The Skeleton Look Finally Goes Out of Style

ABC News reports that the Council of Fashion Designers of America has finally chosen to address the issue of ultraslim models on the catwalks. The Fashion Industry group, which organizes the biannual Fashion Week in New York, has issued recommendations to improve skinny models' health.

The guidelines posted by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) will try to educate and warn models and their agencies about the signs of eating disorders and will also give advice on how to have a healthy diet and lifestyle. They also discourage models under 16 from walking the runway, state that all models should work limited hours, take rest breaks and be supplied with nutritious snacks and nonalcoholic beverages backstage.
Furthermore, on the weight issue, CFDA's guidelines encourage models with eating disorders to get help and recommend that smoking and drinking be banned from backstage areas.

The CFDA, which will host New York Fashion Week on February 2, 2007, states that they are about awareness and education, not policing." They also defended their decision not to make weight requirements, claiming, "Other groups have set strict rules about how much (or little) models are allowed to weigh. However, the CFDA is not recommending that models get a doctor's physical examination to assess their health or body mass index to be permitted to work...Eating disorders are emotional disorders that have psychological, behavioral, social, and physical manifestations, of which body weight is only one."

The underweight model issue first came to light when 30 percent of runway models were banned from the Madrid Fashion Week due to having low body mass index, four months ago. In recent months, governments and institutions worldwide have been dealing with the problem in their own ways. The CFDA is now holding meetings with individual designers and model agencies to encourage the designers and ad producers to use healthy models. The group will then assess the results of these attempts before making any limitations.

Even Diane Von Furstenberg, the president of the CFDA, was leary of publishing official weight restrictions, stating,"I feel like we should promote health as a part of beauty rather than setting rules." Von Furstenberg created the guidelines with a nutritionist, a psychiatrist and a trainer.