France's ANOREXIC model crackdown!

*Warning: PIRATE RADIO presentation*

France is inching closer to a ban on the use of skinny models, a trend which one leading MP has branded the 'glorification of anorexia'.

Socialist politician Olivier Veran, who is also neurologist at the University Hospital of Grenoble, is demanding that fashion bosses who hire underweight girls be punished with six months in prison or fines of up to €75,000 (£60,000).

He has proposed that models should be required to present medical certificates demonstrating a healthy body mass index (BMI), which is calculated by dividing one's weight by the square of one's height.

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Unhealthy: Super-skinny models may be banned in France after a Socialist politician, Olivier Veran, has called for fines or prison sentences to be handed out to fashion bosses who employ them, and for all models to be forced to present a certificate of good health before being allowed on the catwalk

Mr Veran told French daily Le Parisien: 'It's intolerable to promote malnutrition and to commercially exploit people who are endangering their own health.

'A level of acceptable body mass index should be set and enforced. Websites encouraging young girls to lose weight should also be banned.

It's intolerable to commercially exploit people who are endangering their own health

Olivier Veran, French politician

'Some of these sites tell pre-teenage girls they should have a gap of 15 centimetres between their thighs, or give tips on how to survive on as little food as possible.'

There are now 40,000 people in France suffering from anorexia, around 90 percent of whom are adolescents, Mr Veran said.

Measures similar to those proposed by Mr Veran are already in place in a number of countries in Europe and around the world. 

Spain bars models below a certain body mass index from featuring in the Madrid fashion shows; Italy insists on health certificates for models; and Brazil is considering demands to ban underage, underweight models from its catwalks.

In Norway, MPs have proposed that images of airbrushed fashion models should come with a 'cigarette-packet' style health warning in a bid to tackle eating disorders.

One suggested text for the warning reads: 'This advertisement has been altered and presents an inaccurate image of how this model really looks'. 

Model Robyn Lawley rallies against 'thigh gap' trend (related)

Medical experts around the world have warned against the dangers of ultra-skinny catwalk models and images airbrushed to make girls look thinner, which they say encourage anorexia in girls as young as six.

Two years ago, fashion guru Giorgio Armani said that the fashion industry had a duty to 'work together against anorexia'.

He added at the time: 'The industry has to recognise the link between its preference for abnormally thin models and the growth in eating disorders among young women.'