For thousands of years, a thin body was a sign of poverty or disease. But there is now a growing, global obsession with being thin. And this at a time when many populations around the world are, paradoxically, suffering epidemics of obesity. Mike Williams finds out why, as he speaks to former French model Victoire Macon Dauxerre, Tony Glenville from the London College of Fashion, Anne Becker from Harvard Medical School, Professor John Speakman from University of Aberdeen and Etta Edim from Nigeria’s Efik tribe.

Image: A vendor arranges stick-thin mannequins in a store in China (Credit: China Photos/Getty Images)