Israel bans skinny models from appearing on catwalk

03 Jan '13

2 min read

Knesset, the unicameral legislature of Israel has passed a resolution banning models with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 18.5 from appearing in advertisements and fashion shows.

The new rule also states that the advertising agencies which digitally tamper the pictures to make the models appear thinner will have to explicitly label the images as modified.

The decision has come in the backdrop of increased public uproar in Israel against the use of skinny fashion models in advertisements, which encourages unhealthy eating habits and wrong body images among the contemporary youth.

The Israeli Government said it took the decision to promote healthy living and setting an ideal example before the Israeli youth, mainly comprising of young girls between the ages of 12 to 20, who suffer heavily with eating disorders like anorexia due to the unhealthy body images displayed in advertisements.

After a number of international models reportedly dying of anorexia or bulimia in the past few years, the use of ultrathin models on global runways and public advertisements have been hugely criticized because of the unhealthy life choices they promote to the youth of today.

Hence countries like Spain and Italy started regulating their models’ weight by making a law against using super skinny models on their fashion platforms.

At present, the Madrid Fashion Show does not allow women whose BMI is below 18 and Milan Fashion Week also bans models with a BMI less than 18.5 from appearing on catwalk shows.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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