According to the magazine, it is the personality that counts, and Janice Breen Burns writing in The Age comments that "it plugs into the loud global protest against exploitive modelling industries that, among other dangerous practices, allow and enable their most ambitious and vulnerable girls to self-starve and over-exercise."
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-different-double-standard-20091008-golk.html
Janice Breen Burns goes further by suggesting that it may not be quite as much of a change as first indicated in that:
"..women now have 'Jessica Average', presented as an 'attainable' ideal. In fact, Ms Average, although she is by no means a professional model, is just as carefully cast."
And further suggested, "The sub-text is subtle: "Here's Jess. She's real and slim and young and gorgeous. You're real too. Why aren't you slim and young and gorgeous?"
But iconic German fashion designer Karl Lagerfield disagrees and says the world of fashion is about 'dreams and illusions'. He referred to the Brigitte move as 'absurd'.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26197025-23109,00.html
Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a Baptist minister, says that as Lagerfield says the 'ideal' is promoted in fashion, he says that in almost any activity the 'ideal' gets publicised.
The Bible too has a lot to say on the 'ideal'. M V Tronson therefore began to consider what might 'a family' perceive to be as the 'ideal' local church?
The only churches across Australia that show continual and undeniable growth are these centres that promote themselves as the be-all and end-all for every member of the family. This model 'ideal' of the local church has programs for every member of the family. We all desire the 'near-impossible'.
"A colleague on the Gold Coast, the Reverend Russell Hinds, has a penchant in growing churches from scratch. He has achieved this on several occasions in his 30 years of ministry and named his latest church 'The Gold Coast Christian Family' Church," M V Tronson explained. "Herein lies the evidence of his successful strategy."
On three occasions, for example, Russell Hinds has overseen the constructing of the church multi-purpose building over a long weekend with tradespeople coming from across the nation to see it all happen.
While the world of fashion argues back and forth as to whether they should be about 'the ideal', the Christian churches that are growing have their 'ideal' set firmly in the family arena in spite of a statistical increase in single households and single families.
In other words, these churches too, have significant numbers from single households or who are single parents. These people aspire to an 'ideal' of which they can identify.
M V Tronson says, although the core message of the New Testament is Salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, the New Testament also shouts from the rooftops a philosophy of the 'ideal'.
Next time you're visiting one of these growing churches, says M V Tronson, take a careful look at how they promote the 'ideal' and at the same time, look a little more closely at how advertisers promote products.