What a phenomenal turning point this may prove to be! At last someone has dared proclaim to the world that anorexic-looking models are
not what the fashion industry ought to be parading on their various catwalks. In this case it was The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers who decided to ban models who have a BMI of less than 18. Click to read the September 13, 2006 BBC article.
This is a topic dear and near to my heart because I continue to see the devastating effect that parading size-0 models on catwalks, and displaying their emanciated bodies on catalogues and on TV, is having on a generation of young women...and I now hear it's beginning to take its toll on our young men as well.
How did it happen that the public accepted what the fashion industry offered as "beauty?" when anyone in their right mind could have seen that, as in the children story, The Emperor's New Clothes, the emperor had no clothes? I'm so very proud of the stand that The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers took when they decided to ban underweight models from their prestigious fashion show.
The BBC article quotes Terry Killeavy, of the UK, as saying, "You cannot ban skinny women in the same way you cannot ban fuller bodies women." I disagree. We're not talking body size as much as we're taking health risks. Anyone with a BMI of less than 18 is starving themselves and it's criminal to portray such individuals as something our young people should aspire to look like.
My hope is that the BBC article will be the first of many the media writes as more and more standard-bearers of the fashion world take similar stands. It's time for all of us to cry out with one voice, when it comes to the idea of "beauty" that we've been sold for way too long, that "the emperor has no clothes!"
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