"... this law shatters the anorexic ideal serving as an example for the country’s youth."The new law, known as the “photoshop law,” requires models to present their employers with a current doctor’s note confirming that they meet a minimum body mass index (BMI) – a calculation of weight to height proportion – of 18.5, which is considered the lowest threshold for a healthy weight. Advertisements featuring models who are “photoshopped” or otherwise digitally altered to make them appear thinner must be clearly marked as manipulated images.
Here's a BMI calculator if you want to check whether you're too skinny to be a model in Israel. I've been 5'5" for more than 40 years, and I've weighed lots of different weights, including the weight of 107, which I regarded as my ideal weight (based on a chart in the
Stillman diet book) when I was a college student. But based on that BMI calculator, I see I'd need to weigh at least 111 to be permitted to be a model in Israel! I know you need to be taller to be a model, but my point is that 107 wasn't anorexic for a 20-year-old.
Certainly, for modeling clothes you want a body that doesn't really call attention to itself, that works more like a clothes hanger. It's an aesthetic choice, a way to feature the clothing, the
product. The Israeli law is ridiculously repressive. People need to take responsibility for their own bodies, not blame the fashion/magazine industry and certainly not use the government to cut off messages that supposedly feed their irresponsibility.
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