Up to 40,000 people in France were suffering from anorexia, about 90 per cent of whom were adolescents. Photo / AP
Anyone employing skinny, undernourished fashion models or "glorifying anorexia" faces fines and prison sentences under new laws tabled in France.
The Government gave its backing yesterday to two amendments proposed by Olivier Veran, a Socialist MP, to recent health reforms.
The first would ban modelling agencies from using any "extremely
thin young women whose weight could put them in danger".
It would oblige models to provide medical certificates showing their Body Mass Index, or BMI. Any agency that took on someone whose BMI was below an as yet unspecified minimum, would face a maximum six-month prison term and a €75,000 fine ($107,326).
"It's intolerable to promote malnutrition and to commercially exploit people who are endangering their own health," said Veran, a neurologist at the University Hospital of Grenoble.
