A new French bill may make glamorizing anorexia come to an abrupt halt, even in the fashion and advertising industries. The lower house of the French parliament adopted a National Assembly approved bill on Tuesday making it illegal to publicly provoke extreme thinness. In the next few weeks, the bill will go to the Senate due to its support from the conservative UMP party.
If the law is passed, fashion industry experts have claimed that it would be the strongest of its kind in existence anywhere. It was proposed following the death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston which was linked to anorexia. Her passing prompted international efforts throughout the fashion industry to address the ramifications of using excessively thin models.
The bill is a necessity according to some. France’s health ministry estimates that there are 30,000 to 40,000 anorexics in the country, and nearly all of them are young women.
Psychologists and doctors treating patients with anorexia nervosa, which is exemplified by an abnormal fear of becoming overweight in addition to starvation, welcomed this bill. They did warn, however, that the link from Anorexia to the media remains muddled. According to others, such as leaders in the couture industry in France are completely opposed to legal restrictions on standards of beauty.
Last week, fashion industry members and French lawmakers signed a nonbinding charter on promoting healthier body images. Spain also previously banned extremely thin models from their catwalks.
Valery Boyer, the conservative author of the bill does not believe these measures were enough. Boyer claimed she wanted to encourage discussion about women’s body image and health and argued that encouraging severe weight loss should be punishable by law. The Health Minister, Roselyne Bachelot, agreed saying that starvation-encouraging web sites should not be protected by the rule of freedom of expression.
“Giving young girls advice about how to lie to their doctors, telling them what kinds of food are easiest to vomit, encouraging them to torture themselves whenever they take any kind of food is not part of liberty of expression,” Bachelot said in a speech in parliament.
“The messages sent out here are messages of death. Our country should have the means of finding and prosecuting those behind sites like this,” she said, during a debate on a proposed law against incitement to anorexia.”
Boyer’s bill is aimed at the fashion industry as well as “pro-ana” blogs and sites where those with anorexia can share their experiences and advice on the topic. These blogs are inundated with photos of “thinspirations” ““ anorexics who inspire others to become that way, as well as ideas for ways to keep from eating. The law will give the judges the power to fine offenders with penalties of over $47,000 as well as two years if they are found guilty of inciting others to excessively deprive themselves of food, or to excessive thinness. Those responsible for magazine photos of models whose thinness changed her health will also be punished.
There are critics of the bill who claim it is too vague in its definition of “extreme thinness” as well as its target audience.
The president of the French Federation of Couture, Didier Grumbach, strongly disapproved of this measure and lacked awareness of the scope of the legislation. Grumbach frowningly said, “Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny. That doesn’t exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France.”
A professor of psychology at Brigham Young University in Utah, Marleen S. Williams, who does research on the media’s effect on women with anorexia claimed that proving the media caused eating disorders was a next-to-impossible task.
She said that in “cultures that value full-bodied women”, studies show fewer eating disorders. But with this new initiative she says, fearfully, “you’re putting your finger in one hole in the dike, but there are other holes, and it’s much more complex than that.”
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