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'Dangerously Skinny' Model Petition For No. 10

'Dangerously Skinny' Model Petition For No. 10

A model calling for legislation to prevent young girls from getting dangerously skinny will deliver a petition to Downing Street later.

Rosie Nelson will deliver the petition, signed by more than 113,000 people, ahead of an official inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on body image.

Ms Nelson, 23, first spoke out about her concerns in an interview with Sky News in September when she claimed it was almost impossible to be fit and healthy while meeting fashion industry expectations.

She has since won huge support for her campaign to hold modelling agencies responsible for the wellbeing of their models.

"When I went into the modelling agency in London, they said 'we think you have great potential, we just need you to lose weight'," she said.

"So I went away, lost some weight, came back to see them a few months later and they said 'you're doing well, we just need you to lose more weight and we need you to go down to the bone'.

"They just kept pushing me to lose more and more weight and I physically couldn't do it.

"I was dieting, I was exercising like crazy.

"I was hurting my body, doing more damage than good, and they kept pushing me to lose more weight but I couldn't do it anymore."

Ms Nelson believes a change in the law is needed to ensure that models get regular health checks.

She said: "Just like with other jobs where you have to provide a health certificate before you do labour work or some kind of physical activity.

"That's what modelling is, you are doing a physical job.

"So just like other professions where you have to provide a health certificate, I don't see a reason why girls who are modelling can't provide a health certificate either.

"Models should have to show they are healthy, and that they are healthy enough to work.

"And if they are losing weight - or the agency wants them to lose weight - that they are doing it responsibly, and are going to their doctor."

After handing in the petition to Number 10, Ms Nelson, along with Hayley Hasselhoff, a model and the youngest daughter of David Hasselhoff, will then speak at a hearing of the APPG on body image, chaired by Conservative MP Caroline Nokes.

Several other countries - including France, Italy and Israel - now require models to have a minimum Body Mass Index (BMI) to take part in shows.

But the British Fashion Council insists BMI is not an accurate measurement for young women.

As well as the pressure it puts on aspiring models, there is also a concern that presenting "thin as beautiful" sends out a negative message to other young girls and risks making them feel ashamed of their natural size.

But former model Sasha Larner believes banning unnaturally or unusually thin models would be wrong.

She said: "I don't think the pressure comes from the fashion industry, it's from how the media portrays that everyone has to be thin - look at actresses, singers, they all have to be thin, so it's not just the fashion industry."