Soaring In Fashion and Style
The Fashion Edition
The Fashion Edition
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
The Spark | Ignite/Connect/Achieve<br />
www.thesparkng.com<br />
Vital Signs<br />
Your Body :<br />
Your Business<br />
Body image <strong>and</strong> selfesteem<br />
issues are known<br />
to be causes of depression<br />
amongst young people.<br />
This is made worse by the<br />
pressure of consumerism<br />
<strong>and</strong> a desire to own the<br />
latest fashion pieces. Lala<br />
is a plus-size model <strong>and</strong><br />
body-positive activist. <strong>In</strong><br />
this article, she illuminates<br />
some issues associated with<br />
the pressures of the fashion<br />
industry.<br />
By Lala Tshabalala<br />
The fashion industry puts pressure on people’s mental health<br />
by constantly selling this idea that we are not good enough.<br />
Between all the body st<strong>and</strong>ards, beauty st<strong>and</strong>ards, <strong>and</strong> body<br />
trends, no one can keep up. Even the people that we are being<br />
convinced to look like don’t really look that way. After Photoshop<br />
<strong>and</strong> all those filters, what we see is just someone’s imagination.<br />
I relate to this syndrome of wanting to fit in because while growing<br />
up, my self-esteem problem was always related to body image. I<br />
was the chubby girl in primary school with big breasts <strong>and</strong> a big<br />
butt amongst predominantly white children who didn’t look like<br />
10<br />
@thesparkng
Change language