The Italian edition of Vogue has launched a campaign to stamp out pro-anorexia websites.
"There are thousands of these sites and blogs which don't just support this evil, but push young people into competition over their physical shape," said Franca Sozzani, Vogue Italia's editor-in-chief.
In her blog, in which she announced a petition calling for legislation to close down such sites, she said they "provide a kind of open confessional, supporting those who are unable to carry on by themselves along a road that can only lead to death".
The tragic consequences of anorexia nervosa were highlighted last November when a French model, Isabelle Caro, died at the age of 28. Caro posed for an anti-anorexia poster, in a shock photograph taken by the Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani.
The campaign is not Vogue's first initiative in the area of eating disorders. In 2009, it emerged that the editor of the British version of Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, had written to designers accusing them of sending fashion magazines ever smaller garments for photo-shoots, thus forcing them to hire models "with jutting bones and no breasts or hips".
Her intervention prompted some commentators to criticise the publication, arguing the images it promoted were among the reasons for the spread of anorexia, bulimia and similar disorders.
"I am sure they will say the same about me, but you can't let yourself be influenced by a handful of people into not doing something about what's going on", Sozzani said.
So-called pro-ana sites abound on the web. Many deny they promote eating disorders, maintaining that their aim is to offer support to anorexics and bulimics.
"Anorexia may be a harmful activity. We do not encourage this activity", said one. But it includes a page of do's and don'ts, of which the first is: "You will be FAT if you eat today. Just put it off one more day."
The lexicon of the pro-ana sub-culture has frequently been criticised for personalising eating disorders, and thereby encouraging young people to think of their condition as a friend. Anorexia is "Ana" and bulimia is "Mia".
The influence exerted by the world of fashion is evident. The site quoted earlier, Ana's Thinspiration, advises readers to "tape/tack up pictures of your favourite models and always carry one around with you. When you're hungry, pull out the picture."
Sozzani said fashion devotees failed to understand that "models in most cases are naturally slender because they are still very young and not yet fully developed".
On the practical issue of how sites could be removed, she said: "Italy could also black out foreign sites. But what we want if for this to act as a springboard for a much wider campaign."
