Italy Bans 'Too-Thin' Models
Government And Fashion Industry Join Forces In Campaign To Favor 'Full-Bodied' Women
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Models on the catwalk during Gucci's Spring/Summer 2007 women's fashion collection in Milan, last September. (AP)
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Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, who died last month from complications of anorexia nervosa. The 5 ft. 8 in. model weighed only 88 lbs. (AP)
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Future Fashion Weeks in Milan may ban models with a less-than-acceptable body mass index. (Getty Images/Filippo Monteforte/AFP)
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The premier's office said that the self-regulating code for Italy's highly competitive fashion industry would be signed in Rome next week.
The death from anorexia last month of a 21-year-old model in Brazil helped spur the campaign against unhealthily rail-thin models on fashion show runways.
"The government and fashion associations have made a strategic alliance to go down a common road in the fight against anorexia," Youth Policy and Sports Minister Giovanna Melandri said in a statement issued by the premier's office.
Weeks ago, Melandri, who stands out in the Cabinet as a fashionable dresser with a trim figure, urged the fashion industry to emphasize larger sizes for women instead of tinier sizes on the runways.
The code "wasn't stipulated with the intention of imposing something on someone," said Stefano Dominella, president of a lobby for Rome haute couture. Instead, the aim is "regulating the world of fashion, so that it doesn't get pointed out as being responsible for the dramatic facts in the news," Dominella said in the statement.
Those signing on to the campaign pledge said that the fashion world will start giving importance to "a model of healthy, sunny, full-bodied Mediterranean beauty that Italy has historically contributed" to the international scene.
Earlier this month, a major Brazilian fashion event moved to bar models under the age of 16, part of a national effort to increase awareness about eating disorders.
In September, Madrid's Fashion Week banned models with a body mass index of less than 18. Body mass index is a calculation doctors normally apply to study obesity, and anyone with an index below 18.5 is considered underweight.
The Italian campaign invites stylists, modeling agencies, photographers and makeup artists to join the battle against super-thin models.
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If that's true then my 26 year old 5 foot 6 inch and 123 lb. frame must read as fat to you. I guess you'll just have to live with it.
Ooops, wrong again. Latest research, not surprisingly really, was that overweight people live longer than underweight.
Skinny is not about health, and never was. It's about being unnatural to please your satanic worship, folks. It's about torturing your bodies to show loyalty to your religion, anti-nature. To look like a body-hating freak is the highest achievement of a culture gone mad.
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by stephjr1972
December 18, 2006 7:37 PM PST
- I think a lot of people who responded to this have missed the point. Society is under the impression that a size 10-12 is vastly overweight and this is NOT the case. A lot of women size 10-12 have perfectly healthy BMIs or are only slightly overweight (depending on age and height). The point is that we need to start projecting an image of HEALTH to girls and women (which might help to curb both the obesity AND anorexia problems we have in our culture). This starts with changes in the fashion industry and the media in general. Besides - eating disorders can work both ways. Some starve themselves to be thin because they're under the misconception that they're overweight while others overeat because they have a low self-esteem because they don't have any hope for looking like the underweight models. Health is one thing - beauty is another. I, personally, don't find unhealthy to be beautiful (visually). To be overly thin (as in a bag of bones) or to be overweight (as in obese) are both equally dangerous to one's health. Those of us women with at least a few curves - we're not fat - just healthy. And if you think differently - then you've been adversely effected by the false standards of beauty we've been programmed to believe. As a woman - I know I'd definitely prefer to see HEALTHY women modeling clothing (even women sized 10-14!). Not bags of bones.
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