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NEW YORK - The organizers of New York's fashion shows today issued guidelines to tackle the problem of too-skinny models but stopped well short of banning them from the catwalks as fashion houses have done in Milan.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America, or CFDA, recommended that models with eating disorders seek treatment, young models work limited hours, healthy food be supplied backstage and smoking and alcohol be banned.
The CFDA, which organizes the semi-annual Fashion Weeks in New York, said its guidelines were "about awareness and education, not policing."
"Therefore, the committee is not recommending that models get a doctor's physical examination to assess their health or body-mass index to be permitted to work," the CFDA said in a statement. "Eating disorders are emotional disorders that have psychological, behavioural, social, and physical manifestations, of which body weight is only one."
The fashion world has been debating the issue, with many designers and models shrugging off concerns that ultra-thin models encourage eating disorders in girls and young women.
New York's next Fashion Week begins on Feb. 2.
Last month Milan fashion houses formally barred ultra-skinny and under-age models from its February shows.
The agreement between the city of Milan and its powerful fashion industry bans models under 16 and those with a body mass index of less than 18.5 from Milan's shows.
Body mass index is the ratio of weight to the square of height -- so that a 1.73m model who weighed less than 55.4kg would be barred.
Milan remains the only city of the four world centres of fashion -- the others being New York, London and Paris -- to enact an outright ban.
Mario Boselli, head of the Italian National Chamber of Fashion, has said he plans to meet with other industry leaders later this month to press the issue.
Didier Grumbach, the president of France's Chambre Syndicale who oversees Paris' fashion week, has said he does not think regulation is the answer to the problem of anorexia and has called the imposition of rules "a false remedy."
Spain barred models below a certain weight from a September fashion show in Madrid, and Britain's culture minister called for "stick-thin" models to be banned from the catwalk during London Fashion Week.
Brazil has launched a campaign to ban under-age, underweight models from shows in response to the death of a Brazilian model from complications due to anorexia.
But designer Karl Lagerfeld has said that overweight people need more treatment than underweight ones, and Giorgio Armani has blamed stylists and the media for the fashion industry's obsession with ultra-thin women.
The CFDA, whose president is designer Diane von Furstenberg, said designers "share a responsibility to protect women, and very young girls in particular, within the business, sending the message that beauty is health."
"Although we cannot fully assume responsibility for an issue that is as complex as eating disorders and that occurs in many walks of life, the fashion industry can begin a campaign of awareness and create an atmosphere that supports the well-being of these young women," it said.
It said the fashion industry should be educated to identify the early signs of eating disorders.
- REUTERS
