Size Zero bust size is 31.5 inches (80 cm), waist 23 inches (60 cm) and hips 34 inches (86 cm). To put this into perspective, the average waist size of a British eight-year-old is 22 inches (56 cm).

Size Zero is seriously dangerous. Ultra-thin (size zero) models were barred from Madrid Fashion Week 2006. Milan followed suit.

In August 2006, 22-year-old Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died after starving herself. She had tried to live on nothing but Diet Coke and lettuce leaves for three months. Six months later, her sister Eliana Ramos, 18, was found dead in her bedroom. She, too, had worked as a model and her death is also linked to malnutrition and anorexia.

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In November of the same year, 21-year-old Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died from anorexia. Both models had a Body Mass Index of considerably below the critical 16 mark, which the World Health Organisation considers starvation.

The World Health Organisation, doctors and women's groups are concerned that the use of underweight models sends out dangerously wrong signals to girls who look at models as role models.

Fashion labels Prada, Versace and Armani have already agreed to ban size zero models from their catwalks. (Source)

The British Fashion Council (the organisation which runs London Fashion Week) still insists on a less responsible approach: No ban on size zero models but the creation of a task force to invent guidelines for the fashion industry. They also urge fashion designers to use healthy models.

An inquiry reported in September 07 that up to 40 per cent of models could have an eating disorder and made a number of suggestions to promote health, yet ruled out a ban on size-zero models.

The Model Health Inquiry report calls for models aged 16 to 18 to be chaperoned on shoots, a models' health education and awareness programme, a study of eating disorders among models and an advice and support website for models, parents, agencies and casting directors. (source: The Scotsman).