Media, Advertising and Inventing (Anna)rexia.

Too many Australians suffer from poor body image and eating disorders. The Israeli, French and Norwegian Governments have created body image legislation to try to address this: it responds to concerns that the countless images of thin women people see can contribute to poor body image. By contrast, Australia does not have a Body Image Law: it has a voluntary code that the advertising industry generally does not follow. This article argues that Australia should enact a Body Image Law that reflects health evidence that body image needs to be improved. The Body Image Law would require disclaimers on images that were not retouched, create a specialised government body to evaluate images and attract civil penalties for breaching it. The authors believe that this is the first Australian article to suggest an Australian Body Image Law of this kind.

What is the relationship between body mass index and eating disorder symptomatology in professional female fashion models?

Low body mass index (BMI<18/18.5) is utilized as a mandated cutoff for professional fashion model employment, based on assumptions that low BMI indicates eating disorder pathology. No previous studies have examined the association between experimenter-measured BMI and eating disorder symptomatology in professional fashion models. We measured BMI and Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) responses in United Kingdom (UK) professional fashion models, and nonmodels. Characteristics were compared using robust standardized mean difference (rSMD) obtained via probability of superiority. Associations between BMI and eating disorder symptomatology were examined using robust regression, controlling for age. Models exhibited lower BMI but higher fat-percentage and muscle mass. On the EDE-Q, models had higher Restraint, Global, Eating, and Weight Concerns, and similar Shape Concern scores compared to nonmodels. BMI was positively associated with eating disorder symptoms in both groups, and all but one of the eight models with clinically significant EDE-Q level had ≥18.5 measured BMI. Lower BMI was not indicative of worse eating disorder symptomatology in models or nonmodels. Thus, using a low BMI cutoff (<18.5) may not be an appropriate single index of health for detecting elevated eating disorder symptoms in models. Different policies to protect models' health should be considered.