JK Rowling blasts skinny models

She is best-known for conjuring up a magical world of wizardry for children and adults alike.

But when it comes to the real world, there's one thing Harry Potter author JK Rowling can't stand - stick-thin models.

Writing on her website, the mother-of-three rails against the catwalk queens, saying their 'only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs'.

She is particularly concerned her two daughters, Mackenzie Jean, 15 months, and Jessica, 12, might be influenced by models and grow up to be 'empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones'.

The 40-year-old said she was sick of seeing girls in magazines with 'protruding ribs and stick like arms' moaning about their body shape.

Pictures of an unnamed, skinny model in a magazine had prompted her rant, she wrote. She said: 'She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story.

'This girl needs help but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead.

'Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not. It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are.

'I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, selfobsessed, emaciated clones.

'I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny, a thousand things, before "thin".'