A new proposed measure preventing modeling agencies from hiring ultrathin models, overcame a major hurdle in France's legislature on Friday. The bill also fines websites for encouraging anorexia.
The National Assembly, the lower house of France's parliament, approved the measure. It will be taken up by the French Senate next. The measure is part of major legislation related to the country's public health laws, according to The Local.
Dr. Olivier Véran, a lawmaker and neurologist who backs the bill, stated that he was "fighting malnutrition." He argued that a model should not be required to "starve herself" in order to land a job.
The measures are supported by the French government. Their main goals are to safeguard models from unhealthy weight loss, and to make the fashion industry's images of ultrathin women less common.
The government argues that both situations encourage young women to become anorexic. Anorexia is an illness that causes people to avoid eating, and is based on an irrational fear of becoming fat.
France's proposed new measures would require doctors to verify that a model's weight is adequate, based on her height. This would mostly be based on the Body Mass Index (BMI), which usually indicates that a woman weighing 5 ft. 7 in. (170 cm) should weigh a minimum 120 pounds (54.4 kg).
Another measure of the proposed law would make promoting anorexia on the Internet a crime. French legislators said that some websites encourage women to shed weight in an "unhealthy" way.
A third measure of the proposed legislation would require commercial photos of models' bodies that were "Photoshopped" to make the model appear skinnier or fatter, to include the label "retouched."
Employers who break the proposed French law would be fined about $83,000, according to New York Times. They could also have to serve a prison term of six months.
Modeling agencies have strongly opposed the new measures. Isabelle Saint-Félix, secretary of National Union of Modeling Agencies, argued that it is "very serious" to combine the issues of anorexia and models' thinness.