Marilyn's Size 4 Summary
Towards the beginning of the chapter, Kimmel mentioned that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 12 dress, while today most sex symbols average around a size 4. At first glance, this seems like a drastic change, but if you look at the clothing industry over the last half a century, sizes have gotten bigger so that today’s size 4 is much bigger than a 1950s size 4 would have been. According to my mom, she wore the same size in college as today, even after having two kids – because of the rate sizes changed. And my grandmother says she wears smaller sizes today than she would have if there were petite clothing options when she was younger (she used to make her own clothes because she was short and couldn’t wear regularly sized clothing because of its length).
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A more accurate comparison would be heights and weights. Before talking about clothing sizes, Kimmel mentions that in 1954, Miss America was five foot eight and 132 pounds, while today’s Miss Americas are about the same height but weigh about 118 pounds. This is a better comparison because it gives an idea of how the physical proportions of the models have changed without giving misinformation about sizing. Of course, the fact that models today are getting unhealthily thin is a problem in itself. Often, as Kimmel also fails to mention, these models are anorexic themselves, as their own industry pushes them even harder to lose weight because otherwise no one will hire them. Looking at the picture at the beginning of this chapter (the picture on the left) I can see every one of the woman’s ribs, and her breasts appear to be about an AA cup or smaller. Even looking at her face it’s easy to see that she’s not healthy. All this makes it pretty clear that she, and most other models like her, has some kind of eating disorder. This, I believe, more than anything else, is what leads girls to eating disorders themselves. With anorexic models representing the standard of female beauty, girls are lead to believe that they need to be unhealthily thin to be beautiful, rather than a
A more accurate comparison would be heights and weights. Before talking about clothing sizes, Kimmel mentions that in 1954, Miss America was five foot eight and 132 pounds, while today’s Miss Americas are about the same height but weigh about 118 pounds. This is a better comparison because it gives an idea of how the physical proportions of the models have changed without giving misinformation about sizing. Of course, the fact that models today are getting unhealthily thin is a problem in itself. Often, as Kimmel also fails to mention, these models are anorexic themselves, as their own industry pushes them even harder to lose weight because otherwise no one will hire them. Looking at the picture at the beginning of this chapter (the picture on the left) I can see every one of the woman’s ribs, and her breasts appear to be about an AA cup or smaller. Even looking at her face it’s easy to see that she’s not healthy. All this makes it pretty clear that she, and most other models like her, has some kind of eating disorder. This, I believe, more than anything else, is what leads girls to eating disorders themselves. With anorexic models representing the standard of female beauty, girls are lead to believe that they need to be unhealthily thin to be beautiful, rather than a