The majority of women looking at themselves in the mirror don’t feel vain but insecure. This reality includes ‘attractive’ women, who can be notoriously lacking in self-esteem. Fixing flaws is big business, in America, even moreso than in European countries.

The synergy between insecure women and businesses that ‘help’ women improve themselves is deeply rooted in the US. The biggest change I see in the aspirational landscape, when the subject is weight and body image, is that the goal is essentially unattainable and unhealthy.

Many women and guys find especially tall size zero women unattractive. Think of these women as human billboards. The clothes are often ‘comped’ for an occasion, and the celeb’s job is to be a living, breathing advertisement for the designer.

Depending on the celebrity status of the star, the fashion designer will dictate the size of his billboards … or not.

We have two photos of Nicole Richie, before and after motherhood. Richie was proudly a size 0, and I assume that many fashion designers — Karl Lagerfeld for certain — applaud her ‘perfect body’. Post two babies, Nicole Richie was photographed last week at Bloomingdale’s, South Coast Plaza in California where she launched her jewelry collection.

You decide which figure is a preferable beauty standard, because we know that women come in all sizes and shapes. It’s my goal to help us understand what we’re shooting for, when the fashion industy tells us that size zero is today’s beauty ideal.

Is it? Are you really green with envy that you don’t look like Nicole Richie on the left? Anne