Regular readers of this blog (and of my work more generally) will note that I tend towards relativism. Not for me “good vs evil” or “black vs white” - I’m all about the shades of grey, the “but then there’s also -"s and the "but you’ve got to remember that -"s.

But this is once instance in which I’m sufficiently pissed off to throw relativism (at least partly) out the window.

Australians will be familiar with Stephanie Naumoska, the Miss Universe contestant who was all over the news and current affairs circuit last week for being "too thin”. Overseas readers may be familiar with the story as well - it’s spread like wildfire (indeed, the video above is British).

Now, I don’t want to make this a post about Stephanie’s body. She’s the only one who really knows if she is “healthy” (whatever that means in this kind of debate), and I don’t think she’s under any obligation to go beyond the obvious PR line when talking to media outlets hungry for a sensationalist story. Not to mention, I think it’s deeply disrespectful and objectifying to sit around deconstructing the way a person looks - there can be no winners in that exercise.

Instead, I’d like to talk about the rhetoric that dominated this story - rhetoric which is unsurprisingly similar to that used by the Australian fashion industry a couple of years ago when they refused to follow the lead of Madrid and Milan and institute a minimum BMI for fashion week models.

Arguments like:

“Some girls are just naturally thin.”

“It’s not fair to discriminate against naturally skinny girls.”

“Models have to be skinny - that’s the point… No one wants larger girls to show off their clothes; it looks a bit silly” - direct quote from Australian fashion designer, Alannah Hill.

“All you people complaining are juz jelus fatties” - paraphrasement of Australia’s Next Top Model judge, Alex Perry.

“Why is it okay to say that models are too thin, but not okay to say when people are too fat?”

And so on.

These are muddy waters to wade in. Because, you know, it’s not okay to be nasty to women because they happen to thin, just like it’s not okay to be nasty to them because they happen to be fat (even though we seem to do both all the time).

But I’m going to go there anyway. Because while some of those arguments (ie, the first two) are good as arguments, in practice, they’re bullshit.

The way much of the fashion industry goes on, you’d think people were trying to throw their precious skinny models off the catwalk and replace them with a legion of Beth Dittos. Or, you know, US size 6s.

Hardly. Body Mass Index might not be a perfect indictator of health, but a BMI of 18.5 (the minimum instituted by Milan and Madrid) is still really, really small.

Not to mention that pretty much everyone who becomes a model is “naturally thin” - it’s pretty much a requirement for the job. It’s virtually impossible to achieve the figure of a fashion model unless you’re naturally small-boned and genetically disinclined towards storing fat on your body.

Take Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr, recently voted by the readers of Grazia the celebrity with the most admired body, who I saw in the flesh a few years ago at Australian fashion week. Miranda Kerr is a tall woman - she’s 5'10" - but the word that springs to mind when describing her is “tiny”. She’s seriously petite.

If I (or likely, you) were that small, I’d look like death, but Miranda looked great - because, I’m willing to bet, that's just the way she was made. And that’s the thing: most people look healthy when they’re at the weight that’s right for their body.

There’s no polite way to say this next bit, so I’ll take the easy way out and let women’s mag journo and blogger Erica Bartle do it for me. Conversely, "if there’s a general consensus that you are too thin – that you are not looking your best – then you probably are. And you need help.“ And that’s especially true when you live in a society that equates thinness with health and beauty as much as ours does.

The more I read and engage with other young women, the more it hits me just how widespread eating disorders really are (even if, contrary to the media portrayal, they don't usually end in extreme thinness and/or death). Given that models pay their rent and put food on their plates based on the way they look, it’s no surprise that eating disorders are rife throughout the industry - every model I’ve been friends with has had one (admittedly, this is a sample size of around a handful). Even Natalia Vodianova, a model with an incredibly high profile and stature, has spoken out about the pressure she has to be thinner than her naturally petite body is meant to be.

So, given the above, I can’t help but be cynical when the fashion industry leaps to the defense of its very thinnest models. Because this isn’t about embracing women in all the shapes they come in, or about those "jelus fatties” being bitter about the impossible beauty standards they set. It’s about them willfully shutting their eyes to physical and mental illness - even when it results in death - in the pursuit of an ideal that not even the naturally thinnest girls can naturally live up to.

Unless they’re 13. But that’s a story for another time.