agency with the photos I took with him but apparently they already had someone who looked like me. Ha. I became obsessed with trying to “make it” and at one point, I went to L.A. and an agency wanted to work with me but I didn’t want to move or commute to L.A. I kept the agent’s business card in my wallet for quite some time. I thought maybe I would be willing to move there after I graduated from college. A year or so went by again but I never felt ready to model.
So my question to myself at that point was why am I really doing this? Over the last several years, I met plenty of girls who seemed unsure of themselves or who just wanted to be in this industry for the wrong reasons. Others thought they eventually would make it. But, I found that most of the girls I met reached some peak and then their five minutes of fame died out. Some girls made it big. They went to L.A. and New York and are now doing what they really wanted to do. But in my opinion, the majority of us are just confused and following a life that media and society have convinced us to do. I feel that many people realize that this is getting out of hand…but am I being unrealistic to hope for others to expand their minds like me? Is it getting better or worse? When will we move past this?
I am glad that someone is standing up against the fashion industry. Many people claim to do it but then get sucked into it and forget what they were really trying to do. There is a serious problem in this country with self image (not just girls, but guys too), it’s about time it ends.