Weight Restrictions for Models
Recently a reporter contacted me wanting my opinion regarding the recent weight regulations placed on fashion models in Israel. Read more: New Israeli law seeks to fight spread of eating disorders by banning super-thin models
The new laws aim to prevent inducing eating disorders in young girls who seek to emulate emaciated models.
While there is definitely more to anorexia than food and dieting as has been noted extensively on this website, I nevertheless told the reporter that there was a good rationale to do what whatever is possible to discourage the practice of using emaciated women as role models.
My reasoning has to do with the slippery slope phenomenon of anorexia. While there are a variety of things that lead a person to develop an eating disorder, once the body weight gets low enough, a compulsion takes over. The sufferer no longer has free will, and the eating disorder is fuelled by compulsion driven by the starvation.
It certainly does not help to have endless pictures of emaciated bodies plastered all over the media for young girls to emulate.
