No one says it better than JK

JK Rowling had an unexpected rant on her website:
http://www.jkrowling.com (Extras:Misc.:For Girls Only...Probably)
Wherein she rants about the pressures on young girls to be thin. She ends with a wish that we all be Hermiones instead of Pansy Parkinsons.
For many reasons this writer is my hero.
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=22

For Girls Only, Probably...

Being thin. Probably not a subject that you ever expected to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking...

It started in the car on the way to Leavesden film studios. I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. 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. All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside.
(snip)
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, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over.