In Brazil, a Trend Away From Super-Young Models

After Anorexic Death, Fashion Week Closes Catwalk to Those Under 16
This article, touching upon on of my favorite subjects about Brazil: beauty, talks about what one agency and one special modeling event are doing to combat the effects that are taking a lethal toll on young models.
Every year Sao Paulo holds a fashion week. Like the Fashion Week in New York it showcases the new and upcoming designers and it also boosts unknown models to top model status.
In Brazil, the article emphasizes, the little boys dream of becoming soccer players while the girls have their hearts set on being models. The sooner they can get into the business the better. Many of the smaller, more poverty ridden cities located through out the state of Sao Paulo are made of families that are more than willing to send their children away in search of happier, healthier, and wealthier lives. Before Fashion Week put this age limit on its models, it was common for 13 year olds to be starting their road to success by moving to the big city and being housed by their agency with a couple other aspiring 13-year-old models. In the last couple weeks the fashion industry has been forced to face the repercussions with the anorexic deaths of six young models.
They believe that taking underdeveloped children, too quickly, from their homes and making them live with strangers in a big city aren’t necessarily recipes for success. Therefore, they’ve implemented the 16-year-old criteria for Fashion Week. The homes that the young models go and live in are now home to nutritionists and life coaches as well.
The most honest line in the article was
"All the girls I grew up with wanted to be models, just like all the boys wanted to be soccer players."
That’s the way it is in Brazil. Not saying that little girls shouldn’t want to be models, who wouldn’t, but what family would allow their 13 year old to go do it? Maybe it just wasn’t the way I was raised, but it just doesn’t seem right. In fact it seems greedy and wrong.