Glamour uses unorthodox picture of a woman (for a major woman's magazine)
 

I find this so interesting - this woman is NOT fat (I look almost just like this!) but it's so amazing to see folds, stretch marks in a major woman's magazine. I dont know why I am so pleased to see this! It is fascinating that she is considered "plus sized" by Glamour. She looks like a normal, healthy weight to me. If she were standing, she would have very little extra tummy!

http://jezebel.com/5341749/glamour-s...9Emodels-belly

I definitely struggled what to name this thread - I rejected "real" woman, "normal" woman. I finally went with "unorthodox" just because it's so rare to see such a picture in that setting!

I have this issue and it's wonderful to see more "normal" and average women in magazines. This is what girls need to see not those sickly stick figures !

I by no means am even close to looking like that but it's much more realistic and beautiful !

that top picture is GREAT. i really respect someone who can look so confident even though they dont have a "perfect" body. she is thin, but has the belly of women with children, lol. the second picture looks like it was taken to be more flattering and maybe airbrushed.

Go glamour!!

I am proud of a magazine that can say 'yes women, it is normal to have a pouch'.

I wouldn't consider her plus sized either.

WOW! That is great! She doesn't even look plus-size to me, she looks.. normal! I'm glad they are taking this step, I honestly hate beauty magazines - I've read articles online by Cosmopolitan and found them to be either blatantly wrong (they misrepresented this study done in psychology and slanted it) or very contradictory - like telling women to learn to "feel sexy" - yet insinuating that you are NOT sexy because they don't have pictures of people that look like you next to the word sexy.
But this is really great, and I hope Glamour continues on this path.

Wow. Holy moly. She's a 12-14? Must be about 6 feet tall! I think she's lovely, and real ... and it inspires me to think that just maybe, with some more work, I might have a model's body!!!

Good lord if she is plus sized I must be elephant sized!

She IS beautiful btw.

right? i think 12/14 is a stretch. im about a 14 and im much bigger than her. she looks to be about an 8.

I just e-mailed Glamour thanking them for using this model, and that I am hoping they make good on their assertion that they will be using more models with realistic figures--for fashion shoots, in ads, not just as one-shots. We've been far too accepting of the fashion industry's view that only a size 0 or 2 is beautiful. Make your voices heard, ladies!

Yeah, this woman looks like an 8 to me, NOT a 12-14. I was a 12-14 at my HW (175-185 range) and uh, she has a MUCH nicer body than I did back then, FO SHO! I think she looks so beautiful and natural. It is AWESOME that Glamour put her in.

I have a few modeling/airbrushing stories to share with all ya'll:
I've done modeling on and off since I was 16 years old. When I was 18, I was doing an ad for Tommy Hilfiger with this hot male model. They took some photos of him sitting down. He had a perfect six pack standing up, but sitting down, his stomach rolled over JUST A TAD, as almost anyone's would in the angle they put him. SO, even though he had this great body, they fully airbrushed his stomach....
....not to mention MY make-up has been re-applied every 15 minutes or so at almost every fashion shoot I've ever done. One shoot even put foundation and bronzer all over my ARMS... and another made me wear a corset and then put some duct tape right below my rib cage in order to make me stand straight and tall at all times! :lol:

I stay far, far away from Cosmo. They ruin style. They ruin body image perception. They even ruin sex life. ;)

You know what just struck me? Wouldn't it make more sense to use "typical" women in ads? I mean if I see someone who is "typical" sporting a particular outfit as opposed to a reed thin woman, I can MUCH better relate to that typical woman and I'd be more likely to purchase the outfit - or the make-up, the perfume, the jewelery, the shoes, the hair dye. It could go on and on.

Who ever came up with using reed thin models? What were the advertising geniuses thinking?

Judging by the responses that Glamour's, received I think using typical women, would be a great marketing tool. Wouldn't that be something if that became the norm???

agreed. whenever i see something that i think is cute on one of those stick figures i have to sit there analyzing whether it would be flattering on a real persons body. (nothing against smaller girls, but size 0 and 2 is not what i consider to be "normal"). i tend to shy away from a lot of things thinking, well of course it looks good on her, shes teeny. if i see something that looks great on a size 10, i know that it must have a nice fit and be flattering.

"Real size" models would be quite refreshing to see, indeed!

I think ALL body types should be represented in mainstream fashion if the advertising gurus really want people buying their stuff -- sure, stick skinny ones should be included, but so should those at a healthy weight and normal body fat percentages, athletic types, those with a few extra pounds, and those larger.

Whenever I see some outfit or dress on a twig-lookin' model, I, too, wonder if it would look good on ME. I just don't have a delicate frame and the only time in my life where I even appeared to was when I weighed under 115 pounds! :lol:

Its funny. I always feel like I'm not really affected by the thin models. I think they look pretty, and I don't nec. Hold myself to their ideal. - guess it helps in a way that I'm short, so I just understand that I'm just not built like that.

That changed as soon as I was flipping through this article the other day.
The first thing I thought was huh, this is odd (I almost wondered if glamour was aware of the ladies belly). I have literally never seen a squishy belly in a magazine.
I thought to myself-hey, she's actually really pretty and her belly really doesn't look half bad. Maybe its not going to be such a freakin tragedy when I lose the rest of my weight and I'm still a bit squishy in the middle.

I instantly felt better.
Totally affected....

My little sister is 11 and she is obsessing over her weight, she works out two hours a day, she wont eat any bad stuff as she calls, it she is constantly on the scale, I told her why, you shouldn't worry about that now, not that much , her reply I want to look like the women in the magazines everyone likes them, I was like that is what is wrong with our girls they aren't shown what is a "Normal person"