Have you heard?
The Minister for Youth, Kate Ellis, has just announced new Government initiatives to promote positive body image among young Australians.
The initiatives include a Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image for the fashion, media and advertising industries.
Mags adhering to the guidelines will receive a 'body image tick' like the Heart Foundation's healthy food tick.
The code aims to bring about long-term cultural change with the following principles:
1. Positive content and messaging: Use positive content and messaging to support the development of a positive body image and realistic and healthy physical goals and aspirations among consumers.
2. Diversity: Use a diverse range of people that are appropriate to their target audience. When considering diversity, particular focus should be given to including a range of body shapes, sizes and ethnicities.
3. Fair placement: Use advertising that supports positive and healthy body image behaviour. Advertising that contradicts positive body image messages will not be used.
4. Realistic and natural images of people: Do not use digital technology in a way that alters images of people so that their body shape and features are unrealistic or unattainable through healthy practices. Make consumers aware of the extent to which images of people have been manipulated.
5. Healthy weight models: Use models that are clearly of a healthy weight.
6. Appropriate modelling age: Only use people aged 16 years or older to model adult clothes or to work or model in fashion shows targeting an adult audience.
7. Fashion retailers supporting positive body image: Stock a wide variety of sizes that reflects demand from customers.
You can read the nitty gritty here.
While the Code has already received praise in the media, it has predictably come under fire in the blogosphere. The very fact that it is voluntary has raised eyebrows. Some commentators have dismissed it as corporate schmoozing, while others have utilised the media storm to point the blame at the other end of the spectrum: plus size models and the acceptance of big as healthy. Should the initiatives be focused more on public school education about health and body image from a young age? Some say yes.
But the Code is about celebrating health and diversity, which is why I support it, and one comment I found online sums it up well: There SHOULD be models who are too thin, but only to the same degree that there are models who are too fat, too short, too pale and too dark. There should be boobs, hips, thighs and bellies of all sizes.
I am hopeful about the Code. I’m hopeful that if even a few media outlets adopt the values of the Code, we will start to see a shift in media consumption, and the behaviour of the consumer will then gradually begin to dictate the messages in the media – which is the Code’s aim after all. So, we need to be patient. Time will tell, as the end decision still lies in the consumer’s hands.
I’m interested, though: will the Code make you choose one magazine over another? Will you stop spending money and supporting those who don’t adhere to the Code?