The U.K. may be the next country to issue government standards on super-thin models and it’s thanks in part to one model who was simply fed up with the casting agencies telling her to lose weight. Rosalie Nelson started a petition asking the government to enact laws to keep models who are “dangerously skinny” off the runway. Nelson says it is her personal experience as a model that prompted the petition.
“When I walked into one of the U.K.’s biggest model agencies last year they told me I ticked all the boxes except one – I needed to lose weight. So I did. Four months later I lost nearly a stone, 2 inches off my hips. When I returned to the same agency they told me to lose more weight, they wanted me ‘down to the bone.'” Nelson has over 56,000 of her 75,000 signature goal, but it looks like she’s already gotten some government support. “Caroline Nokes MP is the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image and is campaigning for the Government to look at the possibility of legislating to ensure models are of a healthy weight,” Nelson writes.
France recently banned agencies and designers from hiring ultra-skinny models on pain of jail time and/or fines. It is also illegal to retouch an image of a model in a way that changes the subject’s appearance without noting the image was retouched.
For our forum users - in order to reclaim your
history in the new system please click here