The next ethical problem is that the type of models, influencers, and bloggers who are being used are perpetuating a negative body image for women. As discussed earlier, social media has a strong influence over women and their buying habits, but also in regards to body image, “the promotion of unrealistic standards of beauty and thinness from the sociocultural context has been highlighted as one of the most prominent contributing factors” for eating disorders (Rodgers). A brand’s choice in models not only influences the consumer in regards to what they should buy, but also in regards to how they should look. Brands have “pushed the aesthetic for models toward extreme whiteness and thinness as a conservative strategy to maintain viewers’ attention” (Sadre-Orafai). This is wrong because brands are knowingly choosing extremely thin models in order to “fit” an aesthetic even if they know that the model’s weight is unhealthy. It was found that among fashion models “18% of professional models reported restriction, 31% reported nonpurging behavior including fasting in the past month, and up to 60% reported bulimic episodes in the previous 3 months” in regards to their eating and dieting habits (Rodgers). By having models with such unhealthy habits in the spotlight, especially through social media as forms of advertisements, young girls are easily influenced and convinced that they are supposed to be as skinny as the models. Models are being transformed into media themselves, which can be seen through the concept of bloggers and ‘Instagram Models’ and adds to the fact that “the industry is not about objective numbers but rather the plasticity of appearances” (Sadre-Orafai). The problem with appearance has gotten so bad that “the reach of fashion images and their detrimental effects on consumers through the portrayal of unrealistic body shapes, a number of legislative efforts have emerged in several countries in recent years aiming to protect models from these pressures encouraging extreme thinness” (Rodgers). This problem could be looked at as a deontic wrong since encouraging extreme thinness is universally wrong and results in the pressure to resort to eating disorders to maintain this small body weight. A potential counter-argument is addressed in Rodger’s study concerning extreme thinness in the fashion industry saying that today data concerning eating disorders in modes is “scarce” (Rodgers). However, since “Instagram models” and influencers are not regulated as actual models, their body weights and sizes do not need to be reported, thus suggesting that there still is a problem.
