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Children Fit to be Models?
By admins | September 1, 2009
As some of you know, children are used as models for fitting clothes. The child must be a perfect shape and weight according to the childrens-wear company that’s hiring them. When picking a child fit model, every child must go through the “go-see” process. “Go-see” plainly means what it says: children “go” to the kids-wear company and the people in charge at the company “see” the child to decide if they’re the right fit for them, literally. This situation is nerve-wrecking, frightful, and could possibly lead to future insecurities for a child. The following is a personal story from one of our writers.
As a technical designer myself, I’ve been through some “go-sees” where I have literally covered the poor child’s ears from harsh words said by my very unprofessional and insensitive employers. It is mind blowing that in a country where almost 10 million girls have eating disorders; people would publicly critique a child’s shape and pass it off as part of the “job”. For example, my Korean manager will yell out, “Her butt too big for us!” not thinking that this child understands a word, when actually this child can speaks better English than her! The salesperson will loudly whisper, “Isn’t she too short and wide?!” When she should probably be asking herself the same question! The president of the company will clearly have a face of disgust or disapproval right in front of the child’s teary eyes! According to the Children’s National Medical Center, “girls’ with concerns about their own weight and about how they appear to others are significantly related to weight control behavior.” With all these negative comments, I wonder if these children will ever come out confident of their bodies and themselves no matter what they look like later in life.
These children get abused from all fronts because it’s not only the fashion industry that reminds them that they must fit a certain mold, it’s also their parents that are reinforcing this idea of “perfection”. I’ve sat through one fitting where Cannie, a 5-year-old girl, ran to her mother scared as ever, and cried, “I hate these people! I wanna go home!” She hid under her mother’s coat and refused to move while hysterically wailing. Her mother did everything from sweet-talking to her child, promising her candy and a new dress, to pleading with her to get out before she embarrassed herself. Our staff said it was okay, and that she should maybe come back at another time, just to be polite. But the mother was as stubborn as her daughter, and started to scream at her daughter “Why can’t you be skinny like your friends? You need to lose some weight and stop eating so much!!” At this point, the whole office was concerned for the child and after a few exhausting minutes Cannie and her mother finally left.
For the next month, I thought about that child because I couldn’t understand how any child could endure such destructive verbal abuse without being effected, especially from someone they trust and love so much. Mothers and daughters have particularly had a long history with unhealthy battles about weight and appearance. Sadly, it is not uncommon for mothers to project their own body image insecurities onto their daughters. Parents should be the ones protecting their children from harm, not adding to their insecurities. Children look to their parents for self-approval and guidance, but the only guidance that Cannie was getting was to be a size 0 when she grew up! There is an excellent book on this subject called Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters which provides the following startling fact. In a survey more then half of American women 18 to 25 would prefer to be run over by a truck or die young, then be fat! I wonder what Cannie’s mother would think of that. Poor Cannie!
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Topics: children's wear, fashion industry | 24 Comments » 
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September 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 am
So terrible, it makes you wonder why anyone would let their child enter the business, be it modeling, acting or whatever.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:28 am
All children are beautiful and i feel their beauty lies in the fact that they are chubby. I mean who can resist the appled cheeks, dimpled elbows and knees.! And to make kids lose weight just so some next random company can approve of them is a derogatory and frankly inhuman thing to do! here’s to all the Cannies out there : u guys are lovely, beautiful and adorable just the way you are. And dont let anybody make you feel otherwise.!
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The insecurities obviously start with the mothers whose own lack of self worth is now played out on the next generation. How profoundly sad. I feel the same way about all these children on reality shows and those horrific pageants. The mothers are living through their children’s experiences. There ought to be a law!
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
That sucks but I’m not surprised one bit. I have heard worse and seen technical designers pinch a childs fat hard enough to leave a mark and yell at a child that they are costing them time and money because they have become to fat! Its awful.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Ack. That’s really freaking sad. I always felt sorry for the kids who were pageant or child actors… But never really thought about the child models… So sad! We have a coworker whose wife is bringing their kid to these modeling gigs and I always feel weird knowing that.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:01 am
It’s so true about mothers passing it on to their daughters. I had a friend when I was a child who was always a bigger girl – she wasn’t fat, and the girl exercised all the damn time, that’s just how she was built. Her mother started putting her on diet pills when she was ten years old! Ten years old, how effed up is that. I still keep in touch with her and her mother hasn’t changed her ways, last year she put my friend’s younger sister (5-6? maybe 7?) into a beauty pageant, and then the sister was devastated when she didn’t win. Way to teach your children to feel good about themselves and feel valued for more than their looks!
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
This is so disappointing to read, on so many levels. It kills me that we women set up the next generation as such…
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
The pressure to be thin has gotten out of control when children have to worry about their weight.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I find that to be ridiculously tragic. What kind of self images is that poor little girl and others put in that situation going to grow up with?
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
fashion or entertainment business isnt a nice business. im not saying that these things are okay, but people need to be aware of the reality of the situations that they are putting themselves in.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
This just breaks my heart, of course it hits so close to home as well. The negative comments stay with little girls forever.
September 5th, 2009 at 12:14 am
[...] 39th and Broadway – – The horrific treatment of young girls working behind the scenes in the fashion industry! [...]
September 7th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
This is so sad. My personal opinion is not to put my son into this type of environment until he is secure with himself and mature enough to handle the rejection. Being a model is a tough business that is manly based on looks. People can be so rude and judgemental anyway, this just takes it to another level. The poor children that are being subjected to this. So, so sad.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
i’m glad i don’t design childrens wear or i would have been a witness to this. this is awful but somehow not surprising. sounds like toddlers and tiaras but in a different situation. mothers subject their daughters to this rubbish and i blame it entirely on the parents who allow people to say things like that to their child, and who say the same things themselves.
with my fittings at parsons for senior thesis though, it’s interesting too how quickly we judge models who come in. we had a go-see recently to choose our fit models, and minds were made up in 3 minutes. models would tell us they’ve worked hard to loose some pounds over the summer. some of them looked like they really need a grilled cheese sandwich. it was awful. i’m glad my class picked 3 models who looked healthy instead of boney.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Wow this is so sad and an eye opener for me. I didn’t realize that even children were scrutinized so harshly, but I guess this is where it all begins. This is why we have so many young girls plagued with body image issues and would go to any extreme to fit into what society has said is what is beautiful. We have such a great opportunity in this vast technology age to be able to be heard and to redefine what beauty is and to put pressure on those who once pressured us to fit into their tiny little mold.
~Yanique
http://www.styleityou.com
September 8th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I really wish that the fashion / beauty industry focused more on the appreciation of diversity and individual beauty especially when it comes to children and young girls who are so impressionable.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
How awful! I was a fit model for a couple months when I was 11 or 12 for a pretty big company & they never said anything like that to me. That’s probably because I didn’t do a a “go-see” since I knew the designers. All I remember is being forced to stand there bored out of my mind for hours while people tugged at me and took notes. But the pay for an 11 yr old was amazing :)
May 14th, 2010 at 11:46 am
It is a horrible, bitchy industry. Imagine being the parent of the child being insulted?
There’d be a handbag round the head for sure.