'Celebs to blame for anorexia'

You've lost weight'. It's a modern way of saying hello that's regarded as a compliment. And our incredible obsession with thinness has reached epidemic proportions. There are pro-anorexic websites on the internet with names such as Starving For Perfection and Beautiful By Bones.

It seems that in order to have an enchanted and magical life, you have to be thin. Most young would-be skinnies can recite how Jennifer Aniston had to lose two stone to get her part in Friends and then a further 14lb to land the beauteous Brad Pitt.

A survey published last month by experts at Queen Mary, University of London and Great Ormond Street Hospital showed that half of all girls aged 13 and 14 are trying to lose weight. They're cutting out food vital to their growth, such as milk and dairy products, - making them candidates for osteoporosis - and meat, which contains vital nutrients such as zinc and iron.

Some will not have periods and risk being infertile. A total of 18 per cent questioned were suffering severe emotional problems. A generation of young women depriving themselves of proper nourishment presents a seriously worrying scenario for the future.

Outcry

A few years ago, when data on the extent of eating disorders among young women began to emerge, there was a huge public outcry. So much so that 10 Downing Street and Cherie Blair became involved.

Women who were too young to have seen the dreadful pictures of half-dead, starving people liberated from the Nazi concentration camps were deliberately starving themselves. Sometimes to death.

We all knew it wasn't hype. Most of us knew someone, usually a teenager or someone in their 20s, who was anorexic or bulimic.

These young women were either skipping meals and becoming worryingly thin and rebellious about food. Or they were binge eating - and then rushing to the lavatory to stick their fingers down their throats and chuck up.

Sure, the anorexics and borderline anorexics often disguised the illness pretty well if you didn't sit down at mealtimes with them. I remember working with a skeletal faced 20- something who wore bulky, layered clothes and big sweaters with long sleeves.

The bulimics are harder to pinpoint. The trouble is, if you eat a meal with them they eat everything in sight and then ask for more.

People concluded that much of the blame had to be laid at the feet of the high-camp world of fashion which all too often draped its catwalk designs on emaciated women with prepubescent bodies. But it was 'art, darling'. Even 'heroin chic' was art.

Women's magazines also took a lot of flak for not being 'more responsible'. They were chided for using worryingly underweight models in their fashion pages, where impressionable young women would drool over them. And want to emulate 'the look'.

Strangely, the Supermodels - Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford - were healthy looking . . . not than any of them had an ounce of spare flesh.

But mostly, models were snakehipped, reed thin. (If they had breasts on their size 4 bodies they were invariably of the silicone variety.) And the magazines and their readers couldn't get enough of them and their clothes.

The message, rammed home in page after fashion page was clear as mineral water: You gotta be thin. You gotta be thin. You gotta be thin to win.

The last straw was probably a hugely publicised Corinne Day photo shoot for Vogue in October 1993 of superwaif Kate Moss wearing scruffy see-through knickers hollow cheeks, blank, staring eyes and bones.

You looked at her the way a doglover looks at a battered ,starved, pup at the Battersea Dogs Home. With horror.

Soon afterwards, the glossy magazine editors - invited to tea with Cherie Blair - agreed it was time to call a halt.

Magazines exist to delight, inspire, inform, entertain and pleasure women. We all love clothes. But who wants to see pictures of what appear to be frail young teenagers who look as though they haven't eaten for weeks under the heading of 'fashion'?

Promises

Promises were made that in future, healthier women would appear. Of course, fashion would always demand slimness - but matchstick models were out.

So did the glossies keep their promises? An analysis of this month's glossy magazines suggests they have. While there are still a few models on show who look positively ill, most have far more flesh on their bones than their counterparts a decade ago.

But it's the cover stars and cover lines that told me all I need to know about what is affecting young girls the most.

With Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover of Vogue you know thin is in, even though inside she is sporting an impressive cleavage in a super-uplift bra.

Meanwhile New Woman has a coverline that screams 'How celebs lose 15lb in 6 days' - a real anorexics' come-on.

But perhaps the greatest clue to the determination of many young women to starve themselves is summed up in a feature in the same magazine entitled 'This is what 7st celebs really eat in one day'.

The heights and weights of some of the most adored, photographed, drooled over, 'famous and beautiful' women in the world make for nauseating reading.

Their body weights are way below what could be termed 'healthy' - yet they're worshipped for their bodies. Victoria Beckham is there at 7st 4lb, and 5ft 4in. Sarah Jessica Parker is just 7st at 5ft 4in. And in the past month we have seen Nicole Kidman and former Hear'Say singer Myleene Klass looking dangerously thin.

In an age when celebrities have become the new supermodels, perhaps it's little wonder young women are starving themselves.