A then 16-year-old Karlie Kloss on the Michael Kors Fall 2009 runway. Photo: Kristian Dowling, Getty Images for IMG

The teenyboppers have been, well, bopped.

Michael Kors has announced that he will no longer work with models who are under the age of 16, the Boston Globe reports.

The outspoken designer issued the ultimatum against what he calls "an army of children" at a Harvard University and Harris Center forum last night, where he discussed health issues in the fashion industry with Anna Wintour and model Natalia Vodianova, according to the paper.

Some have blamed the "Size Zero" runway trend on an influx of young models who have yet to get their womanly curves (yikes -- we totally just sounded like our junior high health teacher).

At the same time, these young catwalkers reportedly tend to suffer more and more from low self-esteem.

"Their sense of self-worth is handed over to a bunch of people who don't care about their self-esteem," Vodianova said during the panel discussion.

"I think super-young girls used to be the exception," Kors told the paper.

"There's always been a Twiggy, or a model who is very young. But they were few and far between. Now, they're completely common. That's something I see as a huge problem."

The "Project Runway" judge -- who frequently features "older" -- she's 31 -- supermodel Carmen Kass in his campaigns, also reportedly demanded more supervision for models under the age of 18. However, he did suggest that the tide was turning.

"The fashion industry is starting to address real women again," Kors argued during the forum. "Adults are in vogue. What a shock. This show season really was about the return of the adult in every city...

"The emphasis in fashion is shifting toward an emphasis on real women who are women, not girls. The reality is that women who buy designer clothes are 30-plus. The visual has to match the reality.

"Girls dressed up in their mother's clothes? Guess what, it's not attractive."

And what did Queen Bee Anna Wintour have to say? At the panel, which reportedly raised $150,000 for the Harris Center for Education and Advocacy in Eating Disorders, the editrix spoke of a "code of silence" about health issues in the industry.

"The models were so frightened of recrimination and that they wouldn't be booked for shoots or shows that they didn't want to talk about what everybody knew was going on," Wintour told The Globe.

"Creating guidelines within the industry to know what to do when they see a girl with a problem was an important first step. What we've been doing with discussions like this one is making sure that the message gets out there to everyone.

"Every time we hold one of these forums, I feel that the voice of models' health advances just a little bit more. A model's weight or her waist size, or her attitude toward food, these were all taboo subjects whispered about in corridors or behind closed doors."

Nice. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what impact Kors' age minimum has on the industry, and whether or not other designers follow suit.

But there's no denying that the fashion world still has a long ways to go towards tackling skewed body images. After all, if Lara Stone and Coco Rocha can both be deemed overweight, something's definitely not right.

Now excuse us while we break the bad news to 12-year-old runway darling Ava Sambora.

Meanwhile, check out one designer's controversial statements about clothing over size 14 being "unhealthy."