France Moves to Outlaw 'Inciting' Thinness

France’s lower legislative body today approved a law banning the promotion of anorexic behavior, the Guardian reports. Applicable to magazines, advertising and the web, the law can impose up to a $47,000 fine and two years in prison for “excessively inciting others to deprive themselves of food." Directed chiefly towards pro-anorexic websites, the bill could have broad repercussions for fashion.

That thought does not please Didier Grumbach, president of the French Federation of Couture: "Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny," he said. "That doesn't exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France." (More anorexia stories.)