Five of Milan's top models showed off their culinary skills on Friday to boost the Italian fashion industry's campaign against anorexia.
The cooking contest, staged at Milan's School of Italian Cuisine a week before Milan Fashion Week, was won by 24-year-old Brazilian model Shalana Santana.
Like her four rivals, Santana used recipes sent in by e-mail by some of Milan's top chefs including Davide Oldani, Andrea Berton and Elio Sironi.
She won with what judges described as a ''particularly elaborate'' version of a high-class restaurant dish, lentil and cod stew.
''The event shows that beauty can go hand in hand with healthy eating,'' organisers said.
''The models have shown they're just as nifty in the kitchen as they are on the catwalk''. Last year the Italian fashion world adopted an anti-anorexia code as part of a drive to fight the message that ultra-thin is beautiful.
A key requirement of the new code is that models have a body mass index of at least 18.5, slightly above the figure laid down by the World Health Organization as marking the line between 'normal' and 'underweight'.
There have been moves towards standardized clothes sizing, which often varies radically from one label to the next.
For months now, models have been monitored for excessive stress levels and tested for drugs.
Unlike trecent anti-anorexia measures taken in Spain, where excessively skinny models have been legally banned from catwalks, nothing has been enforced by law.
By signing the code, stylists, agencies, photographers and agents have promised to see that the rules are observed, each in their own corner of the industry.
In the wake of the November 2006 death of an anorexic Brazilian model, there was intense concern in the Italian fashion industry that action should be taken to prevent similar tragedies here.
Youth Minister Giovanna Melandri also took a keen interest in the matter, seeing greater responsibility in the fashion world as a key part of combatting a rise in slimming illnesses among girls and young women.
''I want the industry to cooperate in promoting models of beauty that are based on healthy lifestyles,'' the minister said.
She said designers should be encouraged to work with more realistic body shapes and images.
Several studies have shown that fashion and media portrayals of an overly thin ideal put pressure on young women and have contributed to rising eating disorder rates.
Some three million Italians or 5% of the population suffer from such disorders, the vast majority of them women.
According to recent statistics, 8-10% of teenage girls and almost 1% of teenage boys suffer from some form of eating disorder.
