www.Simons.ca

MONTREAL, Aug 28, 2008 (AFP) - A Quebec publisher apologized on Thursday for promoting scrawny female forms in a young women's magazine which he also pulled from stores amid a public outcry.

In an open letter posted on his company La Maison Simons's website, Peter Simons offered his "personal apologies" for the latest issue of Twik magazine featuring emaciated models, saying he failed "to exercise proper attention, empathy, and especially, sensitivity and social responsibility."

Part of the 36-page fashion catalogue's 450,000 print run went out last week as an insert in several local newspapers and was also to be available at Simons department stores, but will no longer be displayed, he said.

Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc congratulated the company for responding to public complaints.

"After reflecting on these comments, we have drawn up very specific guidelines for our advertising design teams," Simons said.

Images of bony women are "destructive to a more vulnerable portion of the population, which is exposed to anorexia," he told the Montreal Gazette.

Earlier this year, France banned the promotion of extreme thinness or severe weight loss, amid a controversy over skinny models.