MISS HONG KONG champions are bordering on the anorexic to meet an image of the 'ideal woman' which is increasingly divorced from reality, research shows.
Studies of the biological makeup of winners since 1975 show all but one were below the norm for a similarly aged, healthy Hong Kong woman.
The vast majority met the physical criteria for anorexia.
'It's crazy,' said Chinese University clinical psychologist and lecturer Professor Freedom Leung Yiu-kin, who has been studying the data.
'Women have to be unhealthily slim, yet look healthy to be considered beautiful.' The results were calculated by dividing a winner's height and weight against the healthy norm for women of a similar age. Results of 10 to 15 per cent below the norm are considered anorexic, and can trigger a survival mechanism which forces a person to binge in order to stave off starvation.
Recent Miss Hong Kongs have included a 1.63-metre-tall 24-year-old who weighed just 44.9 kilograms and a 23-year-old of the same height who weighed 47.7 kg.