Magazines face restrictions on the use of air-brushed images promoting an ultra-slim ideal of beauty, the Standard can reveal.

Editors from top-selling "glossies" are to hold a summit to discuss a voluntary code on digital manipulation.

The British Fashion Council demanded they act after last autumn's Model Health Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Kingsmill, gave a stinging critique of the industry's unhealthy size-zero culture.

Reports suggest the photographs of women that many aspire to emulate are sometimes stretched, with computer technology used to make curves disappear.

Influential names such as Alexandra Shulman of Vogue, Lorraine Candy of Elle, Jane Bruton of Grazia and Kay Goddard of Hello! will be invited to what is expected to be a series of meetings to decide on best practice, the Periodical Publishers Association confirmed.

Representatives of the leading publishing houses and the fashion council will also attend on a date yet to be set.

The move comes as an eating disorder expert today claimed society's obsession with being slim was pushing more and more people into dangerous-diet-binge cycles, and sometimesbulimia.

Professor Janet Treasure, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said such disordered behaviour may permanently alter the way people's brains react to "rewards".

They could then become more susceptible to other addictions, such as drugs and alcohol, she warned.

In the British Journal Of Psychiatry, she also links yo-yo dieting to the obesity epidemic. Professor Treasure said the Government needed to tackle society's obsessive eating habits. "Although it may take time to change the 'thin ideal' we should remember what has been achieved with cigarette smoking. People are just beginning to listen to the wealth of scientific evidence about the harm that fashion industry images cause."

A spokesman for the PPA said of the summit: "We are aware of the public feeling on the issue and it needs to be addressed."

Susan Greenwood, chief executive of eating disorder charity Beat, warned that the industry had a history of paying lip service to the issue. She said: "There was a summit at Downing Street back in 2000 on digital manipulation and body image issues with fashion magazine editors and what's changed since then? Nothing."

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