There has been a lot of effort in 2015 to change negative body images, and France has now taken drastic steps to help this fight by banning models who are deemed unhealthily skinny. The fashion capital will now require all models to produce a certificate of good health from a doctor before they can work. The same bill also requires that publications indicate if their images have been photoshopped. Those who violate this law could face six months in jail and/or a fine of 75,000 Euros (roughly $82,000).
France has long been trying to change the unrealistic standards models are held to. While they previously considered using Body Mass Index (BMI) to determine a model’s eligibility to work, they hope these laws will be more comprehensive and, above all, successful. With the alarming increase of eating disorders and people who are underweight, this legislation hopefully reduces the harmful standards of beauty the fashion industry currently promotes.
We hope this law will help change the negative body imagery in the fashion industry as well as the unhealthy standards models are supposed to uphold. Furthermore, we hope this inspires other countries to take such measures to help end the unhealthy standards the fashion world reproduces. Wanting models to be underweight and malnourished simply to achieve a certain desired look is helping no one. It does not represent the variety of different body types we all come in nor does it affirm the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle. Hopefully this leads to a change in the fashion industry that promotes more realistic and healthy standards of beauty!