PLUS-SIZED model Robyn Lawley has found herself at the centre of the thigh gap debate, which calls for legs so thin that they do not touch above the knees.

The 24-year-old Australian was angry after an image of her appeared on a pro-thigh gap Facebook page and generated a negative and hurtful response.

media_camera Thigh gap ... The image of Robyn Lawley that appeared on a pro-thigh gap Facebook page and attracted 900 comments. Picture: Robyn Lawley

"I was called too "hefty" to be featured. The word "PIG" was often used to describe my appearance and my thigh gap was said to be not big enough," she wrote in The Daily Beast .

"The truth is I couldn't care less about needing a supposed 'thigh gap.' It's just another tool of manipulation that other people are trying to use to keep me from loving my body. Why would I want to starve and weaken my natural body size?

"I'm not saying women who have it naturally are unattractive. But I would have to change my entire frame just to achieve something that seems so trivial," she wrote.

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Pictures: Plus-size model Robyn Lawley

media_camera Robyn Lawley at the 2013 Vogue FashionÕs Night Out held in the CBD shopping precinct of Sydney.

Lawley, who models for Vogue and Ralph Lauren, said that the 'thigh gap' trend is "a disturbing breed of thinspiration that pressures women and girls.

"I've been trying to do just the opposite. I want my thighs to be bigger and stronger. I want to run faster and swim longer.

"I suppose we all just want different things, but women have enough pressure as it is without the added burden of achieving a 'thigh gap.'"

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Originally published as Lawley mad at thigh gap trend