Models Under 16 Banned in London Fashion Week

The form of mass murder known as pubescent modeling may be under threat. London is following the advice of the Model Health Inquiry, an independent board set up to investigate the much complained about health problems in the industry.

You’d have to wonder how sick kids have to look before anyone gets off their solid gold backsides and does something about it. Anorexia isn’t exactly an unknown health condition. It’s a true social disease, the result of the market image sledgehammered like railway spikes into at least two generations of girls. Arguably, it might also have given a bit of a shove to the reactionary belief that being overweight is comparatively OK, just because it’s not anorexic. Urban myths spread faster than information. The inquiry has called for a broad based investigation into working conditions in the industry. The much-avoided question of the vulnerability of young women is also intended to be scrutinized, which may well be a first, if it gets any real information. There’s also talk of using a Body Mass Index, but bulimia, the other joy of childhood, apparently isn’t revealed using that method. Even so, at least a weight standard would be set. Rome and Madrid have banned anorexic models, but it has to be said that any actual achievement will have to convince a very skeptical public and market. To improve the image of a bloodsucking industry seen to be making billions from the Girls From Auschwitz wouldn’t be too hard, because it can’t get a lot worse. To convince anyone that there’s any genuine attempt to improve a real slave driver of an industry, and make it fit for human beings to work in it, will be a lot harder. London Madrid and Rome deserve some credit for trying to handle this monster of an issue, but it’s really New York and Paris which can finally kill the parade of skeletons. Size zero does have one smaller size; size dead.