Hit & Run : Reason.com: Models who don't meet certain government-imposed weight requirements have been banned from French runways and advertisements, under a new law approved by the French parliament Friday. Modeling agencies and others who employ these models could be fined €75,000 or face six months in prison.
6 comments:
This is a very tricky topic because I agree that the world at large needs to examine not only our standards of beauty but also why we feel the need to attach so much value to physical appearance in the first place. However, as this article suggests, this could start to border on skinny shaming and it is still an example of a society and a government trying to control women's bodies. I understand why they took this step in an attempt to hopefully discourage issues of body image and eating disorders but it is really just another limitation in the strive for socially validated 'perfection.' Why can't we all just preach 'health?' Whatever that may mean for each individual because everybody's body needs different things and looks different! How can we have any standards when every body operates according to its own unique genetic code? A good step would be to move away from labels and classifications and to stop approaching this issue with such broad strokes.
I understand and appreciate that the French government trying to discourage anorexia in the modeling industry but I’m not quite sure that this is the way to do that. I am one of those people that are just naturally skinny and “underweight” according to the government standards, and I have no way to change that. I mostly eat junk food and fast food, but do not gain weight because of my metabolism. Some people just have that happen, and so if any models are like me, this could be concerning for their job security. As the model in the article stated, she is four pounds from being illegal to hire, and she is nowhere near the anorexic state. Also the fact that a BMI of 30 is considered obese is utterly ridiculous. I think people are taking body issues much too far. As long as a person is okay with what they look like, no one else should give a shit.
This is the darkest report I have seen on this “anti-thin” campaign that has been going on for some time now. When I first heard about it, it was a revolutionary idea that could save the lives of many models with eating disorders and non-model women everywhere who do horribly unhealthy things to their bodies in order to achieve “ultimate thinness”. And it is a real problem that had been occurring in this industry for a very long time. While I do think the article has a very negative take on the solution to the issue, I do agree on the poor scientific calculation of BMI. For myself, I have a slightly higher BMI because I am 5’-3” and a little more muscly than your average 5’-3” female. While this doesn’t put me in the obese zone, it is something that shows not every measurement taken could be definitive. I guess they could do a percent body fat content, but that could also lead to issues as some people have so little while also being healthy.
I can see how this might seem like an okay idea from first glance, but I definitely don't think that this is the best way to go about addressing this issue. Assigning a certain threshold of BMI that all models have to fit into is probably just as dangerous as the anorexic culture that is perpetuated by "ultra-thin" models that the article speaks of. I appreciate the sentiment, as eating disorders are a very real issue that unfortunately generally go untreated because of complicated health insurance terms relating to them as well as lack of public knowledge on the problem. Additionally, I do think that some of the additional terms mentioned at the end of the article are very interesting. I do like the ban on pro-anorexic style websites, because I find those incredibly dangerous and detrimental. If you've ever taken a look at a "pro-ana" website, you'll know how terrifying the content is, and I don't see any reason why creators of those websites shouldn't be punished, however many of the people that create them have eating disorders themselves, and would likely be triggered by the fact that they are not able to use that type of content.
When I first saw the article I thought France was taking a really good step to stop the perpetuation of having only the skinniest women be models, but now I see that they are going about it kind of wrong. They are classifying women based on a system that is not exact for all people. There are so many body types in this world. Some women can be extremely skinny naturally because they just have an extremely high metabolism or just are born that way. Take Twiggy for example, she was skinny without an eating disorder and she made the idea of skinny models popular because of her build. Over the years this has lead to women starving themselves and getting eating and or exercising disorders to make themselves as skinny as possible. This is the issue that needs to be fixed, and this is what the law is trying to do. But to make it so people with disorders cannot have a job because of their disorder is also really not cool. They need help, not unemployment. There should be a law that all models, whether they have a disorder or not, must have a therapist to help them to deal with the pressure of always being skinny and to help them if they start having a disorder.
Like many of the other commenters, I understand what the French government is trying to accomplish here, but in my opinion they are seriously missing the mark. For decades diverse representation within the modeling industry has been a huge issue. Besides concerns about the weight of models, gender and race based discrimination have also been serious issues in the industry, but I don’t think this law is setting the fashion world on a path to true reform. Some people are naturally underweight in the same way that others are naturally overweight and a diverse industry would include a fair amount off both as opposed to a government imposed standard of what average is.
I do think that the government is right to explore ways of stop the rampant spread of eating disorders amongst models, which are caused by the current dangerous standards for what a model’s body ought to look like. In fact, the industry should be more proactive in its own reform, however this law definitely isn’t the way.
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