Banning Underweight Models -- a jumping off point for a broader discussion

diannethegeek

Okay, the other thread on why some people are aiming for lower goal weights in the underweight category didn't go well. And since I was one who pointed out that I think there's a broader discussion to be had that can't be had over there, it feels like I should start a thread where maybe it can be had.

Debaters of MFP, I bring you a subject. Run with it. Expand on it. Have at it with this thread.

In 2015 France banned all models who are under a healthy weight as determined by their doctor.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35130792

A previous version of the bill had suggested a minimum Body Mass Index (BMI) for models, prompting protests from modelling agencies in France.

But the final draft approved on Thursday allows doctors to decide whether a model is too thin by taking into account their weight, age, and body shape.

It also says that digitally altered images making a model's silhouette "narrower or wider" should be labelled "touched up".

France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models - Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/news/a37979/what-models-really-think-about-france-banning-extremely-skinny-models/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ainsley-mcwha/i-wish-france-had-banned-underweight-models-when-i-was-one_b_7020356.html

Good idea? Bad idea? Are there better ways?

JustMissTracy

I don't see a problem with banning truly underweight models; if society is going to have any chance at a change for the better, it has to start somewhere.

JeepHair77

I don't necessarily have any particular feelings, pro or con, about banning underweight models. I think it could be a good thing, for the health of the models in the industry. You hear horror stories about the pressures of maintaining their weight, and as an employee-safety measure, I'm in favor of it. I absolutely agree with the industry's push to rely on physician's assessment, rather than the straight-line 18 BMI test.

Will it make a difference in the eyes of society? Probably not. I'm not sure you or I will notice significant difference in the body shape of most fashion models.

I really like the idea, though, of requiring a disclaimer on digitally-altered images.

DeficitDuchess

I wouldn't have an issue, with underweight models; if it wasn't intentional to seek/create them. If a woman was underweight because of an illness but not intentionally attempting to be and/or expected to be/remain that way, then fine!

zamphir66

The job of (high) fashion models is to be hangers for designer clothes. As soon as we develop human-seeming robots capable of doing that, models will be out of a job.

BinaryPulsar

I like that it says "as determined by their doctor". Whether or not a person is underweight is determined between the person and their doctor that understands their personal history, family history, frame size, health, etc. And if their doctor is concerned for their health then I think it's ok to ban them. Certain careers often involve a small frame like certain modeling or dancing jobs (not all). And it's ok for a small framed person to be slim and healthy. Outsiders can misjudge. It's opinion. So, I like that it is by doctor evaluation. And it's important to have an accurate safeguard against ED in these fields. I'm a dancer. When I was 16 I became too thin, and it was a barrier, not a plus for me as a dancer. To some people I am considered very tiny and slim. Other times my body is curvier than what is often seen in dance (it depends on the dance style). Edit to add: and for other styles I would be not curvy enough. We face pressure from the audience when doing a performing art.

JustMissTracy

zamphir66 wrote: »

The job of (high) fashion models is to be hangers for designer clothes. As soon as we develop human-seeming robots capable of doing that, models will be out of a job.

Then those underweight models will need to gain a pound or two to be employed by those agencies; win win.

JDixon852019

I am all for that. I think being forced to be a unhealthy weight to do a job is awful and should not be legal.

peleroja

I think the better way is to quit employing teenage girls, honestly. Even now that girls under 16 have been banned from a lot of shows, there are still primarily very, very young women modelling, many of whom come from poor Eastern European backgrounds and have barely hit puberty or had an abundance of food around growing up. A 16 year old girl who's only had her menses for six months might well be perfectly healthy at 5'10" with 34" hips but there are not a lot of 30 year old women at that height who can still maintain that kind of measurement in any kind of reasonable way.

Further to that, I think the modelling industry is a pretty brutal one for those teenage girls, many of whom are promised good money and end up having wages withheld, living in dorm-style apartments with other teenage models, getting paid in clothes and constantly told to lose an inch here or so-and-so won't book them in a city where they might know no one except their agent and not speak the language. I feel for them because for every girl that gets noticed and makes bank doing ad campaigns and magazine spreads, there's 100 walking shows in exchange for clothes and disappearing after a season or two because their bust gets bigger than 32" or they miss family or can't afford to keep going or whatever.

I think if models had to be at least 18, measurements for models would see a subtle increase because adult women are just not as likely to have those 32-23-33 type measurements that are extremely common right now for runway.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

BinaryPulsar wrote: »

I like that it says "as determined by their doctor". Whether or not a person is underweight is determined between the person and their doctor that understands their personal history, family history, frame size, health, etc. And if their doctor is concerned for their health then I think it's ok to ban them.

This is a very good point, and I think this is how I feel about the issue.

I view it as similar to disqualifying athletes who have been taking steroids. If you're a model, and you achieved your physique in an unhealthy way, then you should lose your qualifications, so to speak.

I do not have a problem with there being models of any size. Different types of models are used for different things. As mentioned above, the high fashion industry uses tall, thin body types to showcase their clothing because the clothing looks better on a thinner frame.

The bigger issue here, IMO, is a lack of education on what health actually is. We should be educating and empowering people to love themselves enough to become the best version of themselves that they can be.

Body-shaming thin women and disallowing them from pursuing their dream based off of their body type is not the way to go.

kimny72

Just wanted to add, the fashion industry has generally preferred young, skinny models because they are supposed to literally be clothes hangers. They don't want their body shape to change how the dress hangs. And I find that distasteful to say the least.

But pop culture has focused on different body shapes over modern history. And as I said in the other thread, I don't feel like the skinny model type is really popular right now. All the real women I know want to know how they can get a bigger butt, and how many bicep curls they need to do to have muscular arms. Not to say that women trying to look like air-brushed celebrities and/or having body dysmorphia or unrealistic goals isn't a problem, but I think the whole striving to be underweight thing was much more prevalent 10 years ago than it is now.

Packerjohn

Do we ban plus size models that are obese?

robininfl

I don't think there is an epidemic of underweight in the developed world, so it's kind of fighting an imaginary problem. Or not imaginary, that's wrong, I do know eating disorders are tragic and affect the lives of women and men both, but that's certainly not the biggest problem with weight, as overweight is a much, much more prevalent problem now, and affects the health of exponentially more people.

As a advertising, though, I do think that clothing should be modeled by people who look more like the customers so that we can see what it looks like on different body types, maybe on the websites put models in each of the sizes (really, not say incorrectly that your 5'10" model with the 25" waist is wearing a US size 4, Gap I am looking at you.) Showing it only on very skinny people doesn't really give good enough information. You know how on the Zenni website you can put your face and see the glasses on you? Well, I'd like to be able to put my measurements and see the clothes on my body or someone close to my body type, and I'd like for everyone in the range of sizes offered to be able to do the same thing.

Jruzer

Methinks we'll soon see doctors who specialize in signing off on the health of emaciated models.

chunky_pinup

I think it would then have to go both ways - not just for underweight models, but overweight as well...it IS possible to be over or under weight and be healthy according to a physical assessment. I don't see a huge issue - as people will still gravitate toward wanting to see one thing over another, but I can see this quickly becoming a problem if they're only policing one end of the spectrum.

chunky_pinup

MeganMoroz89 wrote: »

My only issue with outright banning underweight models is that in the end, we're just still making a blanket assumption about a person's body. Some people are underweight in an unhealthy way, that's definitely true, and that's definitely been something that's seen a lot in the modelling/fashion industries. However, there are some people who are just really skinny. I have a friend who has always been stick thin and it has everything to do with her genetic makeup rather than her having an eating disorder (she doesn't, she's even had a baby and her body bounced right back to what it was before) and her mom is the same way.

I think the goal here should be that designers design for multiple body types so that during their shows we see a plethora of different figures.

Hence, allowing the doctors to have the final assessment on the models' health.

jemhh

If the goal is to encourage models to be of healthy weight, this may help.

But if the goal is to encourage people in general to not be underweight, I don't see how this would help at all. There will always be some people who want to be lighter/thinner than is medically healthy. Some of that small number of people will look to fashion models as their inspiration, but many won't. I don't see there being much trickle down effect when it comes to banning underweight models.

I see (read) far more people aiming at very thin due to their obsession with abs than anything else. IMO if people stopped repeating the asinine instruction "abs are built in the kitchen" and instead told people that abs are built through training and made visible through fat loss, there's a chance that could change. But again, there will still be some people who just want to be very thin/underweight.

janejellyroll

If Donald Trump can get a doctor to write a note claiming that he is the most healthy individual to ever run for president, I don't think it would be a problem for modeling agencies to get doctors to sign off on their models, even those who might not be healthy.

RachelElser

I'm not sure banning anything helps. Cocaine is banned, drinking under the influence is banned and yet thousands of people do and die from those things.
Also, if a Doctor can over ride it, I see EVERY model having a dr's note.

NorthCascades

@RachelElser do you think more underage people would drink if underage drinking wasn't banned? Of course they would, a lot of underage people want to drink and sometimes they can't get any hooch, making it easier to get will mean more underage drinking. So, yes, banning underage drinking means there's less of it. Banning things doesn't eliminate them, but it can help.

chocolate_owl

I don't know how I feel about this. I've spent the day chewing it over and still come to no strong conclusions, just a lot of rambling thoughts.

On the one hand, I agree with the idea that if your job is entirely based on your body, there should be mutual responsibility between employees and employers to make sure said body is reasonably healthy and protected. Safety requirements exist for warehouse workers, for example. "Safety requirements" for models could be things like always being provided with correctly sized footwear, not being laced so tightly into garments that breathing is difficult, being provided with adequate water and cool-down areas during hot, outdoor shows, and yes, check-ups with doctors to make sure that your weight is healthy for your frame. I'm all in favor of people being put in situations where their jobs are as safe as possible; you shouldn't have to risk your health or life for your livelihood.

As to how banning underweight models would affect society: I don't know that it would really matter. It would to a few people, I guess. But I think instead of underweight models, we'd get some new ideal that most people couldn't attain and would go through unhealthy lengths to try to achieve. Though maybe it would impact teenagers less... There was very little I could do to alter my body other than starve it. If big butts had been the thing to aspire to 13 years ago, I didn't have the freedom or the money to run out and get plastic surgery. But then again, I wasn't starving myself to look like a model or movie star, I was starving myself because it was the only bit of control I felt like I had, and I would have done it no matter what. So... IDK. It may help some. It may not change much of anything.

While the idea of a variety of sizes shown in advertising seems like a nice idea, I don't know how well it would really work. I could see women going "This model is a size 8 just like me, this sweater will be perfect!" only to get the sweater and realize their busts and waists are shaped entirely different. Size 0s and 2s are more neutral. It's hard to determine how much a garment will cling or flow on a static, posed image, no matter the size of the model. But I guess if clothing manufacturers knew they were going to have to do photo shoots with women who were larger sizes, they'd design clothing more friendly to those sizes? *shrug*

The question I keep coming back to and have no answer for is if this is a "real" issue. For the models themselves, yes, definitely. But how much does it affect consumers of media, and if models went from being BMI 17.5 to BMI 18.5, does that change anything about the health (physical or mental) of consumers?

/endrambling