I'm not often compelled to write about people who are featured in Nuts magazine, as this guy was last week, but The Prince of Naples isn't just a story for boys, it's a true account of a 12-year-old boy who manages to get one over on the incredibly vicious and...

On Channel 4's recent Dispatches programme 'Weight Watchers, How They Make Their Millions', presenter Jane Moore raised questions about the diet company giant, worth £5 billion, and the effectiveness of its diets. The programme highlighted that:

• Over the last five years the NHS has spent £4 million...

A friend of mine recently said of an old acquaintance: "She's so unhappy now she's in her 40s. It's like she lived for her looks and now they're fading, she's got nothing left."

This made me think. I have noticed the way I look is changing. There's a new...

Our food is making us fat, according to Jacques Peretti in The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC 2 Thursdays. We're all 3st heavier than we were in the 1960s and Peretti explores the reasons in this three-part series. In his Guardian article this week,...

I'm sitting here with my mouth hanging open in shock. Good shock. All because I've read the report from the Body Image Inquiry. I knew it was released this week but I wasn't expecting much as truth is more often than not bypassed when profits are involved. But...

Last week pregnant women have been told to stop eating for two, put down their forks and go on a diet instead. Limiting calorie intake, the reports say, will not harm unborn babies. Added to this advice was the extra push pregnant women need to feel guilty enough...

Imogen Thomas has announced that she despises her body in a Huffington Post blog, saying she's always battled with her body image. Her story is one that most women can relate to as we've all been pressured into feeling anxiety about...

I'm adding a 'Girl Geek' technology section to Beautiful magazine. Beautiful is a women's glossy lifestyle magazine and women's magazines generally don't have tech sections because it's seen as a male domain, but millions of women use technology and gadgets every day. We are interested in the subject,...

Obese people seem to have no heads. There are pictures all over the media every day of headless obese people. In fact, it's hard to find an image of a fat person who has a head. Even on the often misinformed and biased 'news' reports on TV, all I see...

After seeing a whole tabloid article devoted to Katie Holmes having three strands of grey hair I felt a kind of familiar flat feeling.

I've found myself avoiding adverts, TV series and Hollywood films because I'm tired of the female star always looking the same....

Ruth Jones is the latest celebrity weight loss sensation. She joins Dawn French, Nigella Lawson and Pauline Quirk in the list of big girls who have very publicly gone from being 'happy in their skin' to drastically dropping the pounds, appearing in glamorous gowns showing off their new look. Each...

Sandra and Pauline are room mates. They share the same fridge and eat a lot of junk food. Sandra is fat and Pauline is size 10 and never puts on weight.

Sandra, who's spent most of her life on and off diets, dreams about being as slim as Pauline and...

On Monday, I gave evidence at the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Causes and Consequences of Body Image Anxiety in the UK. Two weeks ago, the diet industry was on the stand and it was a focused debate where the Weight Watchers representative got so tangled up trying to...

Dieting doesn't work. How many times have we heard that, especially at this time of year? The evidence for the high long-term failure rate of dieting is difficult to ignore but not something some sectors of the media want you to know about because diet industry advertising spend is high...

According to the British Dietetic Association, the average Brit will have eaten 6,000 calories on Christmas Day and will gain 5 lbs (2 kg) by New Year's Day. This leaves us all perfectly plumped and primed, ready to be sucked into the...

In January I'll be giving evidence at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image inquiry into body image anxiety in UK society. At the two-month inquiry, MPs will be quizzing the diet, cosmetic surgery, fitness and fashion industries as well as representatives from the media and advertising industries....

The journalist Shane Watson said in her Sunday Times column that Dawn French and Nigella Lawson's weight loss makes them untrustworthy. She thinks Nigella and Dawn are backtracking on their pre-weight loss claims that they love their bodies. The message of the piece is that all women who embrace their...