I am 5ft 7ins and disgustingly skinny with bean-pole legs, bony ankles and a flat bottom. It worries me because even skinny black women usually have some degree of curves in that area.' In the letters page a reader complains that none of the finalists in Pride Face of '94 (a competition that takes places next Saturday) weighs over 10 stone. Given that the winner will receive a modelling assignment from the magazine, an upper weight of 10 stone seems extremely high compared with the emaciated models who habitually appear in Elle.According to Azania B, editor-in-chief of the glossy magazine Visions in Black, which provokes comparison with Vogue, black women 'come from a culture in which the families believe that the fatter you are, the healthier you are I would never run a diet in the magazine. I've noticed some degree of dieting and black women are becoming more weight-conscious, but others will make excuses, saying that the men want a voluptuous figure. African and Caribbean cultures like women who are shapely, but they don't like them thin.'Azania B suggests that far more important than fashion spreads for young black women is the influence of music. She cites a recent chart-topper in America by the rap artist Sir Mixalot, which urged women to not to fall for the Cosmopolitan ideal 'I like women that eat their rice and peas' he sings. Indeed part of the emerging anti-white rhetoric in rap specifically ridicules white women with their skinny bodies and stringy hair.Visions in Black has had difficulty finding models for its own fashion shoots.

The big model agencies such as Storm admit they have few black models on their books and many of these will not be based in Britain. Even if the magazine could afford Naomi Campbell, Azania is far from sure that she would want her 'Finding models has been the bane of my life,' she says. 'The look you get from most agencies is very androgynous and it's not what we want.'The fashion pages of Visions in Black are startlingly different from white magazines. The models, while not overweight, seem sturdier and healthier, more like women one would find in a gym than a studio. One beach photograph celebrates a large expanse of the model's thigh. Even so, on a recent fashion shoot in Jamaica local people told Azania the models were too thin.

'These people are happy, they're eating what they like' she muses. 'Maybe they've got the right idea.'AT a Weight Watchers meeting on Tuesday night in Brixton, about half the 50 members were black and most were there because they have gained weight after childbirth. Josephine Nezavu, 24, is originally from Kenya and she confirmed that 'being African, being big is good'. Dressed in skin-tight black jeans, a waist-clinching belt and a black camisole beneath a denim shirt, she looked far from miserable about her size.'I'm 12 stone 13 1/2 pounds and I'd like to be 10 1/2 stone' she says. 'My husband doesn't mind about my weight but if I can get rid of my tummy I don't care about the rest I don't want to be skinny Everybody in the family is big, the smallest size is 12.

I used to be a 12 before I had my two children but I'd be happy to be a 14. I like Naomi Campbell, there's nothing wrong with her but I don't want to look like her.'Josephine Little, 34, who runs the Brixton group, is one of Weight Watchers' few black group leaders. She joined having gained 30 pounds after childbirth which she subsequently lost She is now down to 10 1/2 stone. Like other black women I spoke to, she pays little attention to the figures of models: 'I'm not a great reader of women's magazines' she says 'I don't go after the unattainable. While there are prominent black people, I don't look up to them because of how they look, but because of their contribution.'There is a subtle and complex difference in Josephine's attitude to her weight loss which was raised by the Arizona survey. 'The girls are young,' Nichter says, 'what happens to them as they get older and become part of middle-class white society? We only raise the question, we don't know.' Josephine Little would seem to provide the answer. For her, weight loss was important in giving her the confidence to get her current job as a trade union organiser: 'The weight is only a problem in terms of not being able to go out and do what I want to do.