British Vogue will launch its first magazine aimed at a young readers, its editor has announced.

Alexandra Shulman said: "We are really excited at the opportunity to create a slightly different Vogue for this readership. I wanted to produce something that would have bespoke content for a younger audience."

While the Miss Vogue launch caused stirrings of excitement within the fashion industry, campaigners on body image issues greeted news of the 124-page magazine, which will be given away free with British Vogue in June, with caution.

"We know the media, fashion industry or advertising do not directly cause eating disorders – they are more complex than that – but it is a powerful influence, which could become part of the solution, rather than being blamed for the problem," Leanne Thorndyke, spokeswoman for the B-eat eating disorder charity, told the Guardian.

"We want to challenge the current aesthetic that shows only the tall and very slender as the aspirational ideal of beauty."

Caroline Nokes MP, who works with the all-party parliamentary group on body image, praised Vogue for being better than its rivals at featuring diverse models. "I sincerely hope Vogue will adopt a responsible approach in this crowded and sensitive marketplace," she said of Miss Vogue.

Teen Vogue launched in America in 2003 and has a circulation of more than 1m. It made headlines last year when two teenager girls petitioned it to stop Photoshopping models. The magazine responded: "We feature healthy models on the pages of our magazine and shoot dozens of non-models and readers every year and do not retouch them to alter their body size."

A spokesperson for British Vogue did not elaborate on what age constituted a younger audience but underlined that "healthy confidence" was a key part of their editorial approach.