LIFESTYLE / Fashion
Young teen models may face catwalk ban
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-12 09:37
Girls aged under 16 should be banned from catwalk modelling to protect
them from eating disorders and sexual exploitation, a panel of fashion
and health experts said on Wednesday.
Older teenagers also need more protection, including chaperones at shows,
according to the Model Health Inquiry, a group investigating models'
health.
The panel said there was a trend for the industry to use younger models,
who are more vulnerable to eating disorders such as anorexia.
"There was also strongly expressed concern that it is profoundly
inappropriate that girls under 16 ... should be portrayed as adult
women," said Baroness Kingsmill, chair of the panel.
"The risk of sexualising these children was high and designers could risk
charges of sexual exploitation."
The inquiry was set up by the British Fashion Council, which runs London
Fashion Week, in the wake of a long-running controversy over super-thin
"size zero" models.
The panel rejected the idea of weighing models and banning those under a
certain weight. It said "size zero" doesn't exist in British shops and is
"meaningless".
It received mixed evidence on whether models should have tests to assess
their body mass index, a measure of fat.
Many models told the inquiry that they feared losing work because they
were not thin enough.
As well as eating disorders, the panel highlighted health risks from
stress, substance abuse and poor working conditions.
"We have grave concerns about other health areas, such as drug and
alcohol abuse and the stress caused by working conditions for model," the
panel's interim report says.
"We are also concerned that modelling is very much a hidden profession
with very little transparency about the working conditions that many
models have to endure."
The panel wants better training for designers and agents to help them
spot models with eating disorders.
There should be a clampdown on drugs and smoking backstage and models
should have access to healthy food, it added.
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