No, thin does not have to equal beauty By Alexandra Shulman GREAT - I always hoped it would have its moment of glory: my tummy, that is. Suddenly, (well, as of yesterday) if all goes according to the Women's Unit plan, a podgy stomach is going to be absolutely the thing to have, along with flat breasts, pendulous breasts, porky thighs, stretch marks, freckles, curly hair, short legs, big bottoms and everything else that women don't like about their bodies. Because in this new world, it's goodbye perfect body, goodbye even to thinking about having one. You certainly aren't going to wake up in the morning wishing you hadn't had that second helping of spaghetti carbonara the night before, though you can see it sitting on your belly button. That, in the words of psychotherapist Susie Orbach, is the kind of thought that we should be deeply, deeply concerned about . Yesterday's Body Image summit, a government initiative chaired by Lady Jay and Tessa Jowell of the Ministry for Women, was, at its most basic, a debate on the age-old problem of women's dissatisfaction with their bodies. Although Lady Jay hoped the debate would be about body image on many levels, it came down to the thorny question of why we all want to be thin, or thinner - except for those who already are thin and fed-up with being described as anorexics, or bags of bones and scary examples. Although the representatives from the fashion industry, women's magazines, newspapers, the medical profession, advertising, retailing and the Guides, tried really hard not to turn the seminar into a blamestorming session, everybody couldn't help but suggest that one of the other groups were at the root of the problem. Designers thought schools could do more, magazine editors thought retailers should change their sizing, television presenters felt that editors should use bigger models, therapists felt the rot began at home, and the four seemingly confident and attractive teenage girls representing their generation felt that we were all to blame. All of us were responsible for their equation that beauty equals success and thin equals beauty. Of course, it was also an excellent opportunity for everybody to indulge in a little self-promotion. I went to this conference dubious about the Government's motives (don't tell me they're trying to legislate on vital statistics now, that kind of thing). It could easily have added up to little more than publicity for New Labour. But in blowing their own trumpet they were not only the least of the offenders but highly realistic. No, they weren't about to prescribe an ideal body size, thank heavens. Others were less scrupulous. The Body Shop, always good for rabble-rousing about Body Image, showed off its new doll Ruby, which you can customise to your own ideal body image. Liz Jones, the editor of Marie Claire, gave a presentation which led one to believe that Marie Claire had suddenly morphed into Health Weekly; in fact, it's a women's magazine whose recent issues featured models with exactly the same statistics as the models in Vogue - approximately 33, 22, 34 - not a lot groundbreaking in that. It's an odd notion that Liz Jones, whose weekly newspaper column is a riveting catalogue of weird insecurities such as hating to eat in front of men, and thinking that she always has to have her legs immaculately waxed, is going to spearhead a movement designed to encourage young women to feel good about themselves. The facts are these. Known cases of eating disorders among young women (and men, but this was not their moment) are on the rise. So too, and equally worryingly, are cases of obesity; rates among women rose from eight per cent 20 years ago to 21.2 per cent in 1998. The British Medical Association's recent research has shown that television stars and models are influential, and we all know that most of them are thin. But is that really a problem? Physical role models exist in all cultures and they're not normally the girl next door. Ideals and icons are, by definition, different. Greek, Roman and Early Egyptian civilisations celebrated their ideal body image, the history of portraiture shows how very narrow the definitions of beauty have always been (I would argue they have grown considerably broader recently). In defence of my territory, a day spent in the Vogue archives demonstrates that models in magazines have always possessed excellent, slim figures. What has changed is that young women seem to set greater store by physical perfection. This is odd at a time when it's girls, not boys, who are top of the class and grabbing the best jobs first. Not only that, but nowadays in Western cultures (those most riddled with eating disorders) women are presented with a wider range of female success stories than ever before. Whether those of us who create glamorous fashion images will radically change direction is something I doubt, nor do I think that women will give up the quest for a flat stomach. That doesn't mean that yesterday's summit was pointless. It was an inspiring call to action. I'm sure all who attended and have it in our remit to counter problems caused by low self-esteem and bad body image will do our best, in our own ways, to help.

No, thin does not have to equal beauty By Alexandra Shulman GREAT - I always hoped it would have its moment of glory: my tummy, that is. Suddenly, (well, as of yesterday) if all goes according to the Women's Unit plan, a podgy stomach is going to be absolutely the thing to have, along with flat breasts, pendulous breasts, porky thighs, stretch marks, freckles, curly hair, short legs, big bottoms and everything else that women don't like about their bodies. Because in this new world, it's goodbye perfect body, goodbye even to thinking about having one. You certainly aren't going to wake up in the morning wishing you hadn't had that second helping of spaghetti carbonara the night before, though you can see it sitting on your belly button. That, in the words of psychotherapist Susie Orbach, is the kind of thought that we should be deeply, deeply concerned about . Yesterday's Body Image summit, a government initiative chaired by Lady Jay and Tessa Jowell of the Ministry for Women, was, at its most basic, a debate on the age-old problem of women's dissatisfaction with their bodies. Although Lady Jay hoped the debate would be about body image on many levels, it came down to the thorny question of why we all want to be thin, or thinner - except for those who already are thin and fed-up with being described as anorexics, or bags of bones and scary examples. Although the representatives from the fashion industry, women's magazines, newspapers, the medical profession, advertising, retailing and the Guides, tried really hard not to turn the seminar into a blamestorming session, everybody couldn't help but suggest that one of the other groups were at the root of the problem. Designers thought schools could do more, magazine editors thought retailers should change their sizing, television presenters felt that editors should use bigger models, therapists felt the rot began at home, and the four seemingly confident and attractive teenage girls representing their generation felt that we were all to blame. All of us were responsible for their equation that beauty equals success and thin equals beauty. Of course, it was also an excellent opportunity for everybody to indulge in a little self-promotion. I went to this conference dubious about the Government's motives (don't tell me they're trying to legislate on vital statistics now, that kind of thing). It could easily have added up to little more than publicity for New Labour. But in blowing their own trumpet they were not only the least of the offenders but highly realistic. No, they weren't about to prescribe an ideal body size, thank heavens. Others were less scrupulous. The Body Shop, always good for rabble-rousing about Body Image, showed off its new doll Ruby, which you can customise to your own ideal body image. Liz Jones, the editor of Marie Claire, gave a presentation which led one to believe that Marie Claire had suddenly morphed into Health Weekly; in fact, it's a women's magazine whose recent issues featured models with exactly the same statistics as the models in Vogue - approximately 33, 22, 34 - not a lot groundbreaking in that. It's an odd notion that Liz Jones, whose weekly newspaper column is a riveting catalogue of weird insecurities such as hating to eat in front of men, and thinking that she always has to have her legs immaculately waxed, is going to spearhead a movement designed to encourage young women to feel good about themselves. The facts are these. Known cases of eating disorders among young women (and men, but this was not their moment) are on the rise. So too, and equally worryingly, are cases of obesity; rates among women rose from eight per cent 20 years ago to 21.2 per cent in 1998. The British Medical Association's recent research has shown that television stars and models are influential, and we all know that most of them are thin. But is that really a problem? Physical role models exist in all cultures and they're not normally the girl next door. Ideals and icons are, by definition, different. Greek, Roman and Early Egyptian civilisations celebrated their ideal body image, the history of portraiture shows how very narrow the definitions of beauty have always been (I would argue they have grown considerably broader recently). In defence of my territory, a day spent in the Vogue archives demonstrates that models in magazines have always possessed excellent, slim figures. What has changed is that young women seem to set greater store by physical perfection. This is odd at a time when it's girls, not boys, who are top of the class and grabbing the best jobs first. Not only that, but nowadays in Western cultures (those most riddled with eating disorders) women are presented with a wider range of female success stories than ever before. Whether those of us who create glamorous fashion images will radically change direction is something I doubt, nor do I think that women will give up the quest for a flat stomach. That doesn't mean that yesterday's summit was pointless. It was an inspiring call to action. I'm sure all who attended and have it in our remit to counter problems caused by low self-esteem and bad body image will do our best, in our own ways, to help.