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CBC Canada has a report on a law under consideration in France's lower house that would require models to meet a minimum body mass index standard.
The link between high fashion, body image and eating disorders on French catwalks may lead to a ban on super-skinny models.
Style-conscious France, with its fashion and luxury industries worth tens of billions of dollars, would join Italy, Spain and Israel, which all adopted laws against too-thin models on catwalks or in advertising campaigns in early 2013.
Under the proposed legislation, any model who wants to work has to have a body mass index (a type of height to weight ratio) of at least 18 and would be subject to regular weight checks.
The law would enforce fines of up to $79,000 [US] for any breaches, with up to six months in jail for any staff involved, French Socialist Party legislator Olivier Veran, who wrote the amendments, told newspaper Le Parisien.
The bill's amendments also propose penalties for anything made public that could be seen as encouraging extreme thinness, notably pro-anorexia websites that glorify unhealthy lifestyles and forums that encourage eating disorders.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is is a measure of relative size based on the mass and height of an individual.
c0lo's random thoughts:
- On one side: governments regulating the BMI... (large soda ban)... hmm?
- On the other side: how is this different from laws against public indecency, laws which are well-knitted into the fabric of westernized societies?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:57AM
Seems like blatant discrimination. So any models that have naturally low BMI are now unemployable in their chosen profession. I'm glad a bill like this would have no chance in hell of surviving legal challenges if it was passed in the U.S.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:07AM
Mmm... the same could be said about... let's see... US marines? If is it not the same, why not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:54AM
It's not the same for the military because they are the military, and have their own set of laws: the Uniform Code of Military Justice [wikipedia.org]. They even have their own court system that if you are convicted in of anything, the state you committed the crime in can try you for it again, effectively usurping the right to not being subject to double jeopardy [freeadvice.com].
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:55AM
Another try maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:55PM
It's as discriminating as requiring fire fighters to have two usable arms. The US Marines have minimum standards that must be met in order to join. Exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis for a waiver. However the Marines do not discriminate on looks or appearance (tatoos being the only exception). BMI has zero effect on a model's ability to model. It only affects what others perceive of them.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:52PM
> BMI has zero effect on a model's ability to model.
Oh no, it very much does. Currently fashion designers make clothes exclusively for six-foot-tall walking clotheshangers with resting bitchface. If this regulation passes they may start making clothes that actual women would look good in.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:47PM
Designers tailor the clothes to the specific model for a perfect fit. Even "six-foot-tall walking clotheshangers" have different bodies. But you are right, they can design the clothes on a mannequin of proportions that few humans match. Then force models to wear it without tailoring it. Then if a model wants to wear a (lazy) designer's clothes the'll have to shape their body to fit the ridiculous mannequin.
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @06:42PM
Except when it leads to their death [wikipedia.org], in which case the ability to model is exactly zero.
Isn't this a case of exploitation (employer asks/rewards the model for persisting in an unhealthy habit)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Thursday April 09 2015, @07:30PM
If you believe that these employees are being taken advantage of then you don't create a law to fine those employees for 79,000$. Do programmers die of no sleep and too much caffeine because their bosses overwork them? Maybe. Many bosses love workaholics. Who do you blame in that scenario? Obviously every human being on the planet can push themselves to extremes in to excel beyond their peers. Laws are often created to protect employees. Maybe this is no different, i'd have to think about it more. Social pressures and perception play the key role though which makes it slightly different.
But you are taking this a different direction. You asked about the difference between US Marines and Models.
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:30PM
That's why I found the story interesting - plenty of ground for thought in ethics' territory.
As I also find interesting your note that the law chooses to punish not the employer (as a rewarder), but the anorexia sufferer; thanks for that. Isn't it like punishing smokers and let the tobacco industry run ads unhindered? Sliding on this slope, laws to punish the possession and use of drugs exist, so punishing the sufferers it's not unheard of (interesting specific difference: drug addicts are dependent on using a substance, the pathological anorexics are dependent on not taking other substances - i.e. food)
I'm not arguing in any particular direction, just wanted to take the discussion in deeper details (this is why I ended with an opened question).
Things like "business necessity" vs "unintentional adverse impact" [wikipedia.org] (which doesn't apply for this case, the fashion industry can perfectly use normal models).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:58PM
Other food for thought [nytimes.com] (Adderall/Ritalin use in colleges). How long before the employers will tip the balance towards "firing you if you don't take drugs"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:44PM
Because certain people are better at doing the job than others, and if you're incapable of doing the job because of some physical conditions, of course they're not going to hire you. Super-skinny models are not incapable of doing the job or bad at it by any means.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @06:38PM
But by persisting in doing so, they put themselves in mortal danger [wikipedia.org]. Shouldn't the state take care?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 09 2015, @07:55PM
That's their choice and no one else's. Likewise, the drug war is also 100% intolerable. Also, some people are naturally super-skinny even if they don't necessarily want to be. Are they not allowed to model?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:50PM
Yes, but their employer encourages them to do so. Even more, as someone else noted [soylentnews.org], it is not the one that encourages them/exploits their unhealthy life style to be punished.
Speaking about war on drugs: where do you draw the line?
How would you like to live in a world in which not taking drugs would affect you chances to employment? You think it's impossible? It already [bu.edu] started [nytimes.com], in college campuses [clintonfoundation.org] (google for "adderall competitive advantage").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:48PM
Yes, but their employer encourages them to do so. Even more, as someone else noted, it is not the one that encourages them/exploits their unhealthy life style to be punished.
Guess what? There are jobs besides modeling, and maybe they aren't all great, but 'ugly' people don't have the choice of modeling to begin with. If super-skinny models are what people desire (and I just think that looking at bags of bones is nasty), then companies will want to hire models who are like that. I don't see how this problem can be solved, as taste is subjective. Do you force companies to hire/keep people who aren't attractive (as defined by the audience)? I don't think that will work in this case, given all the subjectivity involved, if I understand this issue correctly. Also, as I said, some people really are just super-skinny even without trying to be, so are they banned from modeling under these proposals? That is authoritarian, but that's what it looks like to me.
And this is also about censorship, not just stopping employers from encouraging people to be super-skinny. Government censorship is intolerable.
Speaking about war on drugs: where do you draw the line?
How would you like to live in a world in which not taking drugs would affect you chances to employment? You think it's impossible? It already started, in college campuses (google for "adderall competitive advantage").
The real problem is that universities and colleges are increasingly becoming corporate in nature. The focus should be on education, not about competition, money, or jobs. People that go there for the main purpose of getting a degree should not be there to begin with, as they do not value education. These adderall-obsessed fools are seemingly more interested in getting good grades on tests.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @10:51PM
I'd expect companies to behave ethical and not exploit a sickness of their employee to their advantage. If you let this gate open, where do you stop?
Well, I agree with you that is one of the many problems with the higher education.
However, looking at a larger landscape, companies (corporations or not) are dealing in a competitive environment.
How long 'til they'll start pushing employees to become sick by taking drugs to make them more "efficient"? (think comp-gaming industry)
In the context of nanny-state and the dumb war-on-drugs, where would the workforce protection line-in-the-sand be drawn? Or... can one hope the market will sort it out? (if positive, what mechanism could set a counterbalance to it?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 09 2015, @11:39PM
If you let this gate open, where do you stop?
These regulations would punish companies if they hired someone who is 'too thin', even if that person makes no effort to be so thin or made the effort of their own accord. I don't think that employers should force them to be unhealthy, but I'm not sure what the solution would be if that is what sells. The current proposals are too far-reaching, and the censorship is especially intolerable.
Software companies (for instance) will be fine if people don't force people to take drugs, but for modelling, which caters to people's subjective preferences, you've effectively outlawed a certain body type.
Or... can one hope the market will sort it out?
The market will do whatever makes money, so good luck with that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 10 2015, @12:44AM
I wasn't discussing the appropriateness of the law, I was looking into the problem "is there anything than a state need to do in regards with imposing unhealthy practices on employees?"? (one extreme is nanny-state - takes care about everything in regards with the citizen's protection. The other extreme is the absolute laissez-faire state: no intervention in the transactions between private parties. As both of the extreme are noxious, there has to be something in between. Maybe on a case by case basis, in which case we'd absolutely need to deal with the specific of the French half-assed law which punishes the sick persons)
So the absolute laizzes-faire state extreme is not acceptable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Funny) by wisnoskij on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:55AM
They could always get surgery and get some fat implants.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cwadge on Thursday April 09 2015, @07:34AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:44AM
This disproportionate representation of the naturally super-skinny as the ideal standard for beauty is leading impressionable teenagers to try and replicate that body image through starvation dieting. The online "Pro-anorexia" movement is promoting a lifestyle based around a mental illness and it's killing people through malnourishment and suicide.
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:35AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @11:21AM
What if it doesn't?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Thursday April 09 2015, @12:35PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:27PM
By your logic we should ban all depictions of fat people being happy in media... because this encourages people that they can be happy no matter what size they are.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Touché) by wantkitteh on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:00PM
S'not my logic, I didn't come up with the retarded idea of banning images of hawt gurls. ;)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:40PM
It's not killing anyone; they're choosing to kill themselves, if anything. But of course, blaming things other than the one who chose to take a certain course of action is popular; violent media, comic books, and other things like rock-and-roll music have all been blamed for the actions of certain people.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:57PM
Please read what I actually wrote - I understand the jump to conclusions here, this does on the surface appear to be a Columbine-style "Blame Marilyn bleargh!" moral panic, but this is a very different situation. The pro-ana movement seem to rather enjoy sharing and collecting pics of extremely skinny women, they call it "thinspiration". No amount of banning the future publication of skinny girl pics in another country will make the slightest difference to this activity and I never said it would.
And we're both right - the Pro-ana movement is killing people, it's own members are killing themselves. It's not a simple case of ignoring medical advice, shunning proper diet control and ignoring the very concept of exercise planning. When there's a community of young, impressionable people online advocating the above and recruiting among their peers, that's when you can start considering this a contagious variant of anorexia, itself a mental disorder.
While I agree that something needs to be done... this ain't it. I thought that was pretty obvious ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:42PM
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:27PM
*Nods* Sounds perfectly legit to me. Then again, the French have been distinctly crap when it comes to freedom of expression recently. It was perfectly legal for Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoons considered offensive by many (not all) Muslims, but then Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala gets slapped with $32k worth of fines [vice.com] for an offensive play on words on Je Suis Charlie... hmm.
I'm not making judgement on the validity of either the expression by Charlie Hebdo or Dieudonné, that's not really relevant here, but the French seem to have swung from "say what you like, offend whoever you like" to "you can only say what we say you can say" in the space of a single response to a terrorist incident. Terrorists win! Crap! :(
(Score: 1) by cwadge on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:35PM
Yeah, those pro-anorexia folks can be a real bitch. They came to my door this morning handing out leaflets and wouldn't take no for an answer. Until now I'd simply eaten until I was satisfied, but now I've got to subsist on nothing but a single peeled carrot and two Tic Tacs per day. If only the SJW's would save me from these monsters!
Sarcasm aside, I haven't seen any evidence of a "pro-anerexia movement" of any substance (though if we were talking about bulimia, there'd be a decent pun in there somewhere). Not any more substantial than the Flat Earth Society, anyway. Non-issue IMO. I have however experienced countless self-appointed SJW's who want to tell me how to think, how to live, who's important, who's not, and why. It's a weird hobby with too much dogma and not enough actual progress for my taste. Wanna help somebody? Buy a homeless guy a sandwich and a beer. Bored and self-righteous? Start a Twitter campaign about patriarchy.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday April 09 2015, @11:18PM
lol, I can almost imagine that... "Excuse me, sorry to bother you, we're here to talk to you about maybe donating to your local food bank? We were thinking, like, every scrap of food in the house except that lettuce? Would you like a free copy of French Vogue?" Saying pro-ana doesn't exist is just silly, 2 seconds of web searching will find references to it going back to 2001 - even Oprah covered it back then. And don't worry, I'm not SJWing or anything, people way smarter than me have been trying to figure out how to solve the problem for years without success.
Not that I hung out with her or anything, but a girl I went to school with got caught up in it, died of organ failure weighing 5 stone at age 23, that was like 10 years ago. Her parents blamed "some website" for the whole thing, didn't think anything of it for years until I heard the term pro-ana pop up again recently. It's kinda spooky, I remember we both started school on the same day in the same class, I can even remember what she was wearing... weird, I couldn't tell you a damn thing about anyone else from that day, but she stuck in my memory the whole time. Whatever, pro-ana as a community seems to be better than most at flying under the radar online if they've been doing it since the dial-up days, that's actually impressive.
(Score: 1) by cwadge on Friday April 10 2015, @08:21PM
As for anorexia in particular, I've known a couple of girls in my distant path with the same issue. Thankfully they were a tiny minority in the grand scheme of things, and if I had to analyze them in hindsight I'd have to surmise that peer pressure actually had very little to do with their body image issues. That is, their peers were telling them the opposite ("you need to eat more, you look like hell!). Sadly both girls I'm thinking of had suffered some childhood traumas which left them with a range of emotional problems, anorexia being only one of those. Now bulimia, on the other hand... having grown up in the inland empire of southern California, I saw a lot of that. They called it, "The Hollywood Diet". Need to lose some weight before a shoot? Laxatives. This is also the same region where plastic surgery is almost the norm for a particular crowd though, so there are some special circumstances. *sigh* Why can't people just be happy to be themselves? We as humans just love to fixate on meaningless tripe, don't we?
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:11PM
I have a friend who is like that. She can eat as much food as I can (someone who is into power lifting) yet doesn't gain any weight. I'm 5'9" and 260 lbs and for a workout (3 sets of 10 reps) bench 455lbs, squat 685, clean and jerk 365, and curl 185, etc., on the other hand she is 5'6" and about 105 lbs and can't gain any weight. She has been doing the beer and ice cream thing as well and it does help to keep her weight up. Her and her husband have had a hard time conceiving a child because of the problems with her thinness. That said there are very few people who have this problem but there are a lot of people who starve themselves to look like a sack of antlers.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 1) by cwadge on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:08PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:31AM
Which means that any models that are particularly short are now unemployable, as BMI (with an exponent of 2, despite the fact we live in a 3-dimensional world[*]) doesn't scale sensibly with height. So not only is this a bullshit law in principle, they'll be using a broken methodology to enforce it. Morbidly unhealthy lanky 2m models will be fine, but perfectly fit 1m50 models will be pariahs. Total nonsense. I.e. politicians/lawyers doing what they're best at.
[* an exponent of 3 doesn't work well either, as we don't scale equally in all directions (unlike lizards which from 8cm 3g geckos to 250cm 90kg kimodos follow m~l^3 remarkably closely). If you want a round number for honouring human somatotypes, 2.5's not far from reality.]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @06:43PM
Which means that any models that are particularly short are now unemployable, ...
Fashion models are all very tall, so nothing was lost.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:12AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @03:58AM
"Naturally" low BMI is not a problem. The numbers being discussed are classified by the World Health Organisation as crisis-level malnutrition. They are not discriminating against thin models - they are regulating an industry that damaging their health. Those same models will be working just without the exploitation.