Is Bigger Better?

OK, so we've all lived through the great starving model controversy of Fashion Week 2006. The fashion world, the ones who parade their skinny-girl clothes for their celeb audience for a teeny lucky few who wear them and the masses who buy the fashion mags suddenly seemed horrified by what they'd produced: the demand for super-thin models.

Cut to today. In the San Francisco Chronicle today in the Style section there's a story about a plus-size model who's been getting more work these days. The reason? Obesity rates in Europe went up 10% this year. So, more fat people. And fat people buy larger clothes. The use of the "zaftig" model is supposed to be good. The onset of obesity in Europe is bad.

If there are more fat (sorry, just can't do the Rubenesque thing) models, are we embracing a positive image of women or a negative result of health? Is anyone else out there confused? Are we truly worried about what's being portrayed in the fashion industry when the general population is hardly suffering from skinniness? It all just seems, well, silly.