France bans super-skinny models and threatens employers with fines and jail in anorexia crackdown

Updated

France's lower house of parliament has passed a law that bans the use of excessively thin fashion models and imposes possible jail sentences on companies that hire them.

The move by France, with its fashion and luxury industries worth tens of billions of euros, comes after a similar ban by Israel in 2013, while other countries, like Italy and Spain, rely on voluntary codes of conduct to protect models.

It is part of a wider move against anorexia in France by president Francois Hollande's government, where up to 40,000 people — mostly girls and women — suffer from the condition.

The law bans the use of any model whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is lower than levels approved by health authorities.

"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 labour," the legislation said.

The lawmaker behind the bill previously said models would have to present a medical certificate showing a BMI of at least 18, about 55 kg for a height of 1.75 metres, before being hired for a job and for a few weeks afterwards.

MPs also made it illegal to condone anorexia and said any re-touched photo that alters the bodily appearance of a model for commercial purposes must carry a message stating it had been manipulated.

The law, voted through the lower house of parliament by Mr Hollande's Socialist majority despite opposition by conservative parliamentarians, envisages imprisonment of up to six months and a fine of 75,000 euros ($107,820) for any agency contravening it.

A second measure means that the operator of any website inciting a reader to "seek excessive thinness by encouraging eating restrictions for a prolonged period of time, resulting in risk of mortality or damage to health" will face up to a year in prison and fines of up to 100,000 euros.

Elite and IMG, two big modelling agencies active in France, both declined to comment on the moves.

In 2010, Isabelle Caro, an anorexic 28-year-old former French fashion model, died after posing for a photographic campaign to raise awareness about the illness.

'Fashion industry could be part of the solution'

Caryn Franklin, a former fashion magazine editor who has been lobbying to promote healthy body images within the industry, said the move could save lives.

"Many young models ... have to exist on starvation rations in order to carry out their job," she said.

"And I feel as an industry that we're asking the wrong questions about, you know: is a ban the right thing?

"We should be asking ourselves, 'Why are politicians, outsiders, mental health experts looking at our industry and feeling that this is the only power that they have to try and change things?'"

Ms Franklin said that although the BMI was not necessarily a stable measurement for health, the move showed how desperate people were about the fashion industry.

"Certainly models who perhaps are engaging in dangerous health practices like bulimia may be able to sort of conform with the BMI," she said.

"But that doesn't mean to say that they are living a healthy life ... bulimics are susceptible to heart attack. So the measurement itself is no real guarantee."

Ms Franklin said the passing of the legislation demonstrated the perceived power "that the fashion industry has to promote" body ideals.

"Young women are influenced — and, indeed, women into their 30s are influenced by the proliferation of these images," she said.

"I don't think anyone is saying the fashion industry is entirely responsible ... but I do feel that our industry could be part of the solution."

ABC/Reuters

Topics: health, diet-and-nutrition, fashion, law-crime-and-justice, france

First posted