Physicians cite a healthy body mass index as falling between 18.5 and 24.9. The Madrid Fashion Association recently decided to reject models below a level of 18. If this change crossed into the global market models such as Kate Moss, Gisele Bundchen, Elle MacPherson and Victoria Beckham would be denied the catwalk. While this is a small step in creating a realistic fashion industry, this idea needs to be accepted on a broader scale.

Models today do not reflect their name. The word "model" implies an example, a reflection of a population, when in fact these women are nearly the sole representatives of their kind. While they represent a population which does not come close to matching their physical standards, they set an example for body image in a broader context.

An eating disorder is just that - a psychological disorder caused by personal issues in which an individual views their body in an unrealistic light. The media, and specifically the fashion industry is not the sole cause of these problems. However, it does contribute by creating an unhealthy standard for individuals to strive for.

Leaving body mass index unregulated in the fashion industry increases competition between models to a grossly unhealthy level. In order to remain a contender in the industry, models will continue to drop weight indefinitely, creating an unsafe work environment for themselves and contributing to the broad body image epidemic.

While I believe that designers as artists should have the right to express themselves through whatever venue they deem necessary, the limiting force that the universally accepted model has brought upon the industry needs to be considered. Established beauty standards have prevented designers from advancing their ideas beyond the most readily accepted solution at hand - the gaunt figures that slink across our runways today. Establishing a minimum body mass index will free designers from blindly accepting self-imposed confines and force them to address their real audience.

It is as if a visual artist were to be limited to creating work using only a standard piece of computer paper. While there are many ways of making art in this limited space, how would Michelangelo have painted the Sistine Chapel under these constraints?

Designers today have become completely embedded in a world of perfection. Rather than creating audience-specific clothing, the fashion world has ignored basic design principles and focused their work on an ideal that seldom occurs in the real world. Beyond setting limitations on their own industry, fashion designers have set an unattainable physical standard in their models, contributing to psychological disorders.

The new requirements set in Madrid do not prevent designers from using "skinny" models to exhibit their work, but rather unhealthy ones. The fashion industry should be required to employ models with a healthy BMI, models who better reflect the design audience. While this effort will not quell eating disorders as a broad social issue, it will set a precedent for other media outlets and also further artistic expression in the fashion industry.

Emma Claire Sohn

Regardless of my oh-so-meager understanding of fashion design, it seems to me that fashion is a form of expression that carries a message from the designer. Designers have the right to decide what they want that message to be, just like other artists. The problem is that designers have overwhelmingly decided that to be thin is to be beautiful and to be beautiful is to be ideal so thin becomes ideal.

We should realize that fashion is no different than any other media - pay attention to this, fellow males. It has the same basic distribution structure as screen entertainment. Designers (directors) make the clothes, the models (actors) wear the clothes, stores (theaters) carry the clothing distributed by the major design labels (studios) that financed production in the first place and people wear them (audience). The trends in major fashion shape the market by filtering down through the economic classes and achieve acceptance and, most importantly, imitation and emulation.

Another similar debate is about smoking in movies and its effects on young people. Studies have shown that movies are the number one reason kids start smoking. But yet there has never been a ban by a studio or government agency banning smoking. There have only been reforms regarding paid product placement. To do otherwise is infringing on artistic expression.

But would banning skinny models really decrease eating disorders?

It seems that the incredible rise in eating disorders is the result of a broad cultural preoccupation with thinness. Many role models of young girls are by and large uniformly thin. Barbie dolls, TV wives, children's books that reinforce stereotypes of thin princesses, ballerinas, teachers and nurses are conditioning girls to aspire to a certain image. I argue that all of that, never mind the enormous peer pressure girls feel at school to look a certain way in order to be popular, is more to directly to blame then Twiggy.

If your goal is to decrease smoking (or in this case, eating disorders) the most efficient way to do so would not be to restrict the entertainment industry. Opponents should use it.

We need to think of thinness as a company on the fashion market that has gained a monopoly. If you want to decrease eating disorders, banning skinny models won't cut it because the problem is too big. The trick is convincing impressionable girls that they don't have to look like the models in Madrid to look good. The best way to do this is through the market. Make "skinny" unfashionable by making "healthy" (read: normal) the latest thing.

We need to encourage designers to make clothes for a broader demographic. This means embracing new definitions of beauty. If they do that, fashion show organizers won't have to restrict model size, the market will have already self-censored itself.

And self-censorship is another word for having a conscience.

Now that I think of it, designing an outfit for a regular woman would be a great task for the designers on Project Runway. If you're unhealthy, you're out.

Andrew Mason