Model Scouts Solicit Girls Outside Sweden Eating Disorder Clinic

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May 11, 2012
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Modeling agencies in Sweden have come under fire this week following claims that scouts solicited young girls outside specialized eating disorder clinics.

According to Sweden's The Local, staff at the Stockholm Center for Eating Disorders told Swedish-language media that agents have approached teenage patients outside the clinic, presumably to recruit new models.

"We think this is repugnant. People have stood outside our clinic and tried to pick up our girls because they know they are very thin," Anna-Maria af Sandeberg, the center's director and chief physician, told Metro newspaper (according to a translation by The Local). "It sends the wrong signals when the girls are being treated for eating disorders."

Though the incidents occurred last year, news of the controversial practice only recently came to light after employees who witnessed the scouts approaching girls contacted local media.

As the Agence France-Presse notes, the center has since changed its schedule to head off potential run-ins.

While the names of the scouts and their associations are unknown, Fredo Kazemi, director of Elite Model Management in Stockholm, condemned the "unethical" scouting method to Swedish wire service TT, adding that he does not believe the large, reputable model agencies work that way.

However, Madeleine Lithander, the head of a smaller agency in Sweden called Mady Models, told Radio Sweden that she is not surprised by the practice, even though she has not heard of any specific cases.

It's well known that eating disorders plague fashion models in disproportionate numbers. According to an industry survey conducted by Model Alliance in 2012, 64.1 percent of models said they have been asked by their agencies to lose weight, while 31.2 percent admitted to suffering from an eating disorder.

Last year, in a health initiative launched across all of its editions, Vogue pledged that it would not "knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder." But as any fashion insider knows, the pledge was just one small step in a rather arduous battle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/model-scouts-sweden-eating-disorder-clinic_n_3110678.html
 
I know an upcoming photographer, who has a major in psychology and works one day a week in an ED clinic to pick up girls. It's really disgusting. So is this article, if it's true ...
 
This IS horrible if it's true, I agree :mad:

But secretly, if it is true, I wish I was in that clinic then.....:run:

I can't believe I'd be that desperate :nopity:
 
Model Scouts Reportedly Recruiting at Eating Disorder Clinics

Oh for the love of god :facepalm:

http://fashionista.com/2013/04/model-scouts-reportedly-recruiting-at-eating-disorder-clinics/

We never really saw model scouting as a wholesome, benevolent undertaking. But if recent reports are true, it’s much worse than we thought.

According to Metro, an eating disorder clinic in Sweden–the country’s biggest in fact–has an unusual (we hope) problem. Model scouts are apparently coming to its facility in Stockholm, and approaching its patients–the ones being treated for eating disorders–about getting into modeling.

“They [talent scouts] have been standing outside our clinic and trying to pick up our girls because they know that they are skinny,” Anna-Maria af Sandeberg, chief doctor at the Stockholm Center for Eating Disorders (Stockholms Centrum för Ätstörningar), told Metro. Another caregiver at the center said girls as young as 14 have been approached outside the facility, where the patients used to go out for walks–something they’re not longer allowed to do due to the unrelenting and seemingly predatory model scouts.

When approached, one model scout was defensive. The clinic’s care coordinator and the mother of a 14-year-old who was approached, Chistina Lillman-Ringborg, told the TT news agency (via AFP), “They claimed that they approach healthy, normally slim young people and that they never urge anyone to lose weight.”

As Jezebel’s Jenna Sauers writes, “Indeed it seems highly unlikely that an agency would have to waste its time ‘urging’ a girl to lose weight when she is already anorexic to the point of hospitalization.”

The logic on the part of the scouts seems to be that a person with an eating disorder–a really serious disease–is a person well-suited for the modeling world. We shouldn’t really have to explain why that logic is backwards (but here are some reasons).

Fortunately, the clinic has been able to protect its patients from the misguided scouts for the past year, according to the report.

The whole thing is pretty shocking and hard to believe. We’ve reached out to the Stockholm Center for Eating Disorders and will report back if we hear more.
 
oh man I'm sorry but that is so low. They are in there for a reason, obviously it's not right to do this.
 
I saw this posted on Jezebel earlier and wasn't sure what to make of it (hardly a reputable news source). On the one hand, if it's true, it's pretty sad and tragic, the last thing a girl who's ill enough with an ED is to be made to think it could be glamorous. On the other hand, the whole thing could be total BS because I'm not sure if a reputable agency would take the risk by doing this given how the industry is already under such heavy (although misguided) critique about eating disorders and model weights.
 
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Did I just read what I think I just read? That is disgusting. I'm not a violent person but if I ever saw these people I'd lose it. Class would go out the window. I'd be worst than those gross girls on The Jersey Shore. Ugh, this makes me so mad! :mad:
 
This is so tasteless. I wish there was a way to get them in trouble for doing this. Plus, it's going to be sending mixed messages to these poor girls in the clinic. They're there to get better because they're sick but then they are being told that they can make a career out of their sickness. Why would they want to get better then? I'm sure lots of them didn't even want to get better when they went there and this is just going to trigger them more. Ugh I could go off on this forever :supermad:
 
I originally read the thread title as "Girl Scout Solicits Outside Sweden Eating Disorders Clinic."

But yeah, I agree with @ThinspoAddict : tasteless.
 
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Jumping right on the bandwagon, I'm going to say this is disgusting. In all honesty though, I'm not that surprised. I doubt it was a reputable agency, but some agency type people are bordering on mentally ill themselves. I doubt they even realise that these girls are sick, they just think it's somewhere they go once a week or every day to brag about how skinny they are together. Maaaadness.
 
This IS true. They even had small interviews with a mother saying how bad she felt for her daughter and the woman responsible for the eating disorder clinic expressed her worries about this and what message it sended the girls.
 
This IS true. They even had small interviews with a mother saying how bad she felt for her daughter and the woman responsible for the eating disorder clinic expressed her worries about this and what message it sended the girls.

Wow. It puts it in perspective. I know it is a tough industry but this is just wrong.