‘All About That Bass’ and Photoshopping a Model’s Waist: Introducing Body Image Law

When women see images of extremely thin women, their body image may suffer as a result. Their poor body image can develop into an eating disorder. A handful of governments took action to try to stop models who have BMIs below a specific number from working and/or require a warning on photoshopped images (that modify models to make them appear thinner). The Authors of this article (“Authors”) created a term to apply to this newly developing area of law: Body Image Law. The Authors argue that there are some areas in which the actions that governments took in Body Image Law may be lacking: insufficient sanctions in some jurisdictions, using BMI solely to assess models’ fitness to work and a failure to address: (i) the tiny sample sizes that fashion designers provide to models to wear and (ii) using the term ‘plus size’ beside images of certain models. This is the first scholarly article known to the Authors to create a term that applies to this newly developing area of law.