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posted by on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the freedom-fat dept.

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?
 
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:52PM (#168400)

    > 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.

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  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:47PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:47PM (#168417)

    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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