Skinny Models Banned

Well I know one! 5'1 95lbs. BMI 17.9 and fabulous! I'm lucky she's my better half!

Jan, if you want to see someone with a BMI of 18.5 who looks healthy, send me an e-mail x.candii.x@hotmail.com and i'll send you one of my modelling pics and you'll see that I dont look disgustingly skinny or anything.

Jan, it could be that you don't know the BMIs of all the "skinny" people you see, only those that you notice because they look emaciated. One possible way to tell the difference is that someone who is UNDERWEIGHT, rather than THIN, tends to have a disproportionately large head. You also have to understand that illnesses of many types cause people to be UNDERWEIGHT and perhaps have a very low BMI, but that THIN people can have a very low BMI but are not necessarily ill. Of course those who are naturally very thin are also very rare, only a few in a thousand, so you don't run into them all that often.

W, I asked all my skinny friends and my skinny assistant how much they weighed and how tall they were to figure it out. I got 8 responses, ranging from 16.3 (orthorexic friend) to 18.2 (the one that does look healthy), so 7 people who are under 18. I think it might be easier to round up that many skinny people because I'm not in the US, though, haha.

Now mind you, none of them have visible bones like the model in the picture, not even the one whose BMI is 16.3 - she is small but soft, something like Mischa Barton, and my assistant is tiny and ripped, something like Sheryl Crow. But all of them have dry looking skin and hair, look a couple years older than they are, and are not energetic people. Except for the one that has a BMI of 18.2 - her skin and hair look good, although she is a bit low energy too. None of them have illnesses, they just don't really look very healthy.

I think there are some very naturally petite people... this girl whose BMI is 18.2, she is my height, but my hands, head, etc. are like twice the size of hers. She obviously has a tiny frame. And she eats so much, you wonder how someone so small can fit that much food. I agree with you, starved people usually have visible bones + a head that looks way too large for their frames.

Dr. J, your wife may be the exception that proves the rule. :)

Candii, I don't doubt you, since yours is 18.5. I was talking under 18. 18.5 is the WHO's standard; the fashion industry gave it a little more leeway, and set it at 18.

Thank you Jan! She certainly is the exception! :-)

Jan, you are only considering the "skinny" people that you know, all of whom seem to be either starving themselves, or who perhaps have some other underlying condition that is causing them to be underweight. You need to look farther afield, maybe at a mall or some place where active people hang out, and search for people who seem to be as underweight as your friends but who don't appear ill. If you look carefully at a sample of a few thousand people, you will find them.

man i wish that i looked like that i mean i see them all the time and i just wish that i was 90 pounds again because i weigh 123 and i think that i am fat
-fat gurl 99

W, I'm sure I would find them. Even in this topic I did, Mrs. J. But for the most part, I don't think people are usually built to have BMIs under 18. It is kind of like finding the person who looks fit with a BMI over 25 - they exist, just look at Jennifer Portnick, but they truly are exceptions. Using 18.5-25 as a rule for most people like the WHO does seems to work for the most part, with the exception of those few people and bodybuilders.

Amber, you need help. You're not fat.

Dear W:

I don't think the WHO would discriminate against small-framed people and disregard them when formulating the BMI standards. I'm sure that many small-framed people have healthy BMI's. Moreover, the health implications associated with being underweight make it harder to claim that an underweight person is indeed healthy. For instance:

"If your BMI is 19 or lower, you have a higher risk of developing anemia, bone loss, nutrient deficiency, heart irregularities, amenorrhoea (loss of periods in women) and osteoporosis. Your risk of depression and anxiety may also increase"
-http://www.annecollins.com/lose_weight/underweight-risks.htm

"Women with a body mass index (BMI) lower than 18.5 had a 72% increased chance of miscarriage, compared to those women with a normal BMI, of 18.5 to 24.9"
-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10717-single-women-may-face-higher-risk-of-miscarriage.html

If you can't carry a baby, you're NOT healthy!

P.S.- I AM actually below a BMI of 18.5 and have lost much bone mass as a result. I am always cold to the bone, literally. I have lost much of my hair. I have yellowish pale skin. I have stopped menstruating. I cannot have a child at the moment...and have an increased risk of impotency. I acknowledge that I am unhealthy and need to gain weight. I am successfully doing so. So please do not assume that because I am supporting this ban on underweight models that I am not underweight myself.

Guess I coulda mentioned this before, but i'm a small framed person. I have a size 5-6 shoe, I mean I fit into my boyfriends 8yearold sisters shoes. My hands are the same size as hers too. But on my body my head actually looks too small for it (in my opinion). Everyone makes fun of me (as jokes) because i'm 5'4 (so shorter than them) and have to shop in the kids section almost always because of my frame.

Cara, since the BMI is nothing but a height vs. weight chart it doesn't carry any weight with anyone who gives this matter some thought. In your case, it merely seems to be right, but then even a clock that has stopped running shows the correct time twice each day!

Two healthy people of the same height can differ in weight by a factor of more than two and yet both would have a NORMAL weight, if they have different sized skeletons. The BMI, on the other hand, only allows for a factor of about 1.4 in weight difference. If the WHO were to extend the limits of the so-called normal range so as NOT to exclude any healthy people, the BMI would obviously not serve any useful function, not that it does now anyway. The WHO is probably more concerned with health trends of entire populations rather than the health of any particular person.

Be careful to avoid confusing the word "normal" with the word "average." Also try not to confuse the word "thin" with the word "underweight." In my dictionary, at least, neither of these words is shown as a synonym for the other because they do not have the same meaning.

My stance on the ban is that most of these thin models seem to be healthy and their BMIs are irrelevant. The designers have a right to design the clothes they want, thin women have a right to seek employment as models, modeling agencies and designers have the right to hire them, and everyone else has the right to ignore the designers, the agencies and the models.

If you re-read my earlier message, you will see that I didn't say that you weren't underweight, but that perhaps you didn't have a small frame. If your bones are closer to average-sized then perhaps your current BMI is too low, for you, but not always for someone else. Your low BMI might be a symptom, not a disease.

i think all them extra skinny bitchs are evil

Monique, they are not evil, as KT Tunstall rightly said, they are just bitchy because they are hungry.

W, I quote you:

My stance on the ban is that most of these thin models seem to be healthy and their BMIs are irrelevant. The designers have a right to design the clothes they want, thin women have a right to seek employment as models, modeling agencies and designers have the right to hire them, and everyone else has the right to ignore the designers, the agencies and the models

Image if I rephrase what you wrote as "Contractors have a right to hire people to work without safety equipment, people willing to work without the safety equipment have a right to seek employment as construction workers, job agencies and contractors have a right to hire them, and everyone else has a right to ignore the contractors, the job agencies, and the construction workers". You would say that in this case, the construction workers risking their lives to get employment are victims, and that unions or the government should step in to protect the lives of these workers, wouldn't you?

Something that bothers me in this whole discussion is that it is always whether the modeling industry is harming young girls who see the skinny models or not - but nobody mentions that this industry is, without a shadow of a doubt, harming the models themselves. They are being victimized in order to keep their employment.

Banning thin models from jobs is a form of discrimination. If an obese person was not given a job because of their BMI America would never hear the end of it. Also, the modeling industry does not cause anorexia. Even if these woman do not model, young girls will still see them in other places than on the catwalk. The family and the way the child is raised is what will cause an eating disorder; not seeing a tall, thin girl walking down the runway in a bikini with her ribs sticking out. If this does at all influence an eating disorder in young girls then the fashion industry did not originally bring it on, something else triggered the problem from the beginning.
Designers also need to have the right to choose who presents their clothing to the people. They choose thin models for a number of reasons when doing high fashion. In catalogs and magazines that are read by everyday teenagers ads in them include "regular" girls (commercial print modeling) so that readers will find them more appealing. The fashion industry does not use the super skinny model as a tool to try to tell girls they need to look like them; its just what makes their clothes come off more appealing; if they were trying to send this horrible message out then you would see the immensely thin models in every media form, not just on the catwalk and in ads for major designers.

Jan, you came up with a really bad analogy. Lack of safety equipment on a job site affects all workers equally; there might be safety violations, but that would not be discrimination.

I'm not sure how a naturally thin woman, whose BMI is naturally lower than 18 (or 17, etc.) and who is nevertheless healthy (even though YOU don't believe that to be possible) is being victimized by working as a model. If a larger-framed woman feels victimized by having to starve herself in a futile attempt to fit in with the genuine ectomorphs, then maybe she needs to find some other line of work such as "plus-sized" model.

W, but there is no test to determine if any or all models are "naturally thin" with BMIs 18 or 17. I'm sure most of them are not genetically inclined to be obese, but all you need to do is read an interview with someone like Petra Nemcova talking about how little she has to eat to stay in her modeling shape to see that a lot of models are being victimized in order to stay employed.

I do believe it is possible to be naturally skinny and healthy (though I'm willing to bet Dr. J's wife, for example, doesn't happen to be 5'10" as well - naturally skinny and extremely tall, in one single person, is a real genetic anomaly), but when an industry is rewarding people harming themselves with higher paychecks, telling them to "seek other forms of employment like plus-size model" if they don't want to starve themselves is equivalent to telling the workers in my bad analogy not to work without safety equipment to make $2,000 a week because they could make $400 a week working in a fast-food place instead. That is the reality of the careers of plus-sized models or even of regular models who are not "skinny enough".

Ana Carolina Reston had work in Paris scheduled for the day after her death from anorexia. When she looked like a "regular model", the work she got was low-paying work at local conventions. When she starved herself nearly to death, she started getting high-paying work in Japan, Italy, and France. The industry says they would never employ girls that have eating disorders, but there is your answer: she had the trip booked 2 weeks before she died from starvation, when her weight was already the 80-something pounds she weighed at her death.

Mrs.J is 5'1", but I still "look up to her!" She works with special ed. children, seeing that they get every opportunity that can be provided for them.

Dr.J said:
Mrs.J is 5'1", but I still "look up to her!" She works with special ed. children, seeing that they get every opportunity that can be provided for them.[...]

There is a reason we call naturally thin people "petite": they tend to be short, too, hehe. 5'1" and 95lb is so much more common in nature than 5'10" and 125lb, which is the same BMI. I'd also like to point out to W that 5'10" and 125lb, which is 17.9 BMI, is much, much too fat for a model. Most agencies won't sign anyone over 110lb for that height.

She buys clothes in the Kid's Department! HaHa! Uh-Oh..So do I :-(

What no one seems to acknowledge is that establishing a weight requirement is *NOT* going to directly affect the number of people outside the fashion industry with eating disorders. I had an eating disorder for a number of years -- I can't speak for everyone, but in many of the communities I was in, the goal was not to be a model, it was to die; it is not the fault of models, parents, friends, or anything else, it simply is a mental disease.

Anorexia and bulimia are influenced by the fashion industry, yes, but they are not the source of the problem (except for perhaps the models and model wannabes who make it their problem). For the most part, the eating disordered community makes glamour their cover; if all skinny models disappeared and normalcy or even obesity were the new "in" looks, 99% of the people with anorexia would not change their ways. It certainly wouldn't have had an impact on me at that stage of my life -- any 70-pound boobless girl covered in lanugo doesn't much care about how good she looks; her focus is on needing to not need, or on the control she doesn't have over her controling nature.

While models might serve as a form of "thinspiration," it doesn't really matter if they exist or not; thanks to the pictures that have already been taken, Photoshop, and the mentally ill, the sickly models will live on in memory and virtual reality.

Assuming banning skinny models will help the eating disordered is a bit like assuming the cure for schizophrenia is a straight jacket, a muzzle, and restraints; sure, they're not moving, but they're sure as hell still hearing the voices.

This weight requirement shouldn't be professing to help the "anas" or "mias;" it's for the people who want to look like they care, or for the people that do care but don't know how to help. It OUGHT to be for the women that die on the catwalk from heart failure.

Dr. J, I buy my sneakers in the kids' section. Big savings that way, it is just hard to find the pairs without the Bratz or Sponge Bob on them.

Jay, as someone who also had an eating disorder in the past, I agree with you 100%. Heck, the pro-anas use photoshopped pictures of models that are a perfectly healthy size, like Laetitia Casta, as "thinspiration"; banning unhealthy models won't do a thing for the people who have EDs, whether they have it because they have control issues, or because they like belonging to the pro-ana community that glamourizes it. It won't even help young girls who "wish they were anorexic", and it certainly won't help people who are anorexic, but it will help the models themselves.

Jan, at 5'1" and 95 lbs there is nothing particularly remarkable about Ms. J. She is only moderately thin compared to average. Now find your calculator and do some math:

A 5'10" woman is only about 1.1475 times taller than a 5'1" woman, that is 70/61=1.1475. Now multiply 1.1475 times 95 lbs to obtain 109 lbs. Now calculate the BMI: 703 x 109 / (70 x 70) = 15.6 BMI. Imagine someone such as Ms. J stretched vertically by that small amount and you will finally be able to envision a healthy ectomorph with a BMI lower than you ever thought possible.

Petra Nemcova seems to have a larger frame than some other models and would therefore need to weigh more to be as healthy. She would have to work very hard to lose enough weight to be in the same league as the thinner models, who, because they are less common can command higher salaries.

As for your poor analogy, the most important safety equipment is required by government, insurance and union regulations, or just plain common sense, so any danger becomes a calculated risk for the employee. The advantages of earning $2000/week vs $400/week might very well outweigh the danger so leave that for the worker to decide. Besides, working in a fast-food joint ain't all that safe either.

W, I'll go back to what I first said: nobody I know, with BMIs as low as 16, looks nearly as thin as most models out there or the one in this picture. So what is her BMI? 14? 13?

Your math of stretching people out does not compute for the reason that taller people have more weight in bones, joints, and even internal organs, so that person there would certainly look a hell of a lot thinner than Mrs. J. The 5'10" 109lb will not look similar at all. The amount of weight "left" for visible muscle and fat is much smaller for "stretch" than it is for the original, and the BMI does work reasonably well here to show that (although it is far from a perfect measure). If you were to actually stretch a photo of a petite thin person using these new Photoshop tools and then compare her to people of the same height who have the proportional weight vs. the same BMI, I'm sure they'd look closer to the BMI match.

A lot of people we consider "healthy thin", like say, Julia Roberts, have BMIs around 17. So when we are horrified by the model in the picture or by Nicole Richie, we are talking about a much, much lower BMI. I can see an argument for dropping the cut to 17 or another number, but for not having one at all? I disagree.

I agree with the ban, although you can't exactly ban it, maybe just get the models to become curvier,and smile on the runway so they don't look dead. I'm doing about BMI for my assignment in Health and Social Care. I think the look of these models are horrendous, it sickens me to know they are made to eat nothing but rabbit food just because they are expected to stay a size 4 (Size 0 in America). Last year, a 22 year old model collapsed after a show in August because she was made to eat almost nothing for months in order to lose more weight. Why don't people consider the health of these models and not the way they look.
I'm 16, and although I'm not totally happy about my bodt, I'm glad my bones don't show and that I can eat what I want when I want.
Jed x

Jan, once again, you are confusing starving, undernourished people who have low BMIs with healthy ectomorphs whose BMIs are low because they have small frames.

The "stretched version" of Ms. J would weigh an additional 14 lbs. Of COURSE she would look thinner, since only her HEIGHT is increased, not her width or depth. Now, can you provide any plausible reason why this would -automatically- cause her to be unhealthy?

Now you seem to admit that a BMI of 17 is OK. That would at least allow Ms. Roberts and Ms. J the possibility of working as models. How magnanimous of you. How about suggesting for us a new BMI limit, lower than 18, and then sticking to it? Be ready to defend your answer.

W, it would not necessarily cause her to BE unhealthy. It would cause her to LOOK unhealthy. For the sake of argument, if you go and give Rosie O'Donnell a physical that proves she has no diabetes, no high cholesterol, and is in perfect health, then would she be a model? There is a difference between being healthy and looking healthy. If the standard is being healthy, then people with congenital diseases are automatically excluded; it is about portraying health.

I'm not in the fashion industry, and I think that their decision, being based on the WHO standards with a 0.5 range difference, is their decision to make. I was not saying I think Julia Roberts looks healthy, I was saying that our perceptions have been so affected that we call BMI 17 "healthy" and BMI 18 "curvy" these days. That probably has a lot to do with seeing Russian 12-year-olds with BMI 14 strutting down the catwalks all the time. I personally think Julia Roberts looks like she needs a burger real bad, but I know most people would call her size ok. If you were to go with my personal standards, it would be only "fat" women (you know, with BMIs like 20... appaling! obese!) like Tyra Banks when she was still modelling, women who look like they can kick some ass like Victoria Pratt, and maybe a few thin women who still look like they eat on a regular basis, like Cindy Crawford. But I don't set the standards.

I was reading a commentary of a model saying that if she can't work because she is underweight, it would be equivalent to her going to an office and saying "You are too fat to work in an office". She doesn't seem to understand that her looks are her qualification for her job, and that the qualifications of the fat office worker are her computer skills, her phone skills, and her education. If any or all of these are lacking, she will be fired. What would be a model's qualification if not looks? Her ability to walk???

Jan, if the ribs don't show on a five-one, 95 pound (BMI 17.9) woman, then why would the ribs show on a "stretched" five-ten, 109 pound (BMI 15.6) version of her? If the first looked healthy, so would the second. However, it seems her appearance must not match your preconceived notion of what healthy looks like.

You can't really quantify a healthy appearance, so you have to resort to using a ridiculous height-weight chart and guidelines drawn up by some WHO bureaucrats and expect that governments should pass laws saying that any woman, healthy or not, who doesn't meet those guidelines can't have the job. Or barring that, we would just use your personal standards of a BMI of 20, but fortunately you don't set the standards. Neither should the government.

W, because more of the weight in the taller woman would have to be bones, joints, and internal organs, leaving her with less "flesh" (muscle and fat).

And the government DOES get to set the standards when it is investing huge amounts of money in financing a fashion week. You are thinking with American thinking. The US government doesn't put a dime in the NY Fashion Week (though I'm sure the NY City Hall does, even if indirectly, by making the city able to host it), and so it doesn't have a say in how it is run. In Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and several other countries, the government invests money to make the fashion week happen, to stimulate the local fashion industry and tourism. Here in Brazil, it now pays for TWO fashion weeks, that get money from the federal government and from the 2 City Halls. Like any investor, it gets a say. Saying it doesn't is like saying Dove isn't allowed to hire the "unconventional models" it did for their campaign - it is their money and their decision.

I think its best to ban overly skinny models. I am 13 and i hope to model someday, and i can say, it does put the pressure to be skinny on aspiring models. Espeacially it targets the younger apiring ones. There are many different reasons why people can be skinny, but this isn`t about other people. Models work to stay and/or get that Tiny. She looks like a 6 year drew a stick person in art class. People can have bulimia, and anorexia, and other eating disorders or are just naturally skinny, but the model in the post doesn`t look natural on any level in my perspective. If they were banned, it wouldn`t be fair for those who have no intension of being that skinny, but, no matter if its an intension or not, it still makes an impression.

Jan, governments get money via taxes and fees from people who have to earn money by working to produce goods and services. You seem to be saying that it is OK for the government to tax a thin model's salary, use that money to run a fashion show and then turn around and tell her that she is 'underweight' and can no longer model in the fashion show that her taxes support? For the greater good, no doubt. Socialism at its finest.

Again, since you didn't seem to understand the first few times I explained it, the 5-10, 109 pound woman is about 15% taller and 15% heavier than the 5-1, 95 pound woman. The width, depth and circumference of her limbs, head and torso remain the same. Her bones, muscles, fat and other organs all increase in weight by 15%. This is simple grade-school geometry. I guess your government is too busy running fashion shows to worry about such boring concerns as education.

Yes, I am saying that it is ok to tax the model's salary, because she also drives on roads, has police at her service, public schools, and in certain cases, free health care, just like anyone else, and then for the government, when choosing whether to spend the money it made on taxes, to tell the same model's employers that they cannot, on that particular occasion, hire that model. The decision on who gets to model in the show they are financing should be made for maximum return of their investment, in tourism growth and in stimulating the fashion industry, and if they think a particular type of model will harm that growth, I'm fine with that. I don't see any "socialism" there, I see capitalism at its finest. It is the exact same situation as when Lancôme or any other company fired 35 year old Isabella Rosselini for being just too old - it is a decision made solely out of thinking of profits, and not about thinking of the good of the individual or the common good.

I could say that your government is too busy to teach you biology, but I won't. Humans are not geometrical shapes, that is what you can't seem to understand. Even the internal organs of someone taller weigh more than the ones of a shorter person. The bones will weigh more. So your simulation of someone stretched in weight and height will not in reality look like the shorter person, since more of that person's weight will go towards bones, jones, and internal organs. Something as simple as looking at the size of the hands, feet, and head of someone taller should show you that. If you are talking about a hypothetical person who is 5'10" and wears a size 5 shoe and has a tiny little pin head, and a heart that doesn't pump enough blood for her body to go up one flight of stairs (because she has the heart of the 5'1" tall woman), then sure, you are right. It is not that I don't understand what you are saying or how you calculated it, it is that your calculations are so simplistic they show ignorance of the most basic biology.

0---[__ ______++++++{__________I

Yikes!! Mrs J???? 5'11"

Jan, if you want to understand just how thin someone can be, consider Manute Bol, a 7 ' 7" basketball player whose professional career lasted more than a decade. I'll even spot you an inch and and say that he was only 7' 6". His weight is usually given as 200 to 225 pounds. If you imagine Bol scaled down in height, width and depth to a height of 5' 10" then he would weigh between 94 and 106 pounds. Even if you generously assume that his actual weight is 250 pounds he would still weigh in at a staggering 118 pounds if scaled down to 5' 10" ! Now let's calculate the BMIs for the weights I have given:

At 5' 10", 94 pounds, BMI=13.5
At 5' 10", 106 pounds, BMI=15.2
At 5' 10", 118 pounds, BMI=16.9

At 7' 6", 200 pounds, BMI=17.4
At 7' 6", 225 pounds, BMI=19.5
At 7' 6", 250 pounds, BMI=21.7

I suppose that if the actual Manute Bol can get by at 7-6 & 225 pounds, then a 5-10, 106-pound version should do OK too. What do you think?

(BTW, you need to take some courses in economics, business, civics and political science. I would hate to think that you already have.)

W, I'm not sure what is your education in those areas, but mistaking any sort of governmental regulatory action with "socialism" shows me it wasn't enough when it comes to politics, at least. While in socialist countries the State was very centralizing, certain democracies like France have States that are just as centralizing, if not more. I have a BA in Political Science with a minor in Sociology.

The standards are not set because the models have to *be* healthy, as I've said over and over, but because they have to *appear* healthy.

I think the edges of the BMI numbers can be blurry with some individuals. I have mentioned I know a two time Boston Marathon winner(and several other world class runners). Out of curiosity I asked her today(a doctor can get away with this sometimes, but we don't make a habit of it), what was her height and weight She is 5'6" and 110 lbs. BMI 17.8. I would call her sleek and thin, but not anorexic looking, although I realize it's just my opinion. She is very fit and healthy. I asked her what her weight was when she won the marathons. 105 at the most! BMI 16.9. She is an athlete, and she maximized her body for her sport. There is no question she was healthy during her years of training and competing.

I think weight in general is not a good indicator of health, since a body's weight is comprised of skeleton, muscle, organs, skin, brain matter, water, etc....oh, and fat. Models that are severely skinny may or may not have a ridiculously low BMI depending on their body composition, but they still may be unhealthy. I'm one of those runners that is small (5'3") and dense (108 lbs). I have only 13% body fat, so technically I am underfat. My BMI is just fine, but I am not able to menstruate right now. I also look rather "cut" and not extremely feminine.

Oh yes, but most models are not fit, and are in fact discouraged from looking fit. So when you don't have a lot of muscle, you need to weigh a bit more not to look skeletal. A lot of athletes in many sports have BMIs that either put them in the underweight or in the overweight category, but they are exceptions.

Dr. J, the BMI is better used to assess populations rather than individuals, but even then it is misleading.

Regardless of her BMI, a female runner who has trained to the point of having amenorrhea isn't 'fit.' Neither is a weightlifter if he has neglected his cardiovascular health. Meanwhile, the naturally thin, small-framed woman with a very low BMI can be healthier than either one, while doing nothing more than moderate exercise and eating whatever she wants. I can see how that would really tick some people off.

W, but it is all about appearances, after all. If it weren't, then it would be true discrimination, as people born with diabetes for ex. would be excluded. And if you got someone, no matter their appearance, who was in good health, you'd have them model. When the entire qualification for a profession is looks, it is all about the appearance, not about actual health.

Jan, if a government intrudes into an area that should be left to the free market, a fashion show being an example, and then makes rules that disregard the rights of individuals, height-weight restrictions on models being an example, then that government is engaging in socialism. Even non-socialist governments can be guilty of this sort of thing on occasion.

Ostensibly, the intent of the restrictions has been to keep anorexics off the catwalks, but are you now suggesting that Madrid's and Milan's intent is to govern appearance? Appearance based on WHOSE opinion?