“Plus Size” Use in Fashion Industry Frustrates Many

By Taylor Bosley
Staff Writer

In January, the magazine company Cosmopolitan, popular among women, released a photo of a model with the caption including the phrase “plus size model.”  This outraged many people as they said that she was a healthy woman.  This brought up the argument that women’s bodies are constantly being labeled as too big or too small.  

Students at Red Lion Senior High are aware of the media’s take on women’s bodies in society. Senior NaToshia Spear noticed this in the Facebook post by Cosmopolitan featuring “plus size” model Robyn Lawley.  She thinks labeling women on their body size is inappropriate.

“A model is supposed to be just that: a model. Someone that people can idolize. Therefore labeling a model plus size takes away from it. Weight doesn’t define beauty,” Spear said.  

In media and social networking, there has also been media shunning on women that are “too small.” 

“Any insult, especially pertaining to a woman’s weight, is wrong,” Spear said on if society views insults to smaller women similar to insults towards someone larger.

Junior Ellen Weaver was also aware of the Cosmopolitan photo of model Lawley and partially blames the label of “plus size” on the complexity of the fashion industry.

“I don’t think her being called a plus sized model is fair, but I think the fashion industry is very complicated as far as weight and modeling,” Weaver said about the photo.

Since Weaver sees the fashion industry as such a large part of society, she thinks that there should be changes in the way they label women.  

At the high school level, Weaver thinks that the effects of bullying based off of weight is an issue people should learn about, so that everyone is aware of the effects and so that the bullying may stop.

Many people are not a fan of the way the media labels men and women’s bodies, as they view it as bullying in ways similar to a magazine calling a woman “plus size” or a teenager at school calling someone fat.