With London Fashion Week taking place from the end of this week, a new poll has been released by Metro newspaper and Harris Interactive, showing just what the British public think about the size zero debate. The results showed that 71% of women and 55% of men find models ‘far too thin’, whilst 66% of participants felt that their weight and size promotes an unhealthy image.

Participants also felt that model’s small shapes influence the young and vulnerable and glamourises eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulemia. Interestingly, only 12% said that the models have negative affect on their own self esteem, showing that they themselves were unaffected by skinny models.

There’s not doubt that models need to be a healthy weight, with even ex- UK Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman urging designers to create larger samples sizes for magazine shoots. However, I do think that we are moving away from the heroin-chic era of the 1990s, with models like Lily Cole daring to show curves.