Thin, thinner, thinnest

It hardly seems possible but Calista Flockhart, aka Ally McBeal, appears to have lost weight. The actress, whose body now looks to be constructed out of flesh-covered pipe-cleaners, has just had her holiday snaps published in the tabloids accompanied by headlines that purport to be concerned about her size. "Ally, the ocean waif" reads one. "Ally McMeal" quips another.

Cruel, yes, but celebrity weight-watching has become a spectator sport, fuelled by the ever shrinking waistlines of top female stars. In America, this week's People magazine carries a cover story posing the earnest question "How thin is too thin?" alongside gruesome photographs of Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox, Victoria Beckham and Helen Hunt, as well as Flockhart. "I swear I eat more now than I ever did in my life," Aniston says, not entirely convincingly.

Liz Hurley was also recently lambasted in the press for her malnourished appearance. In this month's Elle, she talks openly about the self-imposed pressure for women in the public eye to lose weight. "If it's any consolation, I threw away two-thirds of my wardrobe and lost 15 pounds after first seeing paparazzi pictures of myself - the celebrity version of a vicious Polaroid."

But behind the headlines lurks a curious ambivalence. While anyone can see that these women are drastically underweight, it doesn't seem to occur to anyone closely involved with their careers that they might be putting their health at risk, never mind setting a poor example to young female fans. The photographs of Posh Spice are particularly alarming, showing her dressed in a chainmail halter top and tight black trousers, accessorised with jutting collar and hip bone. Clearly she has lost a lot of weight, but she is unimpressed at the suggestion that there's anything wrong. "It's irresponsible to say I'm anorexic. After a baby you are dashing about all day. I never sit down." This is not a common condition in new mothers but maybe being a famous new mother is different.

Flockhart is similarly defiant. "I don't think of myself as too thin. Am I anorexic? I guess my answer would have to be no." The actress, who once starred in TV docudrama The Secret Life of Mary-Margaret: Portrait of a Bulimic, is at pains to point out that she eats "whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't have a messed-up relationship with food."

She describes her typical diet as a breakfast of egg whites and spinach, a chocolate chip cookie for lunch and chicken or sushi for dinner. To any woman who has ever worried about whether to save the second packet of chocolate HobNobs till after lunch, I'm sorry but her diet does sound seriously messed-up.

"It's not only irresponsible, it's deceitful," argues Deanne Jade, director of the National Centre for Eating Disorders. "These women talk about eating whatever they like and it makes young women feel like freaks because it doesn't seem to work like that for them. I go into classrooms and try to get the message through to teenagers that in a lot of cases these women are lying. They eat whatever they like, yes, then they go and throw up. Or else they take cocaine to keep their weight down. Or they're addicted to exercise and can afford personal trainers."

It is ironic that these new photos of Flockhart appear just days after the death of Lena Zavaroni, the tragic manifestation of how fame can impact on a woman's self-image. To this we can add the other news that toddlers in Britain are officially "overweight", which can only mean that the pressure to diet is going to begin earlier and earlier.

"Half the problem with the girls I see is that not only do they have these skinny women in the public eye, but they have mothers who are on diets too. It's a powerful combination," Jade says. "For teenage girls, dieting becomes an endorsement of being female; talking about having to keep their weight down makes them feel like 'proper' women."

It is hard to see how any of these women, particularly Flockhart, can possibly be appealing role models, with their grey skin, lank hair and sad expressions. Not so long ago, Ally McBeal featured on a Time magazine cover alongside Gloria Steinem and Susan B Anthony, America's First Suffragette, under the headline "Is Feminism Dead?" Flockhart was not best pleased. "I was quite depressed. Ally McBeal is a woman who falls down, who throws her shoes. I'm afraid that's all I'll be known for."

As her weight continues to shrink, we can count on her being remembered for something else entirely.

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