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Dame Helen Mirren believes women are to blame for the unrealistic expectations they place on themselves when it comes to body image.
The Oscar-winning star has condemned the proliferation of stick-thin models and says female magazine editors who use their images need to take some responsibility for the pressure women feel to be thin.
"I blame my own sex vehemently on this," she told the Sunday Telegraph in an interview.
"It is women who run the magazines and women who editorialise and women who make the decisions."
Dame Helen, whose autobiography In the Frame has just been published, said she was prompted to speak out on the size zero issue after her niece was rejected by modelling agencies on the grounds of weight.
"I took my 17-year-old niece around to some modelling agencies because she is very tall, over six foot," the actress said.
"I knew that a little part of her brain, or maybe a big part of her brain, was thinking, 'I could be a model'. She is a slim, flat-bellied and normal girl. Every modelling agency told her she would have to lose weight and I felt so, so guilty, because she really didn't have to. When she got home I didn't want her to feel like that."
And despite admitting to being on a "permanent diet", the 62-year-old actress said young women needed to realise there was a distinction between being slim and being stick thin.
"I think it is completely iniquitous to have incredibly skinny girls on the runway," she said.
"A lot of the girls are horrifically thin and of course they have a problem. Mostly, the fashion industry chooses to turn a blind eye."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
