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There's a probably-BS trend story on the ABC News Web site about how Kate Moss' recent weight gain is potentially heralding a trend in the modeling industry of "healthier looking models." Though Moss is undeniably a trendsetter, I find it hard to believe that her newly higher BMI is going to affect the entire industry. Moss denied that she was pregnant in the recent spring fashion issue of New York Magazine, and yet tabloids are still insisting that Kate is up the stick, because these magazines still cling to the idea that a woman couldn't possibly gain a few pounds by choice unless she is incubating a human.
It reminds me of another dubious trend story that made the Internet rounds last fall. Econometricians went through the Playboy archives and claimed that during times of economic crisis, men like their women taller and heavier because of the Playmates chosen. At least every other month, women's magazines insist that the "super skinny" trend is out and that women with "curves" are back in, and yet models and actresses have shrunk considerably in the past 15 years and don't show any sign of thickening. (See the entire female cast of Friends, circa 1994 for solid evidence.) As Willa pointed out yesterday in her apt analysis of the enduring popularity of crap TV, trend writers will be trying to pin America's preferences in basically every area on the new recession. The rise of the "curvy" model is no exception. It's always been my hunch—and this is not an original thesis—that the very very skinny trend came in just as women were really making strides in the workplace, and the obsession with weight is just a way to continue to keep them down. Sure you can be a CEO, but can you do it on 1,200 calories a day?