Spain sizes up real women to fight anorexia

Spain has launched a study into the size of average women compared with models used by the fashion industry in a bid to stop the use of ultra-thin advertising images blamed for eating disorders like anorexia.

Spain’s government hopes to show real women do not fit the fashion industry’s skinny ideals and oblige leading retail brands to display bigger sizes in shop windows and magazines.

“This ideal is impossible for most people to achieve and can end up hurting people’s health,” Health Minister Elena Salgado said in a statement this week at the launch of the study.

Upwards of one million Spaniards either suffer or are at high risk of developing so-called slimming disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, according to some estimates.

Incidence of anorexia, where victims starve themselves, is estimated to be increasing by 15 percent a year in Spain.

Salgado met this week with Spanish fashion and retail industry bosses such as Pablo Isla, head of Inditex which owns brands like Zara and Massimo Dutti, to form a working group on the sizing and advertising issue.

The group, which resembles one set up by Spain’s former conservative government, will report in three months time.

The government also aims to create standard, industry-wide clothing sizes to end headaches for consumers seeking the correct fit across a range of brands.

Rather than create laws on displays and sizing, the government hopes to encourage self-regulation by the fashion industry, the ministry said.

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