On May 2nd, Kim Kardashian walked the Met Gala carpet in Marilyn Monroe’s iconic 1962 rhinestone dress. To wear the tightly fitted garment, Kim lost 16lb in three weeks, a task that has been applauded in the fashion community. However, what effects does this normalization of extreme weight loss for the sake of fashion have?
PHOTO CREDIT: Julie Patton
No woman should alter their body to fit a dress. The discussion of weight loss and fashion’s approval of dieting is wrong as dieting is one of the top risk factors for an eating disorder.
In a Vogue interview, Kim told reporters that she had to cut out sugar and carbs to drop the weight. Additionally, she would run on a treadmill and wear a sauna suit twice a day. Don-A-Matrix, Kim’s personal trainer, told TMZ that she had worked hard to healthily lose the weight.
The idea to lose weight just to fit a dress sends the wrong message to women across the globe. Although Kim may have lost the weight in a healthy way, her actions could influence people to partake in unhealthy eating habits and weight loss strategies because of their idealization of her figure and lifestyle.
Zoe Brown and Marika Tiggermann’s 2021 paper confirmed that there is evidence that celebrities “have a detrimental impact on body image and eating for women across the age range.” They added that “exposure to celebrity images, comparison with celebrities, and worship of celebrities [are] particularly salient to body image.”
Elizabeth Thompson, CEO of the National Eating Disorder Association, says that dieting is one of the top risk factors for an eating disorder.
“Discussion of weight loss normalizes dieting and pressures others to use the same harmful behaviors to achieve similar [and] often unattainable goals, putting them at an increased risk for eating disorders,” says Thompson.
Image Source: Vogue
With one of the most recognized and idealized body, Kim already has a figure that is unattainable for most people. The idea of her needing to lose weight to fit a dress creates more unrealistic standards for the average woman.
Young women who view this behavior by Kim could continue with their comparison process, and the next time their dress doesn’t zip, may follow Kim’s lead and adjust their body to fit a dress.
“Using your voice and platform to highlight or describe dangerous behavior is not leadership,” says Thompson. “It is our hope that if people were watching that interview, they weren't thinking about how they could starve their bodies and brains to achieve that goal.”
Thompson adds that she hopes we can focus on healthy bodies as a society, instead of encouraging weight loss when discussing the topic of appearance.
People do not need to adjust their bodies to fit their clothing, and women do not need to have figures like Kim to feel beautiful when looking in a mirror. As a society, we make too many comparisons between ourselves and the glamorized faces and bodies we see in the media, but we shouldn’t.
We need to stop idealizing the unattainable and unrealistic bodies seen in fashion and focus on the unique and beautiful bodies that average women have.