Last week, MP Valerie Boyer and 50 other politicians in the French Parliament introduced a law that would require digitally modified photos of fashion models to bear a "health warning," Reuters reports.This law would form part of France's anti-anorexia campaign, which includes a law fining "pro-ana," or pro-anorexia, websites (see Reuters article here)
According to Boyer, who has written a government report on obesity and anorexia, "These photos can lead people to believe in a reality that does not actually exist, and have a detrimental effect on adolescents. "Many young people, particularly girls, do not know the difference between the virtual and reality, and can develop complexes from a very young age.
"In some cases this leads to anorexia or bulimia and very serious health problems." (qtd from Telegraph)
This law comes after a recent study that shows that France has the highest percent of underweight women in Europe--5% of women--but only half of that percent recognize that they are underweight (see article here)
Photo Credit: Nuru87 on Flickr.com
3 comments:
I like the idea of labeling images as photoshopped! with the pro-ana pages, though, I just don't think censorship is a good idea...it's misdirected at best, silencing at worst.
What do you mean by censorship? They're not banning the photoshopped images, but labelling them. (It's Britain that's considering banning photoshopped images aimed at kids under the age of 16, see article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/5962358/Airbrushing-of-photos-should-be-banned-Liberal-Democrats-say.html
I meant the laws fining or banning pro-ana sites (I think you mentioned that in your second paragraph), not the the laws labeling photoshopped images. I think labeling the images is a great idea.
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