I read in the news this week that a German magazine is to ban ultra-thin models from its pages in favour of more curvy types. The magazine is even inviting readers to send in photographs of themselves as potential models.

It’s a positive move in a culture that all too often embraces the ideal of the super skinny waif as the only beautiful woman. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and as the saying goes, is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

How many women do you know who are size 0? Exactly. They are few and far between in the real world. Yet beautiful women are everywhere, in all shapes, sizes and ages – and it’s time magazines, fashion houses, advertisers and manufacturers woke up to that fact.

Focusing on the super skinny is sending a negative message to children and young girls. I don’t want my daughter to subscribe to the notion that she must be stick thin to be beautiful – the potential headaches that could create over food, eating, her health and how she feels about herself worry me greatly.

Much better I think to promote the message that beauty comes in different sizes and we don’t all have to fit the frankly sickly-looking size 0 frame. It’s a much healthier and more positive ideal to live by.