French Bill Would Ban Promotion of Eating Disorders

Publications that promote bulimia and anorexia could face legal penalties under legislation under consideration in France.

The proposed bill would make it illegal to “provoke a person to seek excessive weight loss by encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would have the effect of exposing them to risk of death or endangering health,” the New York Times reports. Violators face sentences of up three years in prison and fines of more than $70,000.

The bill has passed the lower house of Parliament and is pending in the Senate. The story says it would apply both to hard-copy publications and websites, but in the case of online material, it’s unclear if the site creator or the Internet service hosting the site would be at risk.