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Argentina's fashion police target rake-thin teens

Posted on: Friday, 1 July 2005, 18:50 CDT

By Mary Milliken

LA PLATA, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentine girls strugglingto stay slim troll street stores for low-slung jeans andmidriff sweaters often dreading the cruelest of words fromsalespeople at the door: "Don't come in, we don't have yoursize."

But now officials are telling retailers and the fashionindustry to sell larger sizes to armies of teens in thisthin-obsessed country, which suffers the second highest rate ofanorexia and bulimia in the world after Japan.

This week, the province of Buenos Aires, home to one-thirdof Argentina's 37 million people, gave stores 180 days to offersix sizes for adolescents and make them uniform for theindustry in what is known at the "Sizes Law."

Officials acting as fashion police will patrol the streets"with measuring tape in hand," said provincial commercedirector Ana Serrano.

Until now stores offered ubiquitous one-size-fits-all orunregulated S, M, L and XL sizes. Any shopper with extra inchesof waistline can find it hard to get clothes that fit and evenan XL can be a small fit in another country.

Now all items sold in stores will have to be made in sizes38 to 48 and will be clearly labeled with the centimeters thatmake up those sizes, according to international standards.

"Makers of one-size-fits-all use pre-adolescent models buttry to sell it to everyone, so many adolescent girls struggleto fit into the top fashion brands," said psychiatrist MabelBello, head of the Association Against Anorexia and Bulimia.

Currently one in every 10 Argentine adolescent girlssuffers from an eating disorder and Bello believes they canlower this rate with help from the fashion industry.

Sales staff say that even anorexic girls have few problemsfinding clothes in adult stores, where woman sizes are so smallthat teens can shop.

"Logically, I shouldn't have found sizes for me in adultstores, but I had no problem," said Paula Giraut, a 22-year-oldstudent in treatment for anorexia who dropped to 88 lbs.

INDUSTRY CHAFES

The social pressures in Argentina to be trim and beautifulcan be daunting. The country boasts one of the world's highestrates of aesthetic surgery -- including breast augmentationsought by girls when they turn 15 -- and six out of 10commercials feature bodies and food, Bello says.

Mothers in the Buenos Aires provincial capital of La Plataare ecstatic with the new law and indignant with thediscrimination they say their daughters suffer.

"Last weekend, I asked a saleswoman if my 16-year-old couldtry a larger size and she refused, saying my daughter would ripit," said mother Silvia Lannoo. "If we don't have a law backingus up, we are going to have sick youths."

Many in the industry chafe at government interference anddoubt it will make much of a difference in eating disorders.Schools and families should be on the frontline, not fashion.

"This won't solve anything," said Carmen Ferrari, owner ofLa Plata's own Aldea Blanca brand. "People who want to be thinwill find ways to do it. Then there are those who want to eat.We will have to start closing restaurants."

Ferrari says her factory has always been willing to makelarger sizes on demand and thinks Argentine girls are alreadyregulating their weight better these days.

"Girls from 13 to 16 use bigger sizes than they did 10years ago. Then it was total anorexia," said Ferrari.

Similar laws could be enacted in other provinces, thecapital and even on the federal level, such is the acceptancein political circles and society that something must be doneabout Argentina's high rate of eating disorders.

"Society has grown tired of this issue. A girl who is gauntis no longer considered pretty," said Lucila Favre, 27, intreatment for the bulimia she has suffered since 14.

Source: REUTERS

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