Cindy Crawford on super-skinny models and eating disorders

From The-F-Word.org

Supermodel Cindy Crawford opened up to the Guardian’s Hannah Poole on super-skinny models and eating disorders. Check out the audio clip here.

The audio clip starts mid-conversation, so based on the response, I can only assume the first question is on super-skinny models.

I think the girls that are models now, that’s just their body. Did fashion celebrate thinness more? That’s a different question. And you can’t fault the models for that.Those girls are just thin girls. Like, Kate Moss is thin. She eats. I’ve seen her eat. She’s thin. I think that fashion though is all about extreme in a way and it also has to change; it’s constantly in flux. It’s just fashion. It’s just fashion.

But fashion does get blamed often for encouraging eating disorders…

I think that’s a little bit of a stretch. I don’t know; I’m not an expert. I’m certainly not one of the people they’ve ever blamed because I’m not super-skinny. I think that people want to find something to fault. I think an eating disorder is way more than a girl looking at a magazine and seeing a picture of a skinny model. I think maybe that’s one tiny piece of the puzzle, but I think it’s a lot more about self-esteem.

I’m sure there are naturally-slender women in the modeling business, but I have a hard time believing that a BMI four points (or more) below what the WHO deems underweight to the point where the model doesn’t have enough body fat to support menstruation is “just their body.” And certainly the latest wave of models to die from complications related to eating disorders indicate that not all are “just thin girls.” But, as I’ve written before, I am with Cindy in that the relationship between super-skinny models in the media and eating disorders isn’t as directly causal as we’d like to think. Your thoughts?