Instead of an outright ban on super-skinny models, The British Fashion Council, which owns and runs London Fashion Week, has now brought out a voluntary code of practice for fashion design houses, agencies and stylists in terms of the models they use on runways. At best, the issuing of these guidelines is a small step in the right direction. At worst, it leaves us with an unclear stance on how we can eradicate the endemic and frightening obsession with size zeros.

After pressure to promote healthier body images (following the shocking deaths of two models at fashion shows from eating-related disorders last year), the BFC guidelines ought, perhaps, to be more specific on what action is needed to stop models from starving themselves to death. It's important too that London Fashion Week in February doesn't send out any unhealthy messages of beauty via its catwalk queens.

Still, it's a sigh of relief they haven't actually gone as far as to ban models based on BMIs (Body Mass Indexes). Imposing weight-to-height restrictions on models is a thorny area and too simplistic an approach. In Madrid and Milan models with BMIs under 18 have already been banned from appearing on catwalks. But BMIs aren't a good gauge of how healthy a woman's body is, especially in terms of her build and composition.

A ban won't stamp out the problem of young women caving in to how they believe society expects them to look. I used to wonder why gyms didn't stop women who clearly looked anorexic from spending two to three hours going from class to class. I realise, like the gym bunnies, models can always go elsewhere, to another catwalk in another city, as many did during last autumn's Madrid Fashion Week.

Also eating disorders are mostly shrouded in secrecy and shame. The paradox is that while bony women are plastered everywhere as fashion icons, an admittance to sticking fingers down their throats or living on Diet Coke and then being blacklisted could cause them further emotional damage from humiliation and discrimination.

But to get back to the BFC guidelines, the UK fashion industry is under no legal obligation to adhere to them. The press release states the BFC has asked the industry to use 'healthy models for their collections'. Shouldn't it pursue the route taken by The New York Fashion Council which explicitly outlines providing models with nutritious backstage meals, better working conditions and urges designers to identify those with eating disorders? What exactly does 'healthy' mean? Sophie Dahl or Eva Herzigova pre or post weight loss? We need some clue as to how the BFC's appointed taskforce monitors and protect models from making themselves ill in order to work. Will the BFC hold seminars on the importance of healthy eating? In Brazil, following 21-year old model Ana Carolina Reston's death from anorexia, a top psychologist Dr Marco Antonio De Tommaso began running a free drop-in clinic for models at Sao Paulo's leading agencies. Maybe we need to follow suit.

What's important is we don't get pulled into a lynch mob-style row. Anyone of us who has bought in to the thin-is-in myth and had subsequent issues with our body image needs to shoulder some of the responsibility for size zero culture. We need to stop allowing ourselves to feel incompetent because of the mad state of fashion and the rise of bone-thin celebrities. I've experienced brainwashing in the cult of extreme-skinniness. Channel E's! celebrity slim-down programmes are a regular on my Sky Plus. There are days when I'm appalled and in awe of Nicole Richie's pipe-cleaner body. I've tried Atkin's and fleetingly contemplated downing watercress and cayenne pepper soup. It's utter madness, but now I'm bored and exhausted of trying to keep up with body ideals that are actually undesirable. Flogging starvation as a seasonal must-have only ends up with us eating away at our own self esteem.

So at least I can be grateful that the BFC has now been forced in to seeing how inhumane it is to applaud women for starving themselves. One statement for which the BFC can be thanked is its recommendation to stop putting girls under the age of 16 on the catwalk. It should've been compulsory, but hey, it's a start. Handbag's Fashion Director, Melissa Dick welcomed the decision by adding, 'We must stop showcasing women's fashion on pre-pubescent bodies; this can only add to the problematic relationship women have with body image.'

I do hope the British Fashion Council remains committed to making sure the fashion industry changes attitudes through 'behavior and education' as it has set out. Being a size zero - doesn't that mean 'nothing'? Is that an aspiration any of us should have? Femininity comes in all forms; large,round, angular, slim, tall, short - and in the odd case, like mine, with a muffin top too. It about time we set our own agenda on the way we look.