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Goal

To offer the Quebec task force on body image a self-regulatory model as a viable solution to government regulation.

The Issue

In Quebec, young people concerned about the negative impact of images of extreme thinness on girls and women signed petitions in 2007 and 2008 asking the provincial government to take action. Of importance, regulation on this issue had already been effected in France.

In 2009, Quebec established a task force to determine ways to promote a healthy and diversified body image, engage public and private stakeholders in actions that would combat weight-related conditions (such as anorexia and bulimia) and encourage a more realistic representation of diverse body types.

Actions

ACA participated on the task force, along with marketers, healthcare practitioners, government representatives, and fashion and production industry partners. As an option to regulation, ACA supported the creation of a voluntary “Charter,” which was accepted as the way forward.

Outcome

ACA helped to create a Charter that was acceptable and actionable for Canadian marketers and industry stakeholders, as well as fulfilling the government’s mandate. The resulting Québec Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image, to which the ACA is a signatory, outlined seven pledges to promote healthy and diverse body types.

Importantly, ACA was instrumental in stopping a proposal that would have imposed written disclaimers on ads to indicate when retouching had been used in the production of an ad and imposed impractical quotas for depicting various body types in commercials.

For more information on this issue, contact Patrick Hotte, Vice President, Quebec, at (514) 842-6422 / 1-800-883-0422.