> You could always insist that the distribution of bodies shown in a magazine follows the distribution of weights/heights in the general population (with some margin of error). And heavily fine them out of business when it does not. Problem solved.
That sounds like an infringement on the freedom of speech, in countries where it applies.
It also seems ridiculously difficult to judge and enforce. The government would need to do periodic surveys of height/weight in the country (or get the data from doctors), prove data is correct, set up an office that reads magazines all day, tries to judge the heights and weights of the people in the pictures by looking at them...the more I think about it the worse it sounds. EDIT: Or mandate that every magazine files the height/weight details of every person pictured in every issue with the government.
It's like the premise of some dystopian black comedy or satire.
EDIT 2: No seriously that would be quite funny. "Sorry Bill we can't do that feature on the Indian women's volleyball team, we got Shaq on the cover this month. We're over our height budget"
But is it really fair that surgeons or NFL players don't match societal distributions for their respective traits? Think about how this makes all of the low-dexterity, low-coordination little boys and girls feel. For the sake of feelings, I demand mandatory mediocrity for every profession. Anyone trying to be exceptional should be hampered accordingly.
First, yes, being a 6'5" athletic model is NOT a skill. In fact, being a 6'5" anything is not a skill: it's genetics.
But even more so, whether it's a skill or not it's irrelevant. One is sports, the other is advertisement. We always have the ability to restrict one domain but not the other.
>That sounds like an infringement on the freedom of speech, in countries where it applies.
Bah, sounds as totally irrelevant to the "freedom of speech" as not allowing cigarette ads and other such things.
And of course not every country considers marketing drivel and fashion as parts of such protected speech worthy of freedom.
>It also seems ridiculously difficult to judge and enforce. The government would need to do periodic surveys of height/weight in the country
Which countries do already, and is not at all difficult (plus it's good information to have for medical, policy advice reasons too).
>prove data is correct
That doesn't make much sense as a separate "problem". They already gathered the data with a certain approved methodology. They don't need to prove they are correct any more than they do for any other kind of data the government measures and uses to determine law policy.
>set up an office that reads magazines all day, tries to judge the heights and weights of the people in the pictures by looking at them...
Or, you know, just sample and fine (or not). The same thing we do with restaurants and many other kinds of establishments and businesses. Health inspectors don't eat at a restaurant 24/7 either.
>EDIT 2: No seriously that would be quite funny. "Sorry Bill we can't do that feature on the Indian women's volleyball team, we got Shaq on the cover this month. We're over our height budget"
It's only silly if you exaggerate it for comedic effect or for slippery slopism. It can be applied with certain tolerances (which I already mentioned in my original comment).
> Bah, sounds as totally irrelevant to the "freedom of speech" as not allowing cigarette ads and other such things.
I'm sorry I just don't see comparable public harm between smoking and idealized images of people. Second-hand smoke is bad for everyone whereas I'd have to deliberately open up a fashion magazine to get the worst effects of idealized images. And AFAIK there hasn't been a concerted effort by the fashion industry to suppress research that shows harm caused by such images.
> And of course not every country considers marketing drivel and fashion as parts of such protected speech worthy of freedom.
I would argue that fashion is an art form (and many in the industry do as well). You may find its message mundane or uninteresting or "drivel" but that's beside the point.
What about niche magazines (eg. particular music subcultures, hobbies dominated by a particular gender) that would find it much harder to reflect the general population?
All of this doesn't even take into account that magazine publishing is a declining industry and a lot of this activity happens online. How do you even begin to regulate Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Facebook in terms of the proportions of images they carry?
Summing it all up, I don't think that a regulation like this is practical to enforce and there's very little evidence that it'll accomplish anything useful. Why not spend the government's limited time and resources where they may have a larger effect?
> They don't need to prove they are correct any more than they do for any other kind of data the government measures and uses to determine law policy.
Currently that data is used to determine health policy, not for deciding how to hand out fines (I could be wrong about this). If you start fining magazines based on that data it seems likely to me there'll be lawsuits flying all over the place contesting the veracity of the data.
> Health inspectors don't eat at a restaurant 24/7 either.
No but their primary job is performing healthy and safety inspections [2]; they don't need to eat at restaurants. At restaurants they inspect the kitchen and service areas, bathrooms, trash handling and disposal procedures, making sure employees follow health codes etc. And I don't see the connection anyway: you're obviously going to task someone with the job, whether part-time full-time, and prioritize it over some other work they could be doing.
> It's only silly if you exaggerate it for comedic effect or for slippery slopism.
Sorry that was a line from the dystopian satire that I said this idea sounded like the premise to (I can see how that might've been confusing). That's why it was silly.
That sounds like an infringement on the freedom of speech, in countries where it applies.
It also seems ridiculously difficult to judge and enforce. The government would need to do periodic surveys of height/weight in the country (or get the data from doctors), prove data is correct, set up an office that reads magazines all day, tries to judge the heights and weights of the people in the pictures by looking at them...the more I think about it the worse it sounds. EDIT: Or mandate that every magazine files the height/weight details of every person pictured in every issue with the government.
It's like the premise of some dystopian black comedy or satire.
EDIT 2: No seriously that would be quite funny. "Sorry Bill we can't do that feature on the Indian women's volleyball team, we got Shaq on the cover this month. We're over our height budget"