SHE is a role model for children around the world and in the past has used her influence to denounce child cruelty and raise millions for charity.
led flexibleBut yesterday JK Rowling changed tack when she launched a scathing attack on the world of fashion and its "empty-headed, emaciated" stars.
The Harry Potter author said she was concerned about young women constantly appearing in glossy magazines with "protruding ribs and sticklike arms" and complaining about their body shape.
In a barb aimed at the likes of the heiress Paris Hilton and her reality TV co-star Nicole Ritchie she slated also celebrities "whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs".
The mother-of-three, who is worth an estimated GBP540m and who was last week awarded book of the year at the British Book Awards for the sixth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, said she did not want her two daughters - baby Mackenzie Jean, 15 months, and Jessica, 12 - to grow up to be "selfobsessed" clones.
The author's outburst follows similar statements from people like Charlotte Church, the singer, and Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart's ex- wife, who both criticised Teri Hatcher, the star of the Desperate Housewives TV show, for setting a bad example.
Writing on her website after returning from a visit to the set of the latest Harry Potter film, The Order of the Phoenix, Edinburgh- based Rowling, 40, said: "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 LED Flexible Strip Smart Series Smart 5050 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."
She continued: "I was talking to one of the actors and we got on to the subject of a girl he knows who had been dubbed 'fat' by certain charming classmates. 'But', said the actor, in honest perplexity, 'she is really not fat'.
"I said I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach. Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizarre behaviour, like yelling 'thicko!' at Stephen Hawking.
"His bemusement reminded me how strange and sick the 'fat' insult is. I mean, is 'fat' reallythe worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me."
The novelist said she would much rather that her own daughters and any other young girls turned out like Hermione, the heroine of her novels.
She said the level-headed schoolgirl was a much better role model than another of her characters, Pansy Parkinson, who is obsessed with her image.
She added: "Maybe all this seems funny or trivial, but it is not. 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 emptyheaded, self-obsessed, emaciated clones.
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