Vogue’s “Health Initiative” and the Question of Health Aesthetics

In 2007, the Council of Fashion Designers of America began the “Health Initiative” which, according to Vogue, a contributor to the campaign, “encourages everyone…who works in fashion—editors, designers, photographers, and casting directors alike—to share the responsibility of fostering a climate where a vital and healthy physique is lauded and encouraged.” In her letter from the editor in American Vogue’s June 2012 issue, Anna Wintour outlines the goal of the project and clarifies that it was “not intended to tackle eating disorders” but rather has the following goals:

             
            -Create a healthier diet plan

-Promise to identify and support individuals who are vulnerable to eating disorders

-Establish a minimum age of employment for models

-Establish a model-mentorship program

-Request adequate breaks and access to nutritious food for models on shoots

Wintour signs off her letter with the hopeful suggestion that the “Health Initiative” and Vogue’s contribution by portraying healthy bodies “signals renewed efforts to make our ideal of beauty a healthy one.”

Given its status as the most influential fashion magazine, Vogue’s participation with the “Health Initiative” shows promise in reimagining the current problematic gendered body image norms in Western culture. Yet it also raises some concerns about social expectations of health aesthetics. What do we really think looks “healthy”?

Jonathan Newhouse, Condé Nast International chairman, sings the praises of the pact among the 19 Vogue editors to support healthy body images, stating, "Vogue believes that good health is beautiful.” Yet the magazine and its contemporary publications, the fashion industry, cosmetic surgery business, and the rise of Spanx sales as its creator, Sara Blakely, became the youngest woman on the Forbes Billionaire List in 2012 suggests that either health is not always considered the standard of beauty in today’s culture or that our ideas of healthiness are distorted by the images we see every day.

As feminist philosopher Susan Bordo observes in her 2003 article, “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies,” consumer culture has a direct influence on social norms of body image, sexual identity, and definitions of health. The images in magazines, on the internet, and on television prescribe an ideal for women and men that is advertised as a norm instead of fantasy, misinforming standards of beauty and health. Bordo offers statistics on the rise of cosmetic surgery, a case study on the increase of eating disorders in Fiji after the country was introduced to thin actresses on Western television, and testimonies from other professionals to illustrate the influence of pop culture images on conceptions of beauty, sexual identity, and health.

So what do we think is “healthy”? Is Vogue’s “Health Initiative” going to change society’s standards of beauty if society’s conceptions of health are skewed? As the debate over fat shaming versus preventing obesity wage on and the amount of press devoted to Crystal Renn’s changing dress size and health continues to grow, perhaps our society’s attitudes about the relationship between health and beauty are not as clearly definable or intuitive as we think they are, particularly for women whose bodies are disproportionately (mis)represented in pop culture.

In many ways, Vogue might not be helping with our understanding of healthiness. British Vogue’s cover features the captain of the All Star Anti-Healthy Body Image Team, Kate Moss, who famously claimed to live by the motto, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” suggesting that anorexia is a prescription for beauty. Meanwhile, supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Janice Dickinson have openly critiqued the magazine’s initiative for not reflecting the realities of those in power of beauty standards within the industry, from the consumer to Anna Wintour herself. Other writers and fashion insiders point out that as long as Photoshop is fair game, it does not matter how healthy the model is or looks: the image that gets published to the masses can still distort “healthiness.”

Fashionista graded every Vogue “Health Initiative” cover based on its health message, drawing attention to the campaign’s successes and opportunities for improvement. Their assessment, though brief, points to problems of social ideals of healthiness and beauty and to inconsistencies in recognizing healthy as beautiful. Vogue’s “Health Initiative” invites a real opportunity for changes within the fashion industry, yet it draws attention to the ample space for larger change for social standards of feminine beauty and wellbeing.