Sports Illustrated has featured its first-ever “plus-sized” model in their recent swimsuit issue, which was released in early February.
With featured models such as Benhati Prinsloo, Chrissy Teigen, Heidi Klum, and Adriana Lima, Sports Illustrated often shows the stick-thin image of perceived beautiful girls. When the magazine announced the release of their first curvy model to be in the issue, people expected more than what was found in the pages.
Robyn Lawley, a size 12, appeared in the rookie section of SI, not even in the swimsuit section of the issue. Stirring up controversy online, people were outraged and confused with the so-called “plus-sized” model. What this magazine is calling big leaves 67 percent of women in America feeling like whales, according to The Huffington Post; the national average women’s size is a 14.
“She sort of embodies the classic SI girl — she’s interesting, she’s beautiful, she has an incredible body, and I felt that she would make a great addition to the issue,” said an SI assistant managing editor, MJ Day, in a press conference. “It was simple as that.”
The release of the swimsuit edition came around the same time as a new campaign from Always. This year, the Super Bowl featured an ad entitled “Like A Girl.” The commercial has young girls showing off their strength. The goal of the commercial, as said by Always, is to illustrate the way girls see their strengths before being affected by society’s thoughts of what doing things “like a girl” would look like. The girls were told to “run like a girl” and “jump like a girl”, and they exhibited showing that they were strong and fast.
In the world of modeling, most women will average at a size 2, according to The Huffington Post. In 2012, according to a press release, Vogue began rejecting models that were “too thin,” concerned with the body image they were presenting their large international reading audience. When looking for models under 16 years old, Vogue has become particularly careful when selecting them, making sure not to encourage the under-eating and binging that can come with the modeling industry.
