"Fashion magazines deliberately promote fantasy," says Mary Peacock, a columnist for Women.com, a Web site for women.

A typical fashion magazine reader can’t afford the clothes or achieve the body depicted in these publications, she says.

Peacock says women's magazines have regressed in their portrayal of realistic body images since the heyday of Ms. magazine, which she helped found with fellow feminists in the 1970s. They formed Ms. in reaction to the male-edited women’s magazines that dominated the market at the time.

Erin Quinn modeled throughout her teenage years for Ralph Lauren and Ann Taylor

Today's magazines "pay lip service to issues like anorexia, but it's embedded in the advertising," she says.

But Peacock cautions against blaming the media outright for women’s self-esteem issues.

"The problem is not the magazine, necessarily," says Peacock. "The problem is also the readers. People don't understand what physical freaks models are."

a model image

"You just wouldn't eat," says Erin Quinn, a former Ann Taylor model, describing the philosophy on the day of a show.