Industry Code on Body Image

State MPs are asking the publishing industry to adopt an industry code on body image (The Age, 9/8), to stop glorifying "stick-thin supermodels". This is akin to asking the captains of industry in fashion and media to pull out $50 notes and burn them. Can you see Calvin Klein or Kerry Packer doing that? Hardly.

Putting yet another government-funded program into an already-crowded school curriculum is not the answer either. No, parents should inoculate their children against these dangerous notions with a healthy dose of scepticism: "How does that perfect model make you feel? Inadequate? Well, that's how they make money off you." Sadly, this process must start earlier and earlier each year.