The Skinny on Outlawing Extreme Thinness

By Ali Trachta in Arts & Entertainment on May 13, 2008 4:31PM

The Café Society program, run by the Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, aims to create more informed and engaged communities through weekly coffee shop conversations that tackle relevant social issues.

In a discussion titled “Too Thin to Win” participants this week will be zeroing in on not only the media’s portrayal of thinness as an ideal, but the steps that have been taken to combat destructive and unattainable images. In an effort to legislate against "thinspiration," some European countries have gone as far as to threaten five figure fines and jail time to those running pro-anorexia websites, and to ban underweight models in fashion shows.

Café Society would like us to ponder: should the government be involved in determining our society’s images of beauty? Should similar policies be adopted in the United States? Are banning certain images a form of censorship? What really causes eating disorders? Are we soon going to be suing Tyra Banks for parading skinny women across our TV screens on America’s Next Top Model?

Café Society meets Tuesdays at Intelligentsia Coffee, 3123 N. Broadway, 7:30 p.m., free. Here is the rest of the schedule.

Photo by roger g1.