Graham

Yesterday, the British fashion industry's "Model Health Inquiry" was launched -- a long-awaited internal response to the grotesque and inhuamn size-0 trend, and the spate of model deaths from self-imposed starvation.

An article in The Independent puts this inquiry into context:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/he...icle2567983.ece

Text below:


The most absurd element in all of this is the persistent, nonsensical idea that skeletal models could sue for "discrimination" if they were denied work because of being too thin. Insanity! As many people have pointed out on this forum, the fashion industry already discriminates on the basis of size. It does nothing but discriminate on the basis of size. It continually and universally discriminates against plus-size models, and denies them work, on the basis of their size. How hypocritical, even ludicrous, that this could somehow become an issue only if skinny models are discriminated against.

If a single underweight model sued for being banned on the basis of size, then each and every plus-size model in the world could sue for the same reason.

And as for having health damanged by their working environment, nearly every model in the world could sue on that basis. They have been forced to starve themselves into a debilitating and inhuman size for this career, and often introduced into environments in which smoking and narcotics are rampant.

This inquiry must be considered the fashion industry's last, last chance to reform itself. I doubt it will effect any change, though. And when the fashion industry fails to change, once again (as it has failed to change in the past), then government regulation, in the form of a flat-out ban on underweight models, and a mandate for using plus-size models (at least equal to Spain's response) will be absolutely and utterly necessary.

M. Lopez

It's good to see that this inquiry has been organized, but the premise is faulty (or rather, incomplete) to begin with. While the health of models definitely does need to be addressed, what the fashion industry really needs is a public health inquiry - that is, an examination of all of the damange that it does to the body-image and psyches of young women in society in general.

The fact that the fashion industry ruins the health of the models who work for it is bad enough, and should force a significant rise in the acceptable minimum size of models. But what is a thousand times worse is how this industry warps the minds and ruins the health of women in general - all those women whom it dupes into adopting its inhuman standards.

The anorexic fashion-industry "ideal" is like asbestos ceilings or lead fillings - something that is harming the health of the nation, and must be banned, once and for all, for the same reason. At the very least, like tobacco advertising, the promotion of this toxic standard should be severely limited, and fashion-industry ads and images should only be allowed general public visibility when they conform to a natural, full-figured ideal.