All women should aspire for hourglass size 14 figures, claims new equalities minister

Role model: Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks is famed for her hourglass figure

All women should aspire to be a size 14 with buxom, hourglass figures, the new equalities minister claims.



They must not be made to feel inadequate by stick-thin models staring out of advertising billboards and magazines.



Instead, they should regard curvaceous women such as Christina Hendricks, star of the TV series Mad Men, as their ultimate role models, Lynne Featherstone said.



The Liberal Democrat minister described the actress, who plays Joan Holloway in the popular American drama set in the 1960s, as 'absolutely fabulous'.

She said that too often, women were made to feel wretched about their size as they were constantly comparing themselves with 'unattainable' figures of celebrities and models.

This posed a 'significant risk to the physical and mental health of young people' she added, and in the worst cases could lead to anorexia and bulimia.



By contrast the minister wants buxom women such as Christina Hendricks become increasingly dominant in the fashion and advertising industry.



'Christina Hendricks is absolutely fabulous. We need more of these role models,' she added.



Later this year the minister will put pressure on magazine editors and advertisers not to use skinny models.



She also wants all airbrushed photographs to carry a health warning either as a kitemark or in small print just underneath the picture.



This would advise people that model or celebrity's figure was not realistic and that it had been slimmed-down or retouched to accentuate certain features.



The minister, who was voted Parliament's most attractive MP earlier this year, added: 'I am very keen that children and young women should be informed about airbrushing so they don't fall victim to looking at an image and thinking that anyone can have a 12-inch waist.



'It's so not possible. Advertisers and magazine editors have a right to publish what they choose, but women and girls also have a right to feel comfortable in their own bodies.



'At the moment they are being denied that.'



Reality check: Lynne Featherstone claims women are made to feel inadequate by skinny models

She added: 'All women have felt that pressure of having to conform to an unrealistic stereotype, which plagues them their whole life.



'It's not just the immediate harm, it's something that lasts a lifetime.



'Young girls are under intense pressure the whole time. I was a young girl, many moons ago.



'By no means are we excluding men. The pressure is on everyone to look perfect.



She said that by using airbrushed photos, magazine editors and advertisers were regularly breaching their codes of conduct by misleading people and potentially causing harm to children.



'Magazines regularly mislead their readers by publishing distorted images that have been secretly airbrushed and altered.



'Likewise the advertising standards code says no advert should place children at risk of mental, physical or moral harm, but adverts do contain airbrushed images of unattainable beauty in magazines aimed at young teenagers.'



Earlier this year Christina Hendricks, the minister's role model, was named Esquire magazine's sexiest woman in the world.



Since the Mad Men series was first screened on BBC4 two years ago she has been credited with making women feel good about their curves.