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Editorial: Thin is out in France
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More from OpinionHaving failed to make ultra-thinness unfashionable, the French are now trying to make it illegal, or at least the act of encouraging or promoting extreme diets.
After the anorexia-related death of a Brazilian model two years ago, Italy, France and Spain all passed measures intended to keep ultra-thin models off the catwalks, both for the sake of their own health and the health of young women who might be tempted to emulate them.
But the French have taken it to another level. The National Assembly has passed a government-backed bill that makes it illegal to "provoke a person to aspire to excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged food limitation." The bill makes the offense punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $47,000, three years and $71,000 if the dieting results in death.
The issue has a special resonance in France, Paris being a fashion capital, because its president, Nicolas Sarkozy, recently married a former supermodel.
The bill is aimed at an apparently spreading number of Web sites and blogs that give advice — crash diets, vomiting, hiding it from parents and doctors — on anorexia and bulimia. The bill doesn't specify just how those Web sites would be prosecuted nor does it define "extreme thinness."
The French haute couture industry has said that it wants healthy models but it doesn't want a judge imposing a definition of beauty. But the National Assembly is probably game to try.
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