Are you satisfied with new health guidelines for fashion models?

The Tadashi Shoji Fall 2012 collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York onThursday. (/Seth Wenig/Associated Press)

As the Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week begins in New York, the health and safety of the models have come under the spotlight.
    
The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) released an updated version of the Health Initiative Guidelines for all models working during the week.

The updated rules seek to address "the overwhelming concern about whether some models are unhealthily thin," and to raise awareness about possible signs of eating disorders.
    
Models are also required to be at least 16 years of age, a condition that will be enforced through stricter ID checks.

The Health Initiative Guidelines were originally established in 2007, but the minimum age requirement is a new addition in the latest revision. The new rules are meant to deal with the problem of models in the fashion industry being thinner, less healthy, and increasingly younger in recent years.

The update comes a few days after models formed a rights group to protect employees from harassment and sexual abuse.

Sara Ziff, 29, founded the Model Alliance, which seeks workplace standards including ensuring privacy for models from photographers and other co-workers while changing their clothes, according to Reuters.

Ziff, who has been working in the industry since the age of 14, set up a system where models can confidentially report inappropriate conduct or other abuses at the Mercedez-Benz Fashion week. She's also working on a Models' Bill of Rights, according to Time.

In December 2010, French model Isabelle Caro died of anorexia at the age of 28. She appeared nude in a campaign to spread awareness about the condition in 2007.

Do you think the new health guidelines for models will be effective? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments section below.


(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)