Is Size Zero Really Not a Size?
In Australia, we don’t have a standard and accessible equivalent to the US size zero. The general rule of difference between Australian and US sizes is four (an AU10 becomes an US6). While some stores are starting to make a size four, in most cases, girls are left to take in size sixes, or hope that the size runs small.
Pictured is actress and philanthropist Sophia Bush, most recognized for playing cheerleader-turned-fashion-designer Brooke Davis on US drama One Tree Hill. As well as continuing to raise awareness and aid for various causes, Sophia is a passionate and articulate advocate for healthy body image. She no doubt influenced the writers and producers of One Tree Hill to create the ‘Zero is not a size‘ campaign her character started.
I respect and admire the intent behind this campaign, and I commend all involved for their efforts. For the industry they work in, it was a very brave, inspiring, and responsible decision. The campaign has been responded to with overwhelming gratitude, and while I’m pleased that they were able to touch so many young women, the tag-line itself makes me uneasy.
I find it contradictory for a ‘body-love’ campaign to declare a size should not exist. While I understand some girls put themselves through mental and physical torture in attempts to achieve the elusive size zero, and work needs to be done to prevent this, the campaign forgets about the many girls who are healthily and naturally this small. I’m friends with some of them.
There seems to be this misconception that skinny girls have it easy. They don’t. It’s difficult for them to find clothes that fit; they have to be careful about the way they work out and what they eat; and they continuously have strangers making disparaging and hurtful comments about their weight. This abuse isn’t often spoken about, and I’ve often wondered why. Is it because society naively believes that skinny girls have won a genetic lottery, and that their complaints aren’t valid? Or, is it because we are so concerned with preventing eating disorders that we condemn an entire size, without thinking of those who comfortably wear it?
I recently saw a commercial with the voice over, ‘size ten to size twenty-four, real clothes for real women.’ Magazines often feature fashion spreads that use size 14 models with tag-lines such as ‘real and ravishing’. I can’t understand why they don’t just remove the ‘real’? Why can’t these models just be ‘ravishing’? And why say one size is ‘real’? And it’s not just the media, society is prone to using this ‘real’ notion constantly. How many times have you heard someone refer to supermodels and certain actresses as being “not real women”? While sure, Kate Moss isn’t the average woman, I’m certain her mother can attest she’s real. My size zero friends are certainly real (I pinched one yesterday to check).
Weight is an innately sensitive issue. I know the feeling of looking at yourself in the mirror and hating the reflection. I’m pretty sure at some stage, all of you have felt that. For this reason, I’m in awe of all of this inspiring work that is being done to prevent eating disorders. I’m glad that media and fashion-retail outlets (such as Sportsgirl and their work with supporting The Butterfly Foundation) are finally stepping up and saying that body image disorders exist, and that it’s something that we need to prevent.
But I don’t agree with discrediting other sizes in order to do this. A size zero is just as real as a size six as a size ten as a size fourteen as a size twenty. It’s just that a few of those sizes are more common. Society has a responsibility to work on its lexicon, and forget about this notion of what is ‘real’. Yes, a size zero is not average, and it’s not something one should aspire towards, just like one should not aspire to be a size twenty-six. But size zero is a size, and one that is natural for many women. And some of these women aren’t happy with being this thin, and already struggle with it emotionally — we have a responsibility to these women to not send out sound-bites that effectively say their size should not exist. We instead need to focus on ensuring that every women is healthy, and feels comfortable and beautiful in her own skin; be that a size zero or a size twenty.
Thank you for writing this- I think this is something that is often overlooked when talking about healthy body image. It’s problematic to assume that anyone who is size 0 got there by deliberately starving themselves- just as it’s problematic to assume that anyone who is size 16 must be lazy and stuff themselves with junk food all the time.
It’s a difficult issue, but I don’t think targeting one particular size and saying it’s ‘not real’ is the answer. I think you make an excellent point: “Society has a responsibility to work on its lexicon, and forget about this notion of what is ‘real’.”
So true! Although I’m not particularly small myself, I hate the way people disparage small people (small women, mostly) as being superficial, as people who’ve starved themselves to look a certain way. There are huge varieties in the shapes and sizes people come in!
And, on a somewhat related note, even where it is true that a woman has starved herself, I dislike how that obviously means that she’s caught up in celebrity culture or looks at too many magazines. I think it simplifies eating disorders.
Good article!
You have hit the nail on the head!! I am a size zero and growing up it was IMPOSSIBLE to find clothes that fit well. There is nothing worse than being not fitting into all the “cool” clothes as a teenager, and I was always really upset when others would exclaim at how skinny and “anorexic” I looked. Even now it pisses of my friends and I when we are declared as not real women. Everyone has a different natural body weight!