Some of us can't even remember the new year's resolutions we made - that will be a 'no' on the resolution thing, then.

It must be the public rows that make it seem as if normal life has been going on uninterrupted. We are rich in rows and there are so many of them that some of the most important just slip by unnoticed.

However, the Size-Zero row should not slip by unnoticed. As we watch the teenage girls gliding through the clothes shops, we should try and focus a little bit.

It was only last October (yes, yes, before Christmas) that 40 doctors at an eating disorder research unit at King's College, London, wrote to the British Fashion Council to say:

"There is no doubt there is a cause and effect here. The fashion industry showcases models with extreme body shapes, and this is undoubtedly one of the factors leading to young girls developing disorders."

This cause-and-effect argument has been used to curtail the activities of other industries with legislation - the ban on tobacco advertising springs to mind. But the fashion industry seems to be insulated by some collagenlike substance when it comes to model size.

That is, models of both types. In Spain, they are bringing in shop mannequins who are much bigger than before - a shocking size 10. In New York, for the city's fashion week, they have banned real-live catwalk models with a Body Mass Index of less than 18. (Anyone with a BMI of less than 18.5 is classed by the World Health Organisation as being underweight. ) These measures come in the wake of the deaths of models Ana Carolina Reston and Luisel Ramos, who starved to death last year. It does seem extraordinary that the fashion industry, which is built on the power of advertising - it pours millions into advertising campaigns each year - can decide that the endless pictures of skeletal girls have no impact on the women who are constantly exposed to them.

It is also amazing that the fashion industry, which prides itself on its love of constant change and its shrewdness in identifying just about everything that is new, is as conservative as any religious fanatic when it comes to how people look. The uniformity of models is truly terrifying. The fashion industry cannot cope with individuality - it distracts from the clothes.

Women, of course, are just demoralised by this constant stream of unattainable beauty. The average woman is now a size 14, or above. It has been proved that in countries where these fashion images are widespread - for example, this country - both men and women are discontented with the reality of the female form.

However, we are big girls - as it were - and we have learned to live with this constant undermining of our self worth.

Old women have been written out of fashion for years and, to look at fashion advertising, anyone would assume that all women over 60 years of age never buy clothes, are completely uninterested in them and must walk around naked. The older women will attack the fashion industry one day, please God (just wait until I hit 60, there's going to be hell to pay). It's young girls we should worry about here.

The whole idea that young girls, at the height of their health and beauty - in short, in their prime - should be presented with a fashion ideal of malnourished, hollow-faced models is deeply wrong and upsets the chances of a normal relationship between young women and their food.

It is no coincidence that as Victoria Beckham's stick-like legs start to stalk super-stardom in America, at home teenage girls are getting fatter by the minute. Obesity and anorexia are inextricably linked. Food is a drug for many female teenagers, and it is abused just as dangerously as alcohol, other drugs and even, after that sad story from Dungarvan last week, solvents.

In a country where shopping is the new leisure activity for the whole family maybe it is time that female consumers started objecting - loudly, and in the shops, where it really hurts.