Slim Pickings

Feb. 8, 2007 — -- As a policy, I don't like to criticize until I understand.

So with my colleagues from the three leading eating disorders organizations, I attended Fashion Week in New York early this month to try to get an inside glimpse of the fashion industry and how it works.

While there, I was invited to be a silent audience member for a panel discussion titled "Health and Beauty in the Fashion Industry," which was organized by the Council on Fashion Designers of America.

What did I see?

First, I saw some beautiful fashion. I was fortunate to attend shows for Tracy Reese, Diane von Furstenberg and Carolina Herrera. There is no question that fashion is wearable art, and the creativity of the designers was brilliant and inspired.

Yet for me, as the director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program, I was more interested in the girls and women who were modeling this art.

Nian Fisch, the creative director of KCD, a New York-based public relations firm leading the CFDA panel, confirmed that some of the thinnest models had been "pulled" from the shows because of the furor about what she called the "skinny model issue."

My first thought was, "How sad. Did they just pull these models and then they were out of a job? Did they refer them for an evaluation or just say, 'You can't work this week because of the uproar about skinny models?'"

Also rejected was the call by the eating disorders organizations for the CFDA to require yearly physicals for models -- physicals that include a comprehensive assessment for eating disorders. Why? "It's not our responsibility," the council said. "It's the agents' responsibility."

Meanwhile, the agents say it's the families' responsibility.

Who will take responsibility for the health and well-being of these young girls, most of whom have no idea about the long-term consequences of extreme dieting and unhealthy weight control practices?

Cynthia M. Bulik is director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina Hospitals, vice president of the Eating Disorders Coalition, and the past-president of the Academy for Eating Disorders.