How comforting it is, in these hazardous times, to be beached in middle age, safe from the threat of skinny young models. Although it is unclear why some newspapers have suddenly become so vexed about a handful of girls whose bony attractions they had, hitherto, been eager to display, the main pretext for the urgent "size 00" campaign, appears to be a fear that these models, as well as being personally at risk of eating their own heart muscles, present a health hazard to other, impressionable young women who might try to copy them. Though there is no evidence to suggest that Lily Cole (generally agreed to have inherited the mantle of former prime suspects Jody Kidd and Twiggy) has an outbreak of anorexia to answer for, as well as a plague of adolescent discontent.
You gather, given the focus on weight and fashion models, that the principal campaigners are much less worried about the jolt to self-esteem that might afflict a homely teenager when she sees a photograph of Scarlett Johansson, say.
Can they justify such complacency? For safety's sake, responsible newspapers should surely campaign equally, for a ban on images of impossibly pretty women, and impossibly successful ones, on account of the colossal damage these, too, might do to the average young woman's sense of well-being.
After which, it cannot be long before their attention turns to the plight of vulnerable older women who are daily confronted by images of teenagers who, fashion designers sickeningly claim, "look better in our clothes".
It is said that some of these poor creatures even resort to plastic surgery in a doomed bid to look like young girls! How long before this ruthless industry agrees to ban all women aged under 35 from the catwalk?