The French Outlaw Being Too Thin?

[3113]

Well, actually, they're going to try and outlaw the promotion of anorexia.

France may outlaw promotion of anorexia

PARIS -- "Too thin" may soon be defined in France by judges who would be asked to enforce new legislation aimed at websites, blogs and fashion advertising that encourage eating disorders among girls. The fate of the legislation will be decided in coming weeks by the French Senate after it was passed Tuesday by the National Assembly. The measure is backed by President Nicholas Sarkozy's government. Fines of up to $47,000 and a two-year jail term would be imposed on people who compromise a person's health by encouraging them through advertisements, products or methods of losing weight to aspire to "excessive thinness." It would be left to judges to evaluate what that means in each case. The fines and sentencing would be higher if a person ends up at risk of death or dies after following a restrictive eating regime.

In this epicenter of haute couture, fashion editors and designers were reacting with care to this legislation that has been broadly directed at them. "Maybe a law, as a cautionary warning, can help with change if blogs about anorexia incite young women to be dangerously skinny and if models look too scary on the runway," said Michelle Fitoussi, a columnist for the magazine French Elle. "We have to be vigilant about that."

But she had a hard time imagining French authorities busting into dressing rooms before Paris fashion shows and handcuffing stylists and designers as they tuck scrawny models into their clothes. "We have to be aware in all parts of society, not just in fashion, to stop girls from being on a very hard diet," she said. "Anorexia is very real and complicated disease. Even the experts don't completely understand it." French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier was quoted in the newspaper Liberation last week similarly questioning how the law would get at the complex issues behind extreme dieting and thinness. "You don't solve that kind of problem with laws but with understanding," he said.

But lawmakers and government officials have said explicitly that they want the trendsetters, fashion media and advertisers involved in this battle against a distorted view of health and beauty. Last week leaders in the French fashion industry signed a voluntary agreement to promote "healthy body images" and fight anorexia. Health Minister Roselyn Bachelot opened the debated Tuesday on the floor of the National Assembly by describing the growing problem of even detecting eating disorders, never mind preventing them. She said the media had to take some responsibility for a culture that encourages them.

"Anorexia is an illness that is not always recognized as such because the impulse for life is overcome by the impulse for death," she said. She specifically blamed websites that promote what is referred to as the "pro-ana" movement that elevates anorexia to a "lifestyle" choice rather than characterizing it as a disease. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 people in France have anorexia. Two years ago the international fashion world was shaken by the deaths of two Brazilian models. They had each literally starved themselves to death, one by living on a diet of lettuce and soda and the other by eating only apples and tomatoes for three months. Stick-thin models were banned that year from Madrid's week of designer runway shows.

The French fashion world didn't enforce a similar ban. But last year France stopped a controversial clothing advertisement from running on billboards and in publications because it featured an ultra-thin model who had written a book on her battle with eating disorders. Authorities have also been concerned about popular websites such as "Ma Bimbo," based in France, that attract tweenagers and has them play a virtual game that promotes plastic surgery, aggressive dieting and use of diet pills. The English-language version of the site posted a note today saying that after "the rather surprising media attention we have decided to remove the option of purchasing diet pills from the game." Still other sites encourage outright starvation and ask young girls and women to post photos of their frail bodies as a "thinspiration."

While these sites and eating disorders are also ubiquitous in the United States, the proposed French law would not work in the U.S. because of the constitutional protection of free speech, according to Susan Scafidi, an expert in fashion law teaching at New York's Fordham University Law School. "We do ban advertising of smoking in the U.S. and we take smoking into consideration for movie ratings," she noted. "But we know there is a clear link between smoking and lung cancer. No one has yet established a connection between images in magazines and skinny girls."

 

[kendo1]

How will they keep them behind bars?

 

[Stella_Omega]

How will they keep them behind bars?

Chicken wire?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

There is much in the way of mental disturbance behind all these eating disorders but the fashion media cannot drop into a state of denial either. I know that this sounds cruel but since we have the Darwin Award for those who kill themselves through outright stupidity, might there also be a category for the anorexic as well? I mean, turning yourself into a concentration camp victim qualifies as "stupid" in my book, even with the mental unbalance.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

They passed similar legislation in Italy. I think it's at least a start toward changing people's perception about the fashionability of extreme thinness.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Damned good thing, too. Up Zaftig!

 

[Stella_Omega]

There is much in the way of mental disturbance behind all these eating disorders but the fashion media cannot drop into a state of denial either. I know that this sounds cruel but since we have the Darwin Award for those who kill themselves through outright stupidity, might there also be a category for the anorexic as well? I mean, turning yourself into a concentration camp victim qualifies as "stupid" in my book, even with the mental unbalance.

Well, any mental disorder qualifies as "stupid"; counting tiles, compulsive hand-washing, agoraphobia, anger management issues. They're all 'stupid.'

 

[rgraham666]

And some, like psychopathy in some forms, are thought highly of by large sections of our society.

 

[Pure]

i'm not sure if the law will work, but i do favor pressuring modeling agencies, fashion magazines, and fashion show producers NOT to use ultra thin models.

it's a bit tricky to define, but BMI<18, is a guideline, iirc.

that said, i'm not sure how you justify closing a website whose participants are young women who've half starved themselves and NOT closing a website attracting men who've neutered themselves, and who explain how.

if body modification is legal, i'm not sure that showing pics of it on the 'net should be illegal.

what is the limit of 'free speech' on the 'net. how about a site for teens considering offing themselves, with directions how.?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Mutilating one's genitals isn't intrinsically life-threatening.

Anorexia is.

That's the big difference.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I have to, if I believe in freedom of opinion and speech and property (and I do), disagree that the government has any right to penalize companies for advertising what amounts to preferences. Arguments to the effect of "but it will do good by making social change" I can't get behind, because I don't see it as the government's duty or right to affect that kind of change--if I did, I'd have no ground to be similarly against other social engineering that's politically mandated.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I say, legalise pot-- that will give them a reason to stop starving themselves!

 

[rgraham666]

As long as we believe that perfection is not only possible but necessary for us to be happy things like anorexia will continue to plague us.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I say, legalise pot-- that will give them a reason to stop starving themselves!

Wouldn't bother me. All it does is put me to sleep and I am a international competition class sleeper without it. Go ahead, just make sure you can't drive with it in your system or with your cell phone in your ear.

 

[Stella_Omega]

As long as we believe that perfection is not only possible but necessary for us to be happy things like anorexia will continue to plague us.

Nicely put, Rob!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Nicely put, Rob!

I agree.

 

[rgraham666]

Nicely put, Rob!

I agree.

I get it right sometimes.

 

[3113]

Go ahead, just make sure you can't drive with it in your system or with your cell phone in your ear.

Well, it's already illegal to drive with any narcotic in your system, even a certain amount of alcohol, so the law is already in place to say you can't do that--or operate heavy machinery for that matter. And there's no doubt that driving while talking on a cell phone ain't a good idea, either.

It is not, however, illegal to talk on a cell phone while stoned .

 

[starrkers]

It is not, however, illegal to talk on a cell phone while stoned .

Considering some of the phone calls I've been a party to, perhaps it should be

 

[Liar]

it's a bit tricky to define, but BMI<18, is a guideline, iirc.

Except that the whole BMI is... y'know... bullshit to begin with.

 

[Vermilion]

There is much in the way of mental disturbance behind all these eating disorders but the fashion media cannot drop into a state of denial either. I know that this sounds cruel but since we have the Darwin Award for those who kill themselves through outright stupidity, might there also be a category for the anorexic as well? I mean, turning yourself into a concentration camp victim qualifies as "stupid" in my book, even with the mental unbalance.

I don;t know what you mean by 'even with the mental imbalance'. Eating disorders are *all* mental imbalance.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I just wish to say that I keep reading this title as if it were a characterisation question;

(Is) The French Outlaw being too thin?

Hmm, The French Outlaw. A tall blond man, perhaps, with one shoe.

Does he ride off into the sunset in a deux chevaux?

 

[gauchecritic]

I have to, if I believe in freedom of opinion and speech and property (and I do), disagree that the government has any right to penalize companies for advertising what amounts to preferences.

But when companies create those preferences by effectively getting behind the same 'policy' of thin is not only good but the sole arbiter of beautiful then you have exactly the same thing as a government with no representation.

companies the world over sell to the largest spending demographic which also happen to be the most gullible 18-25.

Free speech is one thing, freedom from responsibility is quite another.

Hmm, The French Outlaw. A tall blond man, perhaps, with one shoe.

Imagine David Bowie with a Parisian accent. (on no account under penalty of mental devastation think of Iggy Pop)

 

[Stella_Omega]

Imagine David Bowie with a Parisian accent. (on no account under penalty of mental devastation think of Iggy Pop)

I'm imagining Iggy Pop speaking French with a Detroit accent!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

What is an Iggy Pop? Sounds like a dessert appealing to sixth graders.