Alicia, great post! I think you raise some important, interesting questions. When it comes to body image, size and shape don’t matter. Just because we think Jennifer Hawkins is attractive doesn’t take away the body image struggles she might’ve experienced. There are plenty of people who may look “perfect” in the public’s eyes who struggle tremendously with eating issues, poor body image and other problems. So it’s a bit unfair to dismiss Hawkins by saying that she was born beautiful and thereby, clearly, she’s never experienced body image issues.

I’ve heard many people say that she’s clearly perfect and has a model physique, so she doesn’t make a good example for positive body image. I’m torn on this one, because I think magazines should celebrate body diversity, which means including women who are size zero, six, eight, 16 and so on. But that doesn’t mean that Hawkins isn’t a “real woman,” a term I’ve heard thrown around many times.

Yes, I think having someone who represents the majority of women in America and Australia (which I believe is like a size 12) would’ve been better. Hawkins fits today’s thin ideal, so I can understand where the criticism is coming from. It isn’t exactly celebrating positive body image for the average woman when someone who looks like a model is put on a magazine cover.

It’s definitely a tough one, as I think I’ve shown with my long brainstorming session here.

Thanks, Alicia! Sunny Gold at Healthy Girl wrote about V Magazine, which devoted its most recent issue to “plus-size” models. (It’s a stunning spread.) I love your point about including women with many different shapes and sizes in every issue. That’s something Sunny discussed in her post on the implications of having an official “size issue”: http://healthygirl.org/2010/01/05/do-a-few-larger-models-in-magazines-really-make-a-body-image-impact/

Let’s start having a variety of models in magazines, without calling these features something special. And definitely – we’re all real women!

The good thing is that magazines do seem to be changing their stripes, even if it’s a little bit. As long as we’re taking steps in the right direction and people are talking about these topics, then I’ll take it. But I do hope we move toward body diversity in every magazine.