Two Harvard professors have made a case for banning ‘excessively thin’ models
Models are starving themselves, and their use has wide-reaching effects.
The criticism of unhealthily thin models—and the effect their usage has on young women—has been levied at the fashion industry for some time. Now, two experts from the Harvard School of Public Health are weighing in on the topic.
S. Bryn Austin and Katherine Record, two professors involved with the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders at Harvard, say that by banning extremely thin models from photoshoots and runway shows, the prevalence of eating disorders among the public could decrease.
They continue, in an editorial that appears in the American Journal of Public Health, to note that the average runway model’s body mass index is typically below the World Health Organization’s threshold for “medically dangerous thinness for adults.’’
“Models have died of starvation-related complications, sometimes just after stepping off the runway,’’ Austin and Record wrote.
Last April, the French National Assembly passed a law that would ban the hiring of excessively thin models. Austin and Record say that if the U.S. joins France in this regulation, it “would shake the fashion industry, even if enforcement dollars were few and far between.’’
And with the sway that New York and Paris hold in the fashion world, Austin and Record say they think this would push designers to comply and for a healthier image of models to take hold.
h/t Boston magazine
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