In March, France made headlines when the country joined other European nations in voting to ban models who are considered underweight and unhealthy. Agencies found employing women who do not have high enough Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) will be fined.
Though it was initially applauded by observers, many say the law’s efforts are far from effective in protecting young models. BMI is just one factor in understanding health. Someone with a BMI above the threshold can easily be less healthy than someone below it. This law fails to take into account the myriad factors one needs to intelligently assess someone’s health. In her op-ed for the New York Observer, former model Jennifer Sky argues that “BMI is a flawed scale because it evaluates everyone’s bodies as exactly the same and measures based on that logic. And so the new law will only continue a tradition of discriminating against the individual in fashion.”
The next problem is something far more sinister. Modeling agencies are already flouting the rules, doing everything they can to get around them. One model, speaking anonymously, told Racked that agencies made their models wear Spanx that were weighted to make sure they weighed enough when put on the scale. Yeah, you read that right—it’s apparently that easy to break the law.
There are a lot of things wrong with the treatment of young models in the fashion world, Sky points out. Targeting BMI may be a good PR move for France and other countries, but they’ll need to do a lot more to convince anyone in the industry that real steps are being taken to improve the wellbeing of these young women.