Twiggy… omg

[Newsenmum]

I knew she was skinny but I never knew how bad it was! Looking at those photos of her in the 60s is painful.Why do we do this to ourselves? Have we done this since time began?

I was just reading how in the Victorian times there was another skinny phase where women liked to look skinny and weak like they’d had TB. Awful!

Does anyone know if it’s ever been fashionable to be healthy?

I agree. I think the problem is confusing Anorexia with other ED’s

Or confusing Anorexia with simply very slim.

I’m no doctor but have extensive experience of a family member with a diagnosis of Anorexia. I think what this poster was correctly pointing out is that Anorexia is a serious mental health condition, and although ED’s may be on the rise, the incidence of actual Anorexia is relatively small, so it’s not correct to say that Anorexia itself is on the rise because not all ED’s are Anorexia. It’s definitely correct to say that overeating is a bigger problem - the figures bear that out, and given the explosion of obesity in this country and the links with fast and ultra processed food I wouldn’t disagree.

Exactly. There’s an absolute world of difference between being very slim/underweight and being Anorexic.

I was a teen in the mid 90s and being extremely thin was very fashionable , i know we look back with fondness at that period but it was really one of the worst times to be a self conscious teen, it was the height of Heroine chic. ED and Anorexia was higher back then, lots of stories in the papers , magazines , radio and TV segments talked about it. I can’t recall her name but a young actress said she’d only eat a small pot of fat free yogurt and handful of grapes as her main meal,
I’m so glad that eating healthy and being active is popular with teens.

That's not true.

If we're looking at the more extreme ends of the scale then there are also those who live extremely restricted and painful lives and who die very prematurely due to obesity.

There was also an article in the guardian last year saying that fire services in the UK deal with callouts every 4 hours.

Figures published by the Home Office show firefighters were called 2,319 times to help police or ambulance services with “bariatric assistance” – coming to the aid of people who are otherwise unable to leave their homes due to serious obesity. This marks an 11% rise on the previous year and a 58% increase on 2020.

What rhetoric is that exactly?

Sophie Dahl came in and made curvy more fashionable ,I don't think Naomi Campbell was particularly Skinny either, think if you look at models through the ages there are different shapes and sizes. Not all Skinny like Twiggy or Kate Moss

, but when Sophie first started she was really overweight , she then lost some weight and looked spectacular. And I think that’s the curvy Sophie people associate her with.

I think part of the problem is thinking having two extremes balances things out, we have the skinny models but let’s throw really overweight models in , and call them curvy and completely disregard that the majority are in the middle somewhere size 12-16.

her name was lesley hornby and she went to brondesbury park high school for girls. i was at kilburn grammar over the road from it.

Twiggy looks fabulous now - she has filled out from being a very skinny little thing. I don’t think she was starved. I did know a model in the late 60’s and early 70’s. who was told to lose weight and fainted at a photo shoot. She told me that photographs make people look heavier. She did find work but never made the big time, the competition was horrendous. She was brilliant at make up and was tall slim and lovely. The Biba and Bus Stop were wonderful fashion shops and that period was wonderful for teenagers with a small but disposable income. Fabulous make-up and such a fabulous time - for me, anyway!

You can say what you want but it doesn't make it true. Her measurements are easy enough to find and she had a 22 inch waist with 35 inch bust and hips which is a size 6-8 or smaller depending on which shop you're looking at. Anyone saying she's a current UK size 12 is saying that to make themselves feel better.

She was only 5'5".

There isn't even a need to speculate - her old clothes are still viewable.

Remember Kim Kardashian purge dieted to wear Marilyn Monroe's old dress a few years ago?

I'm an 8 and I'd never fit into that dress.

MM was definitely a 6-8 by today's measurements.

There isn't even a need to speculate - her old clothes are still viewable

So is her modelling card, with size 12 clearly written on it along with her measurements. Which clearly aren’t a modern day UK or US size 12.

Twiggy was just naturally very slim. It wasn’t so unusual decades ago, before the era of endless ‘snacking’ and all the crap people eat nowadays.

@Petitee
I think Twiggy was naturally slim but purposely didn't eat much to become very skinny. I read somewhere her bmi was 15, which is anorexic.

Well she still insists otherwise and a low BMI doesn't equal anorexic.

Wanting to look like they have TB puts things in perspective 🤣

I don't think it's always been super skinny was the most fashionable, heroin chic and thigh gaps are probably taking that to the extreme. At that weight your almost 'sexless' or 'boyish'. I think it's a product of an extremely misogynistic society to prize any traits considered more 'masculine'.

They also look pre pubescent, a lot of womens beauty is about making yourself look younger. If you shave or wax your legs are you trying to look like a child who would be naturally hairless?

@rebeccasays
Well some people will say that about women who remove their pubic hair, but many of those women who say that shave their legs.

I don't think it's to do with looking like a child at all and the theory doesn't add up really because with lingerie a lot of it is trying to enhance feminine curves and show off womanly assets like making the boobs look bigger, accentuating the waist and showing off the curves of the hips etc.