Does This Photo Make You Uncomfortable?

Here we have a paparazzi photo of Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whitely and an unnamed boney friend (probably a fellow model) splitting a salad at Bar Pitti in New York’s West Village. One or both of them is washing it down with a diet Coke. If I had draw you a picture of anorexia, it would be pretty close to this. Is this a good image for people to see?

On the one hand, it shows the deprivation models put themselves through to be thin enough to model, belying models and actresses’ constant assertions that they eat healthy and normal, or even decadent, diets. For instance, Hungtington-Whitely told Maxim this past month that “eating” is her guilty pleasure. “I just don’t stop doing it,” she said. “I love eating really bad, bad, things, like roast dinners and chocolate bread and butter pudding.” And salads and diet Coke.

On the other hand, if either woman is actually suffering from an eating disorder, calling attention to it like I am doing now is only going to make matters worse. Everything I’ve read about eating disorders says that making an issue out of how little someone’s eating is not going to help them at all. So basically, I think that this image is good for the general public, but bad for the women in it. Especially the one on the right. I worry in her general direction. I’m probably only contributing to the problem, but I think these things need to be discussed.

Then again, maybe there were saving up room so each of them could have a huge slice of chocolate cheesecake for dessert, and all this worry is over nothing. That’s not a nutritionally complete meal, but everyone needs a crap meal once in a while, right? For my own peace of mind, I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s what they are doing here. But I’m probably wrong. What say you, Internet?