This week on Wellbeing we speak with Adi Barkan, an activist fighting against anorexia in the fashion industry. Anorexia is prevalent in the modelling industry and Adi has seen it happen firsthand. Adi has been a photographer in the fashion industry since the 1980s and noticed that it was with the introduction of thin models like Kate Moss in the 1990s that everything changed. As Adi will talk about, since the 1990s anorexia has been prevalent in the industry. Due to this factor, he became an activist and has campaigned for legislation banning the use of models below a certain BMI. He has given a TED talk on the subject, and talks regularly about it across the media.

In this episode Adi talks about how he got into the fashion industry as a photographer, when anorexia started becoming a problem in the fashion industry, how anorexia impacts the mental health of those modelling, his advocacy work against anorexia in the fashion industry, how editing software like photoshop impacts self image and contributes to anorexia developing, how the use of excessively skinny models impacts people in society and their body image, and how anorexia can be better combated in the fashion industry.

“Just think, if all the people woke up in the morning, looked in the mirror and say 'Oh, I look great', how many companies are going to break down.” - Adi Barkan on this episode of Wellbeing 

Tune in next week when we talk with author and psychotherapist, Matthew Campling about the anorexia recovery sector.

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Hosted and Produced by Jack Hodgins    
Wellbeing website: https://www.2nurfm.com.au/wellbeing 

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