MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- The world's first ban on overly thin models at a top-level fashion show in Madrid has caused outrage among modeling agencies and raised the prospect of restrictions at other venues.
at least some people in the fashion world are acting to combat the overly-skinny "ideal" that promotes unhealthy habits and makes even healthy thin women feel as though they are huge. hopefully this trend continues. i can't help but smile at the idea that models could be too skinny to get work. hopefully something like this can begin to encourage more realistic and healthy images of women in general, which, in my opinion, is nothing but good news.
they used BMI as an indicator (which while not a flawless measure, is better than nothing), which led to exclusion of 30% of women who had participated in the show previously. i'm curious as to what their cutoff BMI number was. i would hope that it was set at the "healthy" range bottom end (18.5), but part of me doubts it.
update: according to this article at timesonline.com, it looks like they used 18 as the cutoff point. they sent anybody with a BMI under 16 for medical treatment, which is likely a good idea. so, it is quite close to what is generally accepted as healthy. however, it is also important to keep in mind the limitations of BMI as an indicator of healthy weight (though it seems the limitations are more relevant to obesity determinations than to the skinny end of the spectrum).Blogged with Flock
