Summary of Roberta Seid Too Close to the Bone

Alex Runyon

Mrs. Mcdermott-Sipe

ACP Advanced W131

5 September 2017

Roberta Seid, “Too Close to the Bone” Summary

In the article, “Too close to the Bone”, by Roberta Seid, she argues how the fashion industry has come up with an ideal body type and how people are following this body type as if it were a religion with strict beliefs. Seid states in her article that America has idolized this skeletal-esque body and that we, Americans, view it as the standard of beauty. Throughout the article, Seid explains how women, and men as well, are going to extreme measures to achieve this look through starvation and restriction. Due to that reason, Seid warns americans to stop.

Seid begins describing how the fashion industry has had a tremendous impact on the thinness epidemic. As Seid goes on in her article, she explains on how people in today's society are affected not so much by fashion industries alone, but are affected by modern culture and the standards that it has set for beauty in both men and women. People are now adopting dangerous eating habits to reach that standard of beauty.

From the sixteenth to 19th century, the female standard of beauty was viewed to be filled out and plump. However, this way of thinking ended post World-War II when the term “fatphobia” surfaced and most americans had resisted eating any sort of fat because advertisement had brainwashed them into believing that if they did, then they were going to gain weight. The philosophy of thinness being equivalent to being healthy was put into people's minds and dangerous eating habits began surfacing(i.e. starvation, restricting).

Seid goes on to discuss how diets and weight loss are directed towards women more than men and how women are “against there own biologies to meet the standard.”(P.12. P. 171). It is stated in the article that fashion is focusing more on the body, thus putting more pressure on individuals to be thin. Seid makes the statement, that when men and women follow fashions standard for beauty, they are, “bowing