Ultra Thin Models: To Ban or Not?

This week is London Fashion Week. To mark the occasion, its organizer, the British Fashion Council, has issued a report stating that fashion models should be at least 16 eyars old, and be regularly screened for eating disorders. The report estimates that up to 40% of models may have eating disorders, compared with 3% of the population.

Last year, two extremely thin models died, prompting the Madrid Fashion Week shows to ban ultra-thin models; however, the British Fashion Council's report does not recommend that the excessively thin should be kept off the catwalks. The British government had been pressing for that. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is reported (at www.telegraph.co.uk) as commenting: "The fashion industry is hugely powerful in shaping the attitudes of young women and their feelings about themselves," she said. "Teenage girls aspire to look like their role models. If their role models are healthy it will help inspire girls to be the same."