Fast fashion is like Fast food

I worked in the export industry for a decade and as part of my job, I had to travel overseas frequently and that gave me the opportunity to shop at brands that were not available in my country at the time. I used to love shopping at Zara and H&M and Primark, and most of these shopping sprees ended with me grabbing a quick meal at Mc Donald’s afterwards. It gave me a high to have a wardrobe full of trendy cheap fashion that I could wear a couple of times most and easily throw away. While I was unconsciously adding to the landfills with my disposable junk, I was equally damaging my body that became quite apparent since I put on a lot of weight thanks to all that junk food.

I cannot describe how guilty I feel about that sinful part of my life now. I have grown older, and hopefully wiser, since then. While the increased level of cholesterol and hypothyroidism warned me of my unhealthy food habits and forced me to change them, the knowledge of unhealthy fashion took a lot of conscious studies to become aware of. You may not realise it (who wants to give up on convenience and low costs of easily available trends after all! ) but fast fashion is equally dangerous. And it is my attempt to create awareness about the same in my own small way.

A lot of us who live consciously these days avoid fast food. Why? Because we have realised the harm it causes to our health in the long run. Our awareness and better knowledge of nutrition today has helped us understand the ill effects of saturated fats and empty calories. Therefore, we realise that fast does not necessarily mean nutrition and the love that goes into making food with care and attention adds to its nutrition value.

The same is true of fashion.

Fast fashion is as dangerous for the health of our planet thus resulting in poor health of future generations, because if earth’s natural resources are depleted, it impacts human health too.

Just as using harmful ingredients used in fast food effects our body, the use of polyester and synthetic materials and chemical processes in producing fast fashion is toxic to the earth.

Just as fast food is cheap, so is fast fashion and leads to addiction without thinking. It makes you think that you are getting value for your money but the truth is that you just end up adding junk to your body and junk to the landfills.

Livia Firth put it best when she said: "Fast Fashion is like fast food, after the sugar rush it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth"

The Slow fashion movement on the other hand, endorses processes that involve care and love.

So while you are conscious of what you put inside your body, you need to be equally conscious of what you put ON your body too.

I hope this article has at the very least, given you some ‘food’ for thought! :)