Scientists have confirmed what millions of women know already: the fashion industry does not make clothes to fit them. In the largest study of its kind Spain has taken full-body laser scans of more than 10,000 women and compared the resulting three-dimensional measurements with clothes on the high street

The conclusion was that four in ten women were unable to find clothes to fit them properly. “We are going to abolish the current system of sizes and move to another that satisfies the needs of women,” said Bernat Soria, the Spanish Health Minister.

The study found that women had three body types: a “cylinder”, in which the top, middle and bottom were broadly aligned, “hourglass” and “pear-shaped”. About a third of women fell into each category, though they tended to move from being cylinders to pears as they got older.

Women between the ages of 19 and 30 had the hardest time finding clothes that fit - mainly because they were too small or tight.

Spanish fashion retailers, who have taken over high streets in Britain in recent years, have vowed to do better. The owners of shops such as Zara and Mango have agreed to sit down with the Government to devise a new set of measurements to help women to find their exact size.

Instead of European dress sizes such as 38, 49 or 46, Spanish women will have new sizes, including measurements for height, hips, waist and breast. Efforts will also be made to standardise those sizes across the industry to put an end to the “size lottery” that many women complained about in the study. “You never know what size you are,” said Sonia, as she entered a Zara shop in Madrid. “Here I'm one size and next door I'm completely another. It makes shopping a pain.”

The Government hopes that if its new measurement system is successful it will be adopted as standard by all the countries in the European Union. Once it has dealt with women's problems finding well-fitting clothes, it will turn its attention to the other half of the population. Next into the scanning booth: 10,000 Spanish men.

The women's study also threw up some worrying findings. The overwhelming majority of women classified as being excessively thin said that they were satisfied with their bodies, including 70 per cent who were

“severely underweight”. “These women need medical help to deal with their situation,” Mr Soria said. Women aged 16 to 19 were the least happy with their bodies despite having generally low obesity levels.

The Socialist Government and its regional authorities, alarmed by the rising incidence of eating disorders, have placed the issue at the top of the agenda. It has asked high street fashion chains to stop using unrealistically thin shop dummies, which it says contribute to an unhealthy body ideal.

The Health Ministry has also closed down “pro-ana” websites, accused of promoting self-starvation among teenage girls. One of them ran a competition in which girls gained more points the fewer calories they ate, with maximum points awarded for fasting.

The Cibeles fashion show banned unhealthily thin models from its catwalks in Madrid in 2006, prompting other shows to follow suit. Yesterday, doctors barred three British models from this year's show because their body mass index was below 18. They were the only ones to fail the test.

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