For more information on Valérie Boyer’s proposal:
Intervention of Valérie Boyer, Minister in charge of the proposition of the law regarding the battle against the incitation of anorexia.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Mister President,
Mrs. Minister
Dear colleagues
This proposition aiming to fight against the incitation of attaining extreme thinness or anorexia will enable the national assembly - for the first time, which is quite a symbol - to comment on this major question which was kept from the public debate for far too long.
In regard of denial, which is an important characteristic of this disease, suffering, and isolation of people affected, and in regard of the feeling of powerlessness relatives and friends are often overwhelmed with, it is indeed time to set a strong sign showing awareness and mobilization of the public authorities against this plague.
Anorexia is not only a huge issue for the public health, but also, as you, Mrs. Minister, stated it (“as deep as this disease is connected to the representation of the female body”) “the symptom of a kind of sickness of our civilization about which doctors, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists would have a lot to say and a lot to teach us.”
Before I come to the point and the finality of the proposition, I would like to start by emphasizing what it is not about:
It is by no means about denouncing those suffering or even suggest that a legal text can answer all the questions raised by this disease, especially questions regarding meeting the costs which automatically puts competent professionals in the first place.
If it is proposed as to create a new means of prosecution, the meaning of this text is not in the first place repressive, but dissuasive, and it concentrates on continuing a global, balanced, and particularly voluntary policy in order to protect our youth’s health in a better way, especially concerning nutritional problems such as anorexia or obesity.
Also, it is clearly not about leading to the belief that incitations of anorexia as they can be found on certain internet pages or, more generally speaking, our socio-cultural environment are the only causes of anorexia (or even to deny the importance of individual factors of vulnerability) as this psychological disease, which by the way is not a new one, is a very complex one. Our assembly certainly does not have the intention to replace the very important work of doctors, psychotherapists, or psychoanalysts for a better understanding of this disease.
On the other hand, the parliament fully understands and performs its role: it’s intention is to prevent certain outcomes in order to better protect the health of very sensitive and vulnerable people; and also, beyond the particular problem of anorexia, it questions problems concerning the depiction of the body, especially the female body, in our society altogether.
_________________ Trying hard to live here and now...
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