Vogue Introduces "Health Initiative"; Still Thinks You're Too Fat

Vogue (and its 18 international editions) pledge to implement their "Health Initiative": using "healthy models" in their magazines. Here are the criteria:

1. We will not knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder. We will work with models who, in our view, are healthy and help to promote a healthy body image.

2. We will ask agents not to knowingly send us underage girls and casting directors to check IDs when casting shoots, shows and campaigns.

3. We will help to structure mentoring programmes where more mature models are able to give advice and guidance to younger girls, and we will help to raise industry-wide awareness through education, as has been integral to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Health Initiative.

4. We will encourage producers to create healthy backstage working conditions, including healthy food options and a respect for privacy. We will encourage casting agents not to keep models unreasonably late.

5. We encourage designers to consider the consequences of unrealistically small sample sizes of their clothing, which limits the range of women who can be photographed in their clothes, and encourages the use of extremely thin models.

6. We will be ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.

What worries me most (among the numerous misguided notions the above list represents) is that "healthy", to the fashion industry's standards, ergo society's standards, means 'thin, but not "too thin"'. So Vogue's models will be size 2 instead of 00.

Health At Every Size has proven that one does not have to be thin to be healthy. So to truly be "ambassadors for the message of healthy body image", Vogue better feature models of all sizes-- yes, from 00 to XXXXXXXXXL & everywhere in between.

I'm not counting on it.