Girls under the age of 16 will be banned from catwalks and photoshoots under new fashion industry rules drawn up to defuse the controversy over ultra-thin models.

The new age limit will mean that teenagers hoping to follow in the footsteps of Kate Moss, Lily Cole and Naomi Campbell, who all began modelling at 14 or 15, will no longer be used to sell clothes.

However, fashion bosses have decided not to ban 'size zero' models, who have sparked accusations that those, particularly the young, who seek to emulate them end up with eating disorders.

The new guidelines will come as part of the independent report into the 'size zero' crisis. The inquiry, under Labour peer Baroness Kingsmill, follows the death last year of two South American models working on the international circuit, one from anorexia and the other from malnutrition.

Kingsmill's Model Health Inquiry will release an interim report on Wednesday which also recommends better health and nutritional advice for models, improving ways in which they can complain about their working conditions and education for models' agents about eating disorders. The British Fashion Council, the industry's trade body which commissioned the inquiry, has indicated that it will accept and implement the recommendations.

Industry representatives welcomed the moves. Gavin Myall, managing director of top London agency ICM Models, said: 'I have been quite vocal on the fact that we would like it to be 16 or above. We do have models below that age but very few, and whenever they are on jobs they are accompanied by parents and do not do shows.'

Myall also agreed with the inquiry's refusal to propose a ban on 'size zero' models, who are the equivalent of a UK size four. 'I do not think putting a limit on size is the answer. Saying someone cannot work because they are not a certain size is not right, but no reputable London agency looks after size zero models.'

Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the eating disorders campaign group Beat, added: 'Banning size zero models isn't the whole answer. The taller, younger and skinnier that someone is at the same time, that is a risk to health. But you can also be very slender and very healthy. You can't tell if someone is unhealthy just by looking at them.'

But the industry needed to use more models whose size is closer to that of British women - whose average size is 16 - said Ringwood. 'The fashion industry needs to widen its definition of beauty and embrace a more diverse aesthetic in the way that Dove and John Lewis have by using more normal-sized women, which is healthy.'

She endorsed any ban on under-16 models 'because using young girls to sell women's clothes is distasteful'.

'Using the slender bodies of 14- and 15-year-old girls, who don't have adult curves and shapes, means clothes hang beautifully on them but that's unhealthy because it creates a chasm between the way we are in our bodies and the aspiration that that sets up. It makes people think they are buying the youth of the model as well as the clothes themselves,' said Ringwood.

The Model Health Inquiry's members include fashion designers Betty Jackson and Giles Deacon, supermodel Erin O'Connor, Storm Models boss Sarah Doukas and consultant psychiatrist Dr Adrienne Key. They have spent the past six weeks holding discussions with models, designers, magazine editors, photographers and models' agent about the problem and remedial action.

Models have demanded the industry introduces a standard contract of employment to prevent exploitation by unscrupulous agents through, for example, excessive working hours.

Hilary Riva, the BFC's chief executive would only say: 'The British Fashion Council commissioned the independent Model Health Inquiry to look into the health issues of models on London's catwalks and looks forward to receiving the interim report on Wednesday.'

The facts about thin

· 'Size zero' models became the subject of international debate when organisers of Madrid Fashion Week banned models with a body mass index below 18 last year.

· The deaths of models Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston from South America have been attributed to the size-zero trend.

· Although Milan and Madrid prohibited size zero models from their catwalks, London did not adopt the same policy last year.

· The European Union's move is expected to halt the trend of girls trying to copy size zero fashion models. Traditional dress sizes may be replaced with bust and waist measurements.