Government Should Ban Skinny Models To Curb Anorexia, Say Researchers

smoothjazz writes "Governments are justified to prevent very skinny models from walking the catwalk and ban photographs and advertisements suggesting that extreme thinness is attractive, according to a group of researchers who found that social and cultural environment influences on young women is largely responsible for the spread of chronic eating disorder."

Comments

Re:Actuarially, no.

[darkonc]

First of all -- pound for pound, being underweight is less healthy than being overweight. Consider: If you're 150 pounds overweight, it's likely to cut 20 years off of your life. If you'[re 150 pounds underweight, you're probably already dead and your skeleton picked clean. At some point, being under weight got a lot more unhealthy than being over weight.

And, in terms of looks, consider that Marilyn Munroe would never get past the reception desk of most talent agencies today -- yet she's still considered one of the sexiest women of the 20th century.

This has been a peve of mine for a while, and I actuallybelieve that the unhealthy obsession with being thin is costing us on both sides of the equation. If you get yourself artificially thin enough to fit the media view of 'normal', then you're unhealthy. If on the other hand, you give up trying to be the unhealthy 'normal', then you're at risk of becoming obese. Getting the press back on track with celebrating 'normal' as beautiful would probably be good for the health of almost everybody involved.