France Fights Anorexia By Banning Super Skinny Models

Models are a bit of an anomoly. They have seemingly perfect bodies, low body weight, and look amazing in every freakin’ thing they put on. Runway shows depend on these stick thin girls to flaunt designer collections on the catwalk in an effortless fashion, making all us “normal” people feel kind-of like poop and question our own level of attractiveness and body acceptance.

Sure these models are stunning to look at, but according to Reuters, President Francois Hollande of France is putting a stop to these anorexia inducing images by banning super skinny models from participating in Paris Fashion Week. The French government has announced, “”The activity of model is banned for any person whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is lower than levels proposed by health authorities and decreed by the ministers of health and labor.”

To give you a better idea of what that means, let’s say you’re 5’7″. You would have to weight at least 121lbs in order to walk a runway. Should any fashion house or modeling agent hire underweight models, they will be outed and fined with potential jail time should they violate the new law. Wow.

In addition to the ban on stick thin models, editorial photographs of models which have been retouched and altered to give a more commercial appearance, must have a disclaimer letting consumers know the photo has been manipulated.

Laws of this nature are still not in place in the UK or America whose fashion hubs, London and NYC, are home to their own major fashion weeks and modeling industries, but with this positive body image news breaking today, there’s hope we’ll see the same happen everywhere.

Do you support the ban on super skinny models?