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Ex-Plus-Sized Model's Film on 'Dangerous' Fashion Standards Nearly Finished

By Chloe Riley | August 4, 2014 7:36am
Model Diet
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Nikki Muffoletto

DOWNTOWN — When former model Stephanie Unger was working in Milan, she remembered times where she'd watch other models pass out from not eating enough.  

Unger, who was working on a degree in nutrition, was living in Milan and getting regular work as a print, commercial and runway model a career that helped her pay her way through college. However, at one point during that career which spanned 12 years Unger struggled with her own eating disorder, which left her weighing 105 pounds at 5-foot-8. 

Now a nutritional manager, Unger talks about her experience in the modeling world in the film "Model Diet" — former plus-sized model Nikki Muffoletto's documentary spotlighting what it claims are unhealthy standards within the fashion industry. 

  Former model Nikki Muffoletto is close to finishing her film "Model Diet," a   documentary   which examines standards within the fashion industry.
Model Diet
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"I became kind of fixated on gaining or losing my weight, kind of seeing how far I could go," said Unger, 26, who now weighs closer to 130 pounds. "The reason I wanted to be a part of the documentary is to show others who might be struggling with eating and body image that they're not alone and it can be overcome."

Four years ago, after losing almost 40 pounds to become a personal trainer, redheaded print model Muffoletto found that at 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, she was considered too large to work in the plus-size industry where a 12/14 dress size was the standard.

Her situation led her to the idea for "Model Diet." Initially, Muffoletto planned to chronicle her own weight loss via diet and exercise as a way of illustrating just how unhealthy that kind of loss would be for her body.

But after discovering she was pregnant in November, Muffoletto recruited another model to take her place and shifted the focus of the film to be more about models speaking out about their experiences within the fashion industry. 

"Now that I've gone in the direction I’ve gone, I've just been getting all these emails of support. It's become more of a positive thing people are getting behind, whereas before it was seen as too extreme and too dangerous," Muffoletto said. 

The documentary is almost complete — Muffoletto has created another Kickstarter fundraising campaign, this time to raise $2,500 to help with postproduction on the 60-minute film. 

Muffoletto, who previously lived in Pilsen, has since moved with her husband to Albany Park and has given birth to their son Wesley, now almost a month old.

She said she's happy with the film, which she hopes to complete by next April.

"I love the direction it went in. I feel like it's became more about this impossible standard and how us women are looking at ourselves. And how it affects us as a society," Muffoletto said.   

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