Food in fashion modelling: Eating as an aesthetic and moral practice

Abstract

This paper investigates the relation between food, the body and morality in fashion modelling. More than has been recognized so far, eating is a continuous form of body work that is decidedly essential to aesthetic labour. Against the backdrop of slender aesthetics, models are purposefully socialized into remaining or becoming slender, through food beliefs inducing them to eat in specific ways. Food is classified into good and bad categories, and believed to affect male and female bodies differently. But other than to aesthetics or gender, considering ‘what (not) to eat’ links to morality, enabling models to draw symbolic boundaries between themselves and others. These show two main moral imperatives: models should eat controlled and effortlessly. Solving this moral paradox, models normalize and conceal controlled eating. Ultimately, the fashion modelling food system preoccupies models with self-surveillance and reinforces power inequalities between models and other professionals.