IT IS a real dilemma for our modern society, and one that newspapers have to play their part in helping to solve.
The issue of women, weight and body image has again been to the fore. First there was the row in Australia over their Miss Universe contestant, Stephanie Naumoska, 19, who is 5ft 11in tall and weighs just 7st 7lbs, giving her a body mass index of 15.
1. Health professionals complained, saying this is well under the BMI 18 benchmark figure for malnutrition.
The somewhat bizarre response from the organisers was that Ms Naumoska had Macedonian heritage.
Then there was the research that found French women had the lowest average BMI in Europe but were the most likely to consider themselves fat, and that British women had the highest average BMI, but were least likely to consider themselves fat.
I also received this letter from Janice Kennedy: "Over the years I have been impressed with The Scotsman's take on the 'size zero' debate and the sensible comments from its columnists pointing out the dangers of using very thin models to promote fashion clothing and the harmful effect these images may have on the self-esteem and health of young people.
"It was, therefore, with shock that I viewed the image of an extremely skinny model on the fashion pages of the Scotsman Magazine (Saturday, 18 April, p16]. No normal, healthy woman is that shape.
"It is sad that The Scotsman has seen fit to use this image. Please, in the future, use images of ordinary, healthy women instead of these skeletal models."
There are two issues here. The first is essentially practical – we like to include a little fashion in what we do; we know it interests a good proportion of our readers, and it is meant to be light and bright and divert temporarily from more sombre issues.
But there is a difficulty in finding catwalk pictures that illustrate the article (in this case, the use of jersey fabric) using average-sized models, though we always try to avoid using skeletally thin models.
In my view the picture complained of was not at the extreme end of the scale – her legs may have been thin but her arms looked OK and the rest of her was covered up. But as I said, average-sized catwalk models are hard to find, and should The Scotsman stop covering fashion entirely because of that?
There is also a wider issue. Obesity is a major health problem facing the developed world and is a killer. But Ms Kennedy is absolutely right when she warns that using images of very thin models is believed to have a harmful effect on the self-esteem and health of many young people. Anorexia is also a killer. We examine the rise of this illness in older women today in the feature on pages 14-15.
So how do we (that's all of us in a very wide sense) provide the correct role models for people to aspire to? Where does "healthy" lie, mentally as well as physically? And where do newspapers come in? Can we only use pictures of "Goldilocks" women? (not too fat, not too thin). Do we simply aim to use a range of body shapes, excluding the extremes at both ends? Or does using the extremes a) reflect the truth out there (and that is what newspapers are supposed to do) and b) perhaps by their shocking nature act as a deterrent?
As a paper, we have to remain conscious of the part we play and include a wide variety of shapes and sizes while using our judgment to exclude the extremes.
But as a society we simply have to get away from our current obsession with food. I believe this is a factor in the dilemma. There are many subjects more deserving of that energy.
