Over Weight or Over Critical...?

The other day I read an article about a British doctor who commented on this recent Marks and Spencer ad campaign by stating that 2 of the women are overweight and one is obese.

After conducting a quick survey amongst the women in my office, all of them agreed that they would be happy, most even thrilled to look like any of these girls in the photo, and thought that their figures accentuated the shape ware products beautifully. Furthermore, as we stared at the image, we all genuinely struggled to identify the three 'over weight' women as mentioned by the doctor.

Marks and Spencer is a large UK department store and like many fashion brands today, have decided to ditch the wafer thin models in favour for a more true reflection of the women in society- bodies ranging from sizes 8 to 16.

Dr Ellie Cannon believes that some of these women set an unhealthy example that no one should aspire to.

"The fact is it is absolutely outrageous that, in an effort to illustrate the diversity of women, obesity has taken its place alongside ageing and differing skin colours.

I am really concerned by this trend of supposedly empowering women by what has become known as the 'body acceptance movement' which embraces the notion that fat is fine," she wrote.

Hearing comments like this from an educated health care professional makes me angry. I am not condoning unhealthy lifestyles or body weights, be them at one end of the spectrum or the other, but I do think that ads like this are a positive step forward for the fashion industry and they should be supported.

In my opinion, the more images of 'normal' sized women seen in magazines, on television and plastered on billboards, the better society's perception of body image will be.