Remember the days when the only thing that mattered was acting ability on set, having curves was sexy, and anorexia was an all but an unspoken word and not a fashion accessory?

It begs the question, why? Why is it necessary for a beautiful actress like Mischa Barton to reduce her weight in an effort to be so stick thin that she appears to be teetering on the edge of death?

Whatever the answer or the reason, it seems the modern obsession with being skinny has now hit British actress, Mischa. With her look, not dissimilar to a WW2 prisoner of war, Mischa has lost so much weight over the past 6 months that her previously healthy shape has gone from a size 12 (UK) to a very gaunt size 6 (UK).

The 23 year old former star of The OC, stands a willowy 5ft 9 inches high and currently looks like a new born foul, following the goading she experienced last year about the cellulite captured in pap’s photos and flashed across every celebrity rag on the newsstands.

Many young girls identify with the beautiful Hollywood star and to see her morph from a healthy young woman into a starved, unhappy looking waif sets a bad example.

But Mischa is not alone in the quest for the skinny shape, that she thinks will bring the success and happiness to her life that she believes has disappeared with her recent weight gain. Janet Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Nicole Richie and Kate Winslet all yo-yo before our very eyes in a bid to prove they are worth while and to remain pawns in the hands of the casting directors and the media, falling foul to the need to have their appearances validated by everyone other than themselves.

While at Paris fashion week, Mischa showed off her new skeletal shape in the hopes of recapturing the career that appeared to dry up when she packed on the pounds that gave her a curvy silhouette.

Obviously in denial of her new skin and bone silhouette, Mischa was recently interviewed by Cosmopolitan magazine in an article in which she revealed, ‘I think it’s cooler when girls look themselves, so I don’t fuss too much about the way I look. I really dress for me. I think it’s important as a girl that the way you dress and the way you look are for yourself and you’re not just trying to please other people all the time.’

The media, and to a large extent the celebs themselves are warping the minds of young men and women when it comes to body image and they are causing them to all but kill themselves in an effort be successful.