Does This Model Need to Lose 40 Pounds? The Fashion Industry Says Yes (We Say No Way!)
Model Nikki Muffoletto has set out to lose 40 pounds in three months…on camera.
When Nikki Muffoletto dropped 40 pounds, 90 percent of her clients dropped her. In order to work again, the plus-size-model-turned-personal-trainer was told that she had two choices: gain the weight back and work the plus-size circuit again or shed another 40 pounds and become a “straight-sized” model. Talk about a predicament! Currently, Muffoletto stands at 5’10 and is a size 8.
Out of these two less-than-stellar options, Muffoletto opted for the latter, but she’s not going down (literally) without a fight. The 30-year-old, who has posed for Lane Bryant, Kohl’s, and Fashion Bug, is raising funds via Kickstarter to create a documentary of her weight loss. Working with doctors and a nutritionist, she aims to find out if it’s possible to reach measurements of 34-24-34 (around a size 2) in a healthy way…in three months.
Is it risky? Sure, but Muffoletto has said that “in order to provoke change, you have to be willing to do the things that people think are crazy.”
She wrote on her Kickstarter page, “I have personally seen in my 12 years of modeling girl after girl come in at a size 6 and leave at a size 0 with an eating disorder…I want to open the world of modeling so everyday people can see that a majority of models are not built this thin. A large percentage of models go to extremes to get down to a miniscule size.”
And who could forget French model Isabelle Caro, who died in November 2010 due to anorexia-related complications. She was 28 years old. Three years before her untimely death, she posed for an anti-anorexia ad campaign weighing only 59 pounds.
Muffoletto follows in the footsteps of women like Healthy is the New Skinny‘s Katie Halchishick, who hope to end the industry’s obsession with emaciated models. As Muffoletto asks, “Wouldn’t it be great to have more Kate Upton’s in the industry?” Yes, yes it would be.
Diana Denza is BettyConfidential’s contributing editor.








