Models in France need a doctor’s certificate to work!
Skinny is not acceptable in france! Yes, you read it right! France has become the latest country to ban excessively skinny models from working in the ultra-chic country’s fashion industry, joining Israel, Spain and Italy.
According to Reuters, the French legislature voted for a bill Friday the declares: “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 labor.”
Fashion agencies that are discovered using models with a BMI under 18, which is approximately 121 pounds for a 5 ft., 7 in. model, could face up to six months of jail time and a fine of 75,000 euros ($82,000).
The bill, which requires models to have a medical certificate vouching for what the government deems a healthy BMI, was paired with another recent bill that bans pro-anorexia websites that offer “thinspiration.” The legislation is an attempt to stop the idealization of the dangerously thin and, perhaps, curb anorexia.
The bill is the latest piece of an ongoing effort to try to stamp anorexia out of the fashion industry. In 2007, French fashion model Isabelle Caro posed for a shocking anti-anorexia campaign before succumbing to the disease, dying at 28.
But some are loudly protesting the legislation of “healthy” weight, noting that thinness does not always connote disease. But according to French health minister Marisol Touraine, “This is an important message to young women who see these models as an aesthetic example.”
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