The Wall Street Journal Reports:

-- On Tuesday morning in Paris, as the fashion elite were gathering at the Balenciaga show, 17-year-old model Ali Michael was heading home to the U.S. far earlier than anticipated.

Miss Michael was last season's model du jour, and she looks wraithlike, with a still-developing body and a 23-inch waist. But this season, after gaining five pounds, Miss Michael was told by casting directors for the runway shows that her legs were too plump, according to her mother, Mary Ann Michael, who travels with her daughter to appointments and shows. And so, after doing a string of major supermodel shows in September, Miss Michael snared only the Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris this time around. After walking the runway, her eyes blackened with corpse-like makeup, she said she was sad to be leaving but grateful to Mr. Yamamoto. "This show is special," she added.

"I think it's gotten worse," said Nina Garcia, fashion director at Elle magazine and a judge on cable television's "Project Runway," while we waited to see Balenciaga. "In the fashion industry, the models are getting thinner and thinner, yet as a culture, we're getting fatter and fatter." Nobody here has been talking about last year's skinny-model cause célèbre, when a few fashion-industry leaders in Milan and Madrid began talking about instituting body-mass-index requirements after the starvation deaths of several models. This year, the models are just as thin -- if anything, they look thinner. This was particularly visible in Paris, which sets modes for clothes and fashion shows around the world.--

Which imposes the real question: Just how young is too young to model? At an age where a young girl’s body is still developing, shouldn’t adults expect this to be true for the emotional state? The fashion industry is cut-throat and unforgiving, a couture jungle that only the most agile and strong should brave. That in mind, is it really fair to make this fantasy attainable to children as young as the age of 12? All things put into perspective; these are kids we’re talking about here. Let’s, for a moment, ignore the real underlying issue - the fact that the perceptions of beauty presented on runways is not an imitation of reality, and certainly should not represent a goal for young girls to aspire. Let’s explore the concept of parents who tote their beautiful pre adolescent daughters like prized ponies to model agency after the next allowing them to be poked, prodded and willfully scrutinized when instilling self esteem and self worth should be the priority. Even at 17, one has to wonder what this ordeal will do for Miss Michael’s body image preception. Or perhaps she’s one of the elite unbreakables who, at 17, has the skin of an alligator. Somehow, that’s doubtful.

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