"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"

Kate Moss has said in an interview "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels". I personally completely understand this 'motto' and am not really too surprised to see yet again how far out of context it has been taken. Yes...it was said by a supermodel. Yes...models and the fashion industry have been notoriously known for being too thin, being 'sizeist' in only using slim models, and criticised for using size zero models only. I don't condone or agree with 'size zero'. However, the debate on the sizes of models for high fashion and runway is a topic that always gets my interest and one that I have a strong opinion on.

Women constantly praise programmes such as Gok Wan's 'How to Look Good Naked', which I also am a fan of for finding and building a woman's confidence to find her inner and outer beauty, and to use fashion as it should be used: to make someone feel and look amazing, as opposed to going under the knife and cutting and chopping yourself into shape. However, do we really want to see 'real' woman on the cover of magazines? I for one can vouch for most probably 99% of all pictures I've seen featured in magazines where women have not been airbrushed, or in peak physical condition...where bellys hang out, spots are squeezable and hair is fine and limp. And I have not met one single woman or man, who does enjoy looking at this 'real beauty'. People then are more likely to criticise the image and ask why hasn't this been airbrushed, or then criticise the model themselves and make comments like ' I can model better than that!'.

For me, the thought of watching not even large women, but just your average size lady walking down the runway does not appeal. The clothes are pieces of art, touches of perfection themselves. When they are laid out so fantastically for our forever fashion-hungry eyes to see, why on Earth would you want to see ripples of cascading silk pitted and distorted to cover excess bodily lumps and bumps?

I don't applaude, promote or agree with size zero. I think that is a different subject altogether. There is slim and there is anorexic. Which is perhaps why Kate Moss's comment has been taken so out of context, the use of the word 'skinny'. It's more often than not assciated with being too thin, and is rarely remembered to be simply a synonym of 'slim'.

I also don't applaude the use of overweight people as role models such as Beth Ditto. We are all too concerned with people being too thin and anorexic/bulimic, when the majority of our society is becoming obese. Whilst yes, our society may have decided that looking too thin is better than looking too fat, neither promote a healthy image. They both portray the destruction of the human body when it is not looked after...and larger celebrities/models/people should equally not be celebrated just because they show a change from predominantly thin photos.

For most people dieting, losing weight, becoming healthier is always a top concern. Whether we muster the energy to carry out our good intentions or not is immaterial. We only have to look at athletes to see that when the human body is trained and fed well, fat features no more. And who doesn't get that sense of happiness, pride and satisfaction when you have toned up and lost some weight, and someone compliments you on how good you look? I agree with Kate. Nothing tastes as good as that feels.