The other evening I was dress shopping online at several different sites. And what I noticed as I scrolled through each of the high end stores was that throughout the hundreds of photos of women in dresses, every so often large women were shown. Mind you, not the standard “plus” sized woman… many of the women shown would be considered greater than.

It’s important to note that I grew up in a generation where Kate Moss was told to lose weight… and plus sized models didn’t become a thing until I was in my late 20s. …And by plus, I mean, they were a size 8-10. Today’s models are on an entirely new scale- literally.

Now, I, myself am by no means small…however, nor am I plus sized. But as I was scrolling to look at the dresses, all I could imagine was myself in the gowns that the greater than sized women were wearing – therefore, emphatically dissuading me from purchasing any of them.

I suppose the flip side could be true- I certainly wouldn’t buy a dress that I see looks amazing on a twig and think it would look as good on me…. but I did feel more strongly against the images of the largest of size women. Again, not because they didn’t look pretty in the gowns, nor do I have anything against plus plus sized women. What I felt was that I could see myself, with my face superimposed on the plus sized model’s face and thought, “well, I can’t wear that” To clarify, perhaps keep the models under a size 18… that’s all I’m saying.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing to have various sized models regularly appearing throughout ads for clothing- absolutely. …But for women with body image concerns- which I google is 97% of the female population, I imagine its not exactly helping the sales.