If I told you of a country in which hundreds of thousands of young girls were being systematically starved, you might assume that I was talking about some horribly authoritarian regime far from home. Guess again. It's the United States of America. Who is doing it? It isn't the government, though the government bears a responsibility for not stopping it. It is the fashion industry. Since the "supermodel" culture began in the late 1980's, teenage girls have been anorexia victims at a higher rate than ever. The word victim is very appropriate in this case. The modeling industry makes women wealthy and famous- which is why it is so dangerous. Models are, almost without exception, painfully thin, pallid, unhealthy shells of themselves. The facts that "supermodels" become millionaires by doing this to themselves- and worse- become so-called "icons" is the fuel for one of the most evil forms of propaganda that I have ever seen. One cannot escape it. Half-starved fashion models are everywhere. In my hometown shopping mall there are dozens and probably hundreds of images of them. So what does this tell young girls? If you want to be popular and if you want to be successful, you must conform to this dreadful image. While men bear a significant responsibility for this because of male concupiscence towards models, the most heartless people in this case are fashion executives, some of whom- incredibly- are women. By creating ineffable images in the minds of young girls, they can recruit new generations of them whose images, in turn, destroy the lives of girls of yet later generations. What must be done? The answer is simple, if unpopular. Ban modeling. How will clothing be displayed? Mannequins, which should be regulated to ensure that they don't conform to the same deadly stereotype, can easily serve that purpose. Now, some may be skeptical about what I am saying, but I give them the undeniable facts about the plight of girls and young women in this country:

Research suggests that about one percent (1%) of female adolescents have anorexia. That means that about one out of every one hundred young women between ten and twenty are starving themselves, sometimes to death.

Research suggests that about four percent (4%), or four out of one hundred, college-aged women have bulimia. About 50% of people who have been anorexic develop bulimia or bulimic patterns.

Only about 10% of people with anorexia and bulimia are male.

Source: http://www.anred.com/stats.html

I suspect that these are actually very conservative estimates. Note that half of women with anorexia develop bulimia (extreme, uncontrollable overeating), and we all know the health problems that being overweight causes. If you wonder why so few girls and young women are of truly normal weight, it is because of the modeling industry and the images of women with which it brainwashes the public. Note that only 10% of people with eating disorders are male. That disparity is caused by the modeling industry, and no amount of education on the matter will destroy its commercial appeal. Therefore, whether it is popular to do so or not, our government has an obligation to ban all modeling.

I say we need to give special tax breaks to some group of entrepreneurs who are going to design clothes for plus-sized women and hire plus-sized models. That is what would make the modeling industry an equal opportunity proposition.

Why is it the government's obligation to keep these people from being stupid and giving themselves eating disorders? Natural selection I say.

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"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - Hassan-i-Saba

We are all to some extent products of our environment. Moreover, we all have an innate need for social approval. It is the responsibility of the government to prevent propaganda from making girls and young women see being morbidly thin as necessary for that social approval. Look at the death of Karen Carpenter, which was caused by the "Twiggy" phenomenon, not to mention the recent illness of Mary-Kate Olsen. This epidemic is simply too horrible to ignore.

because people worship the fruits of the modeling industry. The only way to stop it is for people to ignore models, quit raising their daughters with hairbrain ideas that modeling is a respectable way to make a living, quit giving a **** what Miss America has to say about the world, quit giving people more credit for beauty than for brains, and quit being such superficial slugs. I'm not holding my breath. But I think people will get sick of it in time. I just don't see how the government could help. The industry only reflects the superficial, woman-as-object streak in our culture. Outlawing the symptom will not cure the disease. Back to the drawing board.

The government is in a position in which it can treat the underlying disease by treating the symptoms. If there are no images of starved models, the social attitudes that are caused by these images will disappear. The people cold-bloodedly treating women as objects (the fashion executives) will have to stop such treatment or go to prison. I think that some ten-year prison sentences would go a long way towards stopping the modeling industry's war on women. I should mention that I would also ban beauty pageants.

You are advocating a totalitarian system of moral decision making. You have no right to tell people what they can and cant do. You have no right to tell models they cant do their job because some people some where are hurt by this. If you applied your rules to their full implications, the list of banned things would be endless.

We are a liberal democracy. The whole point behind our constitution is to defend individual rights.

You cant start banning all the time, every time something hurts someone somewhere.

Thousands are hurt by sex, cars, guns, medicine, knives, sex, food, sugar, far, planes, boats, animals, alcohol, etc. each year. You cant ban them all.

Thats life. Deal with it.

About your comments.

Nope. Its not. Government has no right.

Maybe, but it is not the govenrment's job to make everybody's better in this way.

How is it cold-blooded? These models make millions of dollars. Its no different from any other industry. Plus, they choose out of their own free will to enter the business. So the government should tell the models that joining the business is illegal because its bad for them?

People get 10 years for muder. Thats just crazy.

Why? They make children feel bad?

That's it. Nothing more. Just LOL.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

You keep using the word "forced" in all your posts like this.

How can it be forced if they have the option to say "no"?

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What leads you to believe this is the government's responsibility?

At what point, in your opinion, are people responsible for their own actions?

Not everyone agrees with you that it is a disease.

Unfortunately there is no way to accomplish what you want without violating the rights of other people.

The women allow themselves to be treated as objects. They have a right to be treated as objects if that is what they want. You are wrong to violate their rights by restricting what they can do.

Then I guess it is fortunate for the rest of us that our elected leaders dont agree with you.

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