French Bill Bans The Promotion Of “Extreme Thinness”

The French, who, mind you, invented crêpes and crème fraîche and treachery, have adopted a bill that would outlaw the public endorsement of “extreme thinness:”

Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.

The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.

Conservative lawmaker Valery Boyer, author of the law, argued that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court.

Not everyone who is going to be exposed to images of ultra-thin models is going to develop an eating disorder or body dysmorphia. And, if the media isn’t enough to act as a trigger, there’s probably a good chance a seemingly innocuous comment somewhere down the road will do the job. While the fashion industry does promote very unhealthy body images for young women (and, increasingly, young men), censoring images does not treat anorexia nervosa at its source. What qualifies as “extreme” thinness anyway? Who decides what makes for an “acceptable body?”

You can’t shelter people from the world, but you can give them the proper tools to deal with it in a meaningful way. And then you can pass the pain au chocolate and leave us alone because these type of stories give us a huge fucking headache.

France may ban promoting extreme thinness [MSNBC]