DOWNSIZING Subzero sizes offered for naturally skinny

But some experts worry such a tiny size will create unrealistic goals for size-conscious women.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Could subzero become the next status symbol for size-conscious women?
The ideal women's size has been shrinking for years, and now more designers and retailers are introducing a less-than-zero size, sometimes called "subzero" or 00.
Designer Nicole Miller plans to introduce the size in next fall's line, and last spring, Banana Republic started selling size 00 online.
The subzero sizes are intended for the naturally slender -- women who find they are swimming in the waist of a size zero or 2. But some experts worry that the proliferation of such a tiny size could cause eating disorders as some women aspire to shrink to subzero.
As one character from the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" quips, "2 is the new 4 and zero is the new 2."
Could subzero now be the new zero?
"They love the size zero," Tony Paulson, clinical director for Summit Eating Disorders and Outreach Programs in Sacramento, Calif., says about some women he treats. "For some reason, that's almost a badge of honor to them, to reach a size zero. Now they have another goal, to reach this sub-size zero."
Take a minute to size up today's reigning fashionistas (think Mischa Barton, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Bosworth) and one common trait is obvious: They're all itty-bitty, even bordering on scary-thin. Today, models weigh about 23 percent less than the average woman, according to the Social Issues Research Centre.
"If those are the people that our young girls want to emulate, that is terrifying," says Nichole Zidenberg, director of the teen clinic at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Roseville, Calif.
The way it was
If this decade's ideal body type is superskinny, a glance down the fashion timeline is a reminder that it wasn't always this way.
UIn the 1950s, a size 12 Marilyn Monroe wrote the body-type rules.
UThe 1960s shifted to a shape more familiar to today's runway -- Twiggy's long and lanky frame.
UContestants in the Miss America pageant from 1960 to 1978 increasingly shrank, and winners of the pageant were consistently tinier than the other entrants, according to a 1980 study by psychologist David Garner.
UIn the 1980s, the beauty ideal stayed slim, but also fit and toned.
UAnd in the 1990s, Pamela Anderson summed up the ideal: impossibly slender with impossibly large breasts.
"What happens is that the beauty ideal keeps on changing, and you have a lot of adolescent girls who are striving for that," Paulson says. "Unfortunately, for most of the girls, it's completely unrealistic; it's impossible for them to reach these goals they've put out there."
It's impossible because most women just aren't built that way. The average American woman is 5-foot-4, weighs about 155 pounds and wears size 14.
The average model?
She stands at 5-foot-9, weighs 110 pounds and wears a zero or a 2, according to the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, England.
Time to get real
Of course, not all girls are starving themselves to subzero status. Those who are naturally tiny welcome the new lines of clothes because subzero sizes have been difficult to find.
But during Madrid's fashion week in September, Spanish officials banned severely underweight models from participating in the shows, blaming the super-thin models for helping spur eating disorders in young women.
And Dove, already running print ads featuring "real" women of all sizes, this fall launched a viral video ad campaign called "Evolution." A YouTube favorite, the video shows a normal-looking young woman with limp hair and acne scars getting made up into a flawless supermodel, with the video sped up to show the entire process in a minute and 15 seconds.
It's encouraging, Saboura says, but it's not enough.
"I think what's happening is it's becoming in vogue to protest against all these things, but it's really not catching on," says Saboura.