20 April 2008

In what seems an historic effective move to combat the insidious cycle of eating disorders, French conservative lawmaker Valerie Boyer, backed by France's health minister Roselyne Bachelot, proposed a law to stifle the proliferation of web sites promoting, teaching, and tipping viewers to eating disorders (Doreen Carvajal, "French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin," The New York Times, 16 April 2008).

As Carvajal reports, "the French legislators are seeking to tame a murky world of some 400 sites extolling 'ana' and 'mia', nicknames for anorexia and bulimia. Since 2000, such Web sites have multiplied in many languages, offering blunt tips on crash dieting, bingeing, vomiting, and hiding weight loss from concerned parents."

Unfortunately, opposition from the French Socialist Party argue the bill is too "vaguely worded". Michael Levine, psychology professor at Kenyon College, Ohio, agrees, stating " 'it's a mistake to ban them becuase...you're going to be hard pressed to demonstrate a very clear way that these sites have a direct negative affect.' "

Are you kidding?

How much more explicit can we make the connection?

Are academics like Levine and legislators like those in the FSP so far removed from common sense that they are blind to their present reality? What must we do - - shock them back to common sense?

This is a far stranger world than the bard ever could have imagined if the stark reality of truth via evidence only serves to blind rather than to act towards change, towards effecting a positive difference to help our fellow (wo)men...

...a cruel world, indeed.