Article ~ My daughters will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world. I'd rather they were a thousand things before 'thin'.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AHEWWMOZO0FVJQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/04/06/nrowl06.xml

My daughters will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world. I'd rather they were a thousand things before 'thin'.

By Auslan Cramb, ish Correspondent

(Filed: 06/04/2006)

Waif-like models were condemned by JK Rowling yesterday as " empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones " .

The author of the Harry Potter novels said she did not want her daughters, Mackenzie, one, and , 12, to emulate women whose only function was to support the trade in " over-priced handbags and rat-sized dogs " .

JK Rowling

JK Rowling slams the cult of celebrity thinness

Writing on her website, she revealed that her " rant " was prompted by photographs in a magazine of a very young woman " who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder " .

She added: " She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story.

" This girl needs help but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead. "

Her comments are likely to rekindle the debate on the fashion industry's promotion of super-thin models.

Miss Rowling said she saw the article last week while in London for the British Book Awards - where Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was named book of the year - and found she was unable to escape the subject of thinness during the trip.

She recounted a conversation with a young actor on the set of the latest Potter film, who was talking about a girl who was called " fat " by classmates, although she was anything but. The author added: " … is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny?

" I'm not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… "

After the awards, the subject came up yet again when Miss Rowling bumped into a woman she had not seen for three years, who immediately commented on her figure.

She wrote: " The first thing she said to me? 'You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!' 'Well,' I said, slightly nonplussed, 'the last time you saw me I'd just had a baby'.

" What I felt like saying was, 'I've produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?' But no - my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! "

Returning home to Edinburgh the next day, the multi-millionaire found cause for hope in a newspaper article on the pop star Pink, whose latest single, Stupid Girls, she described as " the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness " .

She added: " Stupid Girls satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models: those celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs. "

She did not identify the celebrities she had in mind, but the model Kate Moss is regularly photographed in many different outfits, while the socialite Paris Hilton has a chihuahua named Tinkerbell, which is approximately rat-sized. " Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not, " Miss Rowling wrote on her website, jkrowling.com.

" It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are.

" I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny a thousand things, before 'thin'. "

Using characters from Harry Potter, she said she would rather her daughters grew up like the scholarly Hermione than the giggling and devious Pansy Parkinson, the hard-faced love interest of Harry's enemy, Draco Malfoy.

She concluded: " And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do.

" Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over. "

In defence of " rat-sized dogs " , Leonard, a chihuahua breeder and four-times winner at Crufts, said animals that were adopted as fashion accessories tended to receive a bad press.

He added that chihuahuas were no different to other breeds but could reflect the personalities of their owners. " If you treat it like a dog it will behave like a dog, if you treat it like a spoilt brat it will behave like a spoilt brat, " said Mr Leonard.

The editors of British Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire magazines were not available for comment.