Event - Dove Model Speaks

I went to the speech given by Stacy Nadeau, former member of the Dove 6 (who appeared on the original billboard in Times Square) and current traveling speaker.  The talk mainly focused on women's body image and how the media distorts it.  I learned that the image is so distorted that doctors have said most of the images are actually humanly impossible to achieve - for example, no human can possibly have necks as long and thin as several models are photoshopped to have; the head would be unable to be properly supported.  Although this taught me exactly how unattainable model perfection is (even for the models themselves), I still did not learn why these particular standards were set in the first place.  In fact, I'm not sure anyone consciously knows how they came about besides general societal notions (for example, thin = ability to eat healthy and healthy = expensive organic food, therefore thin = wealthy and wealth = power = beauty).
The campaign itself was very inspirational for me as someone who has suffered from low self-esteem based on my body for many years, though I'd be lying if I thought that was going to change overnight.  However, I really think that despite flaws here and there ("you need beauty products to be socially acceptable" mentalities that several of y'all have mentioned in class) it is definitely a step in the right direction.  For example, the campaign saved the life of a severely anorexic girl who was suffering, in part, due to media bombardment of really thin women.  When she saw how comfortable the more realistically sized models were, she decided that her illness should not get to win nor society define her as beautiful based on measurements.  There are some things that I think Dove could incorporate in the future to have a more extensive message.  For example, the speaker was the largest model of the original six, but she is a self-professed size 10-12.  While these sizes may not be considered "thin," I do not think they are really very large either; in fact, today they are average or close to it.  I'm interested to see if Dove would incorporate any larger women (plus-sized for lack of better terminology) in their campaign to drive home the point that beauty is not determined by size.  Also, the campaign includes members of racial minorities, but they are at a lesser ratio than their white counterparts and tend to be of a lighter "darkness." I would like to see women with darker skin used as well because I personally believe that all skin tones are beautiful and thus deserve more coverage.