Last updated 19:39, Thursday, 12 June 2008

HOLD the front page and eat your own arm off - Fern Britton has lost weight!

Now, you may ask, who cares? I can immediately tell you that I don’t.

But here we go again! There have been 16 young people stabbed to death in London this year, half the population of the world is starving, but how does that compare to the fact that Fern Britton has lost weight.

Now, with all the publicity about obesity and associated problems, with all the talk of how much fat-related diseases cost the NHS, we should be happy that someone is doing something about her weight.

But no. You see, she cheated. That’s right - she “cheated” by having a gastric band fitted. She had surgery to help her lose weight.

First of all, who cares?

Secondly, whose business is it anyway?

Thirdly, why on earth are columnists and newspapers frothing at the mouth?

I can only think that it is jealousy.

I was thrilled with my achievement when I lost seven stones and one pound in weight some time ago. It was hard work, but I did it.

Then I gave up smoking and then got sick, and then had an operation. I recovered but the upshot was that I put on about six of the seven stones I lost.

I am fat, and it makes me feel miserable, and if I could get a gastric band I would! Losing weight isn’t a competition. It isn’t a damned Olympic sport where we are going to be banned from participating because we are being helped by drugs, by surgery or anything else on offer.

We who are overweight lose weight for several reasons and the most common one is that overweight people are very often extremely unhappy and made more so by a world that thinks that if you are fat you are probably also lazy and unintelligent.

I’ve just recently joined a slimming club again.

It is not the one I was with last time because I am too embarrassed to go back to that one and admit I’ve failed. So I’ll try another one and maybe I’ll lose weight again and maybe I won’t.

And if I do lose, I will have “succeeded” and if I don’t I will have “failed.”

The same columnists who are getting hysterical about Fern Britton were no doubt writing, last month, about the horrors of size zero models and how we are promoting anorexia etc.

And, tell me this, would we be hearing that an anorexic was “cheating” by being put on a drip for nourishment?

It is a load of hypocritical tosh. Not only that, but it is mean, petty, and just plain unkind. These columns are written by people burned up by jealousy because of their own fat bums and their own lack of any meaningful success in life.

If they truly wanted to help they should be writing about the dangers of obesity and of being underweight. They should be writing about all the help available. And they should be celebrating those who succeed in whatever their goals.

You can’t blame the columnists, I suppose; its the people who read them that drives what is written.

But I do believe that the public would be more than happy to join Fern Britton in celebrating her new figure and delighting in the fact that she looks so thin.

My only complaint is that she used to be the one woman who seemed confident with her shape, no matter what. But it seems not.