Websites and Designers Face Prosecution in New French Anorexia Law
http://www.depressionforums.org/articles/1011/1/Websites-and-Designers-Face-Prosecution-in-New-French-Anorexia-Law/Page1.html
Joanna
By Joanna
Published on 04/9/2008
April 9, 2008
Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres, Paris
Websites and Designers Face Prosecution in New French Anorexia Law
Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable with jail in France under a government-backed law that was tabled today to combat anorexia nervosa.
The world's first use of the law to tackle eating disorders is broadly aimed at the media and fashion world, but especially at the websites and blogs of the co-called pro-ana movement. While many are support groups, others promote starvation as a "life-style choice", with girls and young women posting their wasting images as "thinspiration" for others.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have recently come under pressure in Britain and other countries to ban their pro-ana entries.
Fines of up to €30,000 and a two-year prison sentence will be imposed on offenders who "provoke a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The prison term is raised to three years with a €45,000 fine if the person dies.
Some experts and fashion leaders oppose the Bill, which is expected to be passed by Parliament within months. "You do not solve this kind of problem with the law but with understanding," said Jean-Paul Gaultier, the designer. Didier Grumbach, head of the French Couture Federation, said that it was not up to the state to legislate on beauty and aesthetic criteria,
The law, modelled on the offence of abetting suicide, was tabled by Valérie Boyer, an MP from President Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement. Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, gave it the Government's blessing at the unveiling of a code for the media, advertising and fashion industry on "promoting healthy body images" and fighting anorexia.
"The pro-ana movements which spread their messages of death on the web must be the target for special attention," Mrs Bachelot said as she presented Mrs Boyer's draft Bill along with the voluntary code.
Up to 40,000 people suffer from anorexia in France, the great majority of them girls and young women. The 48-year-old elder daughter of Jacques Chirac, the last President, has been incapacitated for two decades with the disease.
Mrs Bachelot said that the "waif-like, diaphanous, transparent bodies on the walls of our towns, in our magazines and on our computer screens are exerting their power of harmful fascination on our society." Anorexia was one of the most lethal of mental disorders, killing 20 per cent of long-term sufferers, she said.
Mrs Boyer, who has two teenage daughters, said that the new offence was necessary because "it was not possible to deal with the pro-ana sites under the law against provoking suicide or promoting cults." She added: "We do not know who is hiding behind these sites, but there is real mental manipulation." Her law was also aimed at magazines, she said.
It would probably be left to judges to define "excessive thinness" but this might be defined as a body mass index, she said. BMI rules have been set by some model agencies and fashion houses since September 2006 when the Madrid fashion show imposed a minimum index of 18 for catwalk models. This translates as a minimum weight of 56 kilos (8.8 stone) for a height of 1.75 metres (5 feet 9 ins).
France last year banned a controversial Benetton advertisement featuring Isabelle Caro, a French model-actress who has written a book on her continuing battle with the disease.
The French voluntary code, which was drawn up by a panel headed by two eminent psychiatrists, commits the fashion, media and advertising world to raising acceptance of varied body shapes. "We undertake the promotion of diversity in the representation of the body, avoiding all stereotypes which could favour potentially dangerous canons of beauty," said the signatories.
Marcel Rufo, a celebrity child psychiatrist who headed the code panel, said that he fully backed the use of the criminal law in fighting anorexia. The disease remains a mystery but everything had to be done to prevent vulnerable girls being encouraged to starve, he said. Among other new rules, magazines should be forced to mention the fact that 60 percent of their pictures are electronically retouched, he said.
Some critics of the measures said that the Government was acting after the event because the big fashion and cosmetics companies had already changed their ways and stopped employing the sickly stick-figured models that were in favour a few years ago.
Source: From Times Online
© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.
April 9, 2008
Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres, Paris
Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable with jail in France under a government-backed law that was tabled today to combat anorexia nervosa.
The world's first use of the law to tackle
eating disorders is broadly aimed at the media and fashion world, but
especially at the websites and blogs of the co-called pro-ana movement.
While many are support groups, others promote starvation as a
"life-style choice", with girls and young women posting their wasting
images as "thinspiration" for others.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have recently come under pressure in Britain and other countries to ban their pro-ana entries.
Fines of up to €30,000 and a two-year prison sentence will be imposed on offenders who "provoke a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The prison term is raised to three years with a €45,000 fine if the person dies.
Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres, Paris
Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable with jail in France under a government-backed law that was tabled today to combat anorexia nervosa.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have recently come under pressure in Britain and other countries to ban their pro-ana entries.
Fines of up to €30,000 and a two-year prison sentence will be imposed on offenders who "provoke a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The prison term is raised to three years with a €45,000 fine if the person dies.
April 9, 2008
Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres, Paris
Websites and Designers Face Prosecution in New French Anorexia Law
Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable with jail in France under a government-backed law that was tabled today to combat anorexia nervosa.
The world's first use of the law to tackle eating disorders is broadly aimed at the media and fashion world, but especially at the websites and blogs of the co-called pro-ana movement. While many are support groups, others promote starvation as a "life-style choice", with girls and young women posting their wasting images as "thinspiration" for others.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have recently come under pressure in Britain and other countries to ban their pro-ana entries.
Fines of up to €30,000 and a two-year prison sentence will be imposed on offenders who "provoke a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The prison term is raised to three years with a €45,000 fine if the person dies.
Some experts and fashion leaders oppose the Bill, which is expected to be passed by Parliament within months. "You do not solve this kind of problem with the law but with understanding," said Jean-Paul Gaultier, the designer. Didier Grumbach, head of the French Couture Federation, said that it was not up to the state to legislate on beauty and aesthetic criteria,
The law, modelled on the offence of abetting suicide, was tabled by Valérie Boyer, an MP from President Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement. Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, gave it the Government's blessing at the unveiling of a code for the media, advertising and fashion industry on "promoting healthy body images" and fighting anorexia.
"The pro-ana movements which spread their messages of death on the web must be the target for special attention," Mrs Bachelot said as she presented Mrs Boyer's draft Bill along with the voluntary code.
Up to 40,000 people suffer from anorexia in France, the great majority of them girls and young women. The 48-year-old elder daughter of Jacques Chirac, the last President, has been incapacitated for two decades with the disease.
Mrs Bachelot said that the "waif-like, diaphanous, transparent bodies on the walls of our towns, in our magazines and on our computer screens are exerting their power of harmful fascination on our society." Anorexia was one of the most lethal of mental disorders, killing 20 per cent of long-term sufferers, she said.
Mrs Boyer, who has two teenage daughters, said that the new offence was necessary because "it was not possible to deal with the pro-ana sites under the law against provoking suicide or promoting cults." She added: "We do not know who is hiding behind these sites, but there is real mental manipulation." Her law was also aimed at magazines, she said.
It would probably be left to judges to define "excessive thinness" but this might be defined as a body mass index, she said. BMI rules have been set by some model agencies and fashion houses since September 2006 when the Madrid fashion show imposed a minimum index of 18 for catwalk models. This translates as a minimum weight of 56 kilos (8.8 stone) for a height of 1.75 metres (5 feet 9 ins).
France last year banned a controversial Benetton advertisement featuring Isabelle Caro, a French model-actress who has written a book on her continuing battle with the disease.
The French voluntary code, which was drawn up by a panel headed by two eminent psychiatrists, commits the fashion, media and advertising world to raising acceptance of varied body shapes. "We undertake the promotion of diversity in the representation of the body, avoiding all stereotypes which could favour potentially dangerous canons of beauty," said the signatories.
Marcel Rufo, a celebrity child psychiatrist who headed the code panel, said that he fully backed the use of the criminal law in fighting anorexia. The disease remains a mystery but everything had to be done to prevent vulnerable girls being encouraged to starve, he said. Among other new rules, magazines should be forced to mention the fact that 60 percent of their pictures are electronically retouched, he said.
Some critics of the measures said that the Government was acting after the event because the big fashion and cosmetics companies had already changed their ways and stopped employing the sickly stick-figured models that were in favour a few years ago.
Source: From Times Online
© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.