French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin

I. French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin New York Times, April 16, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/europe/16france.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
II. A new law was introduced to the French Senate, focused on banning of the commercial communications such as web sites and magazines promoting eating disorders, starving tips and overall “thinspiration.” This new principle was already approved by the French lower house of parliament, and was originally proposed by Valerie Boyer, a French conservative lawmaker, and is backed by the Bouches-du-Rhone region in south France and the Frances health minister. One of the main reasons of why this law was proposed was due to the death of the Ana Carolina Reston (a Brazilian model) due to anorexia. The law wants to ban all references to the promotion of eating disorders including nicknames such as “mia” and “ana” (bulimia and anorexia). Although the overall message of the law seems all and well, there is still confusion and criticism, saying that the law is too vague, and that it is not just to say if a girl is too skinny or not. It is also said that it is not clear who should take responsibility for the comments, the site creator, or the Internet service hosting the site. Either way, the French parliament is working on getting the law passed, for the better of the young girls in the world.
III. A. The AP theme this article relates to is Interaction between humans and the environment and Development and transformation of social structures. The role of young girls and their choices that are influenced by the outside influences heavily relates to these themes. Technology, social structures, gender roles, and the influence of the media on everyday life compliments both the themes of Interactions… and Development…
B. The historical background of this issue goes back to 2006 when Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, died from anorexia. Even before then, the pressure to be skinny has influenced young girls from the modeling world all the way to high school hallways. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia have just recently become very prevalent within teens and young women.
C. The author of this article is Doreen Caravajal. It seems as though she is a female reporter for the NY Times.
D. This article provides little bias throughout the text. Although, the author seems to be for the law, and against the promotion of eating disorders.
E. A missing voice that could be added in order to fully asses this article to its fullest ability would be hearing the point of view of young girls who suffer from eating disorders and to see if the online sources really influence the choices that they have made.
F. This article was very interesting to read. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia have become very prevalent within the teen population in the past couple of years. I believe that anything that can be done in order to stop the outside influences of the media from telling people what to think and how they should act should be banned. Although, I believe that the law should be made more clear and branch out into other parts of the media other that the Internet.