France, where fashion matters, is moving toward a ban on models whose Body Mass Index is less than 18. According to reports from Reuters and others, French lawmakers are likely to pass the law, joining Spain, Italy and Israel in putting a weight floor under the women who walk the runway.
Models would have to present proof of a BMI that is at least 18 (121 pounds for a 5-foot-7 woman) before they could be hired. Companies that violate the law could be fined. (Body Mass Index is figured based on height and weight; here's a BMI calculator if you want to see how you fare.)
Anyone with a BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight. A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9; 25 to 29.9 is overweight and 29.9 or higher is obese.
There's little wonder, if you look at the chart above from a London School of Economics report, why France would be continuing its efforts to intervene in the seemingly endless debate over too-thin models and their impact on women's body image. France, where an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people suffer from anorexia, and where Isabelle Caro, an anorexic fashion model, died in 2007 after posing for a campaign to raise awareness about the illness, has some of the most alarming statistics about underweight women in western Europe.
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It has the highest percentage of women with BMIs below 17.5 (3.66 percent) and the second-highest among young women (5.14 percent). French women's overall average BMI is also the lowest, at 23.3 (the chart above doesn't list every country studied; click on the link for more data).
Share this articleShareIn the United States, the average adult woman's BMI is 26.5, well into the overweight range and more than three points greater than it is in France.
For sheer guilty pleasure, check out the chart below of celebrity women's BMIs over the past century or so (big hat tip to rehabs.com, which put this together and allowed us to use it).
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