Why does the modelling industry still use such thin models?

There were probably many high-fives at Feminist HQ as the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) slapped Gucci with a ban for using an ‘unhealthily thin’ model in a shoot.

Ever since the ASA announcement, the image of the girl in the Gucci ad has haunted me.

Unlike the online commentariat (“errr she looks disgusting”, as one Facebook friend put it), I was not horrified by her prepubescent frame, or the disproportionate nature of head and body.

No, it was her face that got me. That despondent gaze. Bruise-like crescents encircling her bottom lids. I know that face. I’ve been that face.

While this ruling could pave the way for the long overdue revolution in what the ASA called ‘irresponsible’ advertising, I’m troubled by the potential demonisation of the girl in the Gucci ad.

It is her image which is imprinted on my mind. Her body which is there to be metaphorically prodded and poked and pored over as the subject of thousands of discussions across the world.

Until the story dies down, she will carry the weight of public debate around body image and eating disorders on her slight shoulders. Gucci gets off lightly - for want of a better phrase.

So endemic is this practice in the world of high fashion that the brand cannot be singled out. It could just as easily have been another.

Imagine being that model. She was probably plucked from the streets at a young age and thrust into a world where often being dangerously underweight is the norm.

Where it’s a case of the thinner, the better. Women constantly size themselves up against other women. Models are surrounded by people doing that for them. People whose approval is essential to their livelihood.

And now not only is society rejecting her, the scale of the publicity surrounding this story suggests that the world she knows is likely to reject her too.

To fashion houses, she may well be damaged goods. Persona non grata to the big bosses she sought to please. She might never work again.

Meanwhile Gucci - despite its insistence that the model is ‘slim and toned’ - will be under the spotlight over the kind of models it uses in the future.

It would be wrong and presumptuous of me to cast aspersions, or state as fact that the Gucci model is anorexic (although it hasn’t stopped others).

The fact that I live with an eating disorder myself does not make me an expert, or give me any right to diagnose others.

But let’s say for a minute she does. Do we think that the ASA’s ruling and media storm will encourage her to gain weight, or get healthy? Or other models for that matter?

Judging from personal experience, I’d say it’ll have the opposite effect. Once anorexia has a grip on your brain it is like an abusive partner, one you go running back to when you struggle to cope with the rest of the world.

My own anorexia is a constant battle with the demons in my mind, a relentless inner dialogue which dictates my every move, and every crumb which passes my lips.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for models for whom the issue is two-fold. The internal struggle, coupled with external pressure from the world of your profession must be unbearable.

The scrutiny of the ASA is to be welcomed, and I hope and pray the world of high fashion will begin to right the wrongs of the past. Yet to really instigate change it must be much wider-reaching and consistent.

But there is a danger is singling out this ad and this model; who is a symptom, not the cause. I cannot begin the victory march when it threatens to trample all over the self-worth of another woman.