I'm so confused!

So in the same week that scientists decree that men prefer curvy women, famous curvy woman Cindy Crawford says she'd never make it as a model these days because curves are well and truly out of fashion.

Huh?

It's bloody confusing, isn't it? This whole issue of body image and healthy weight. One minute we're told thin is in; the next it seems fat is where it's at. And where does that leave your average Joanne?

Psychologists at St Andrews University in Scotland photographed dozens of female students and asked male students to rate their attractiveness. They found that - despite the apparent size 0 trend - the blokes categorically preferred the ladies of average weight and build.

Which means women like Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lopez are hotter in mens' eyes than whippet-thin 'slebs like Victoria Beckham and Keira 'If I pout constantly maybe people will think I can act' Knightley.

You might think this is cause for the millions of "average" ladies out there to rejoice. But hang on a second...

Cindy Crawford, one of the original supermodels, says it's all bollocks. Cindy - who personnified the healthy, all American girl look of the 1990s - says she looks too healthy to have made it big in the fashion biz in 2009. "A body like mine, with big breasts, normal thighs and toned upper arms, is no longer what the industry is looking for," Cindy says.

She's right about that. Emaciated, vacant women who look more like eight-year-old boys are evidently the look du jour on catwalks today.

But how can this be? Why do fashion designers and the fashion media think we want to see skinny chicks when your average red-blooded male in fact prefers a more abundant figure?

The disconnect could be in the audience. The fashion industry is pitching to women, whereas film stars like ScarJo et al appear to men. Guys are the ones who tend to be ticket-buying film geeks, and they're certainly the ones who buy magazines like Zoo, which are all about the va-va-voom curves.

But that would imply that women want to see stick insects modelling this season's hottest look - and aren't we forever hearing that women are desperate to see "real women" on catwalks and in fashion magazines?

(Incidentally, have you seen model-turned-TV-presenter Sarah Murdoch on the un-airbrushed cover of this month's Australian Women's Weekly? Cynical attempt to boost flagging sales much? As if AWW gives a toss about women's self-esteem.)

Are we all a bit quick to cry "foul" against the media and the fashion industry when it appears we can't decide what we want?

It makes my head spin, it really does. What's your take on all this?

In da club

I don't think anyone genuinely likes nightclubs. Why would you? They're way too loud, way too crowded and way too full of people whose chief aim for the evening is to make some baaaad decisions. Now that I'm an ancient 29, I'm pleased to report my clubbing days are well and truly behind me. Give me a pub with a cheesy cover band over strobe lights and doof-doof music any day.

Having said that, there's a new nightclub trend emerging that I am very curious to see: clubs for fat people. In America (where else?), clubs that cater to overweight and obese clientele are cropping up all over the place. While these venues don't exclude healthy-weight partygoers, they claim to be especially welcoming of fuller-figured peeps. Proprietors say heavy guests are made to feel they fit right in.

The clubs attract crowds of people who are more than happy with their size, like curvaceous 23 year old Monique Lopez. "Self conscious? No! Not at all!" Monique says. "I was like, 'I'm going to Club Bounce tonight (and) I'm going to wear my shortest skirt!'"

Fat acceptance advocates in the US say that, while these clubs are great, what's not so great is that so many overweight and obese people struggle to be allowed past the velvet rope at "normal" nightclubs. They claim fat people constantly fall victim to elitist door policies, which deem only the youngest, prettiest and slimmest folks suitable for entry.

I don't quite know what to make of this. On the one hand, everyone deserves the opportunity to socialise in an environment where they feel comfortable. Clubs for overweight people are no different to, say, women-only networking groups or film screenings just for mums with young (screaming) kids.

But on the other hand, are overweight people being a bit sensitive? Everyone who attempts to get into a nightclub is judged on their appearance - even permatanned blonde stick insects. I went to an uber-hip Melbourne club with some girlfriends a couple of weeks ago and the door bitch hassled my mate because she was wearing ripped jeans. We didn't get all indignant and rush off to launch a club night just for people in torn clothing; we just went somewhere else.

I can't help but think of Little Britain's Daffyd, "the only gay in the village", who is wrongly convinced nobody accepts him because of his sexuality.

People can be cruel and I've no doubt that overweight people who go to trendy clubs have been on the receiving end of some nasty comments. But does that mean they should segregate themselves? When I ask myself whether I'd want to go to a nightclub just for people like me - people with brown hair or asthma or big scars on their right hand - I'll be honest, I can't think of anything more boring.

What do you think?

School's in

Do you ever have those dreams where you're late for an exam and you haven't studied? Or it's your first day at school and you just can't seem to get there? You feel all anxious and panicky but then you realise, 'Hang on, I'm twenty nine - I don't go to school anymore!'

Is there any greater feeling than waking up and realising you don't have to write 2000 words on the role of women in ancient Rome after all? I think not.

I have these dreams all the damn time. I'd love to know what they mean - I'm sure a shrink would have a field day. So it's perhaps somewhat perverse that I'm currently working on an application for a place on a two-year graduate diploma course, starting next year.

I didn't go to university (my work experience is what qualifies me to go in at postgrad level) so I effectively haven't cracked a textbook since 1997. Needless to say, while I'm excited about the prospect of learning something new, I'm also seriously apprehensive about going back to school. Even though I haven't actually submitted my application yet, I'm already obsessing about all the things that might make this a really bad idea.

What if I don't like it? What if I'm no good at it? What if it's too hard? What if I realise straight away that it's not for me, but I have to stick it out for two whole years? And the big one... what if my fellow students are all pretentious wankers? (It's an arty course, so this is likely.)

Of course, what's driving my neurosis is the fear that I won't enjoy being outside of my comfort zone. It's going to be hard work and, like all humans, I'm geared to avoid exertion and discomfort at all costs. Deep down, I would probably prefer to just have a nice, easy life.

But if I don't put myself out there - if I take the nice easy life option - then I probably won't meet the like-minded mad writers I'll cross paths with on this course. I won't learn anything. I won't be exposed to all sorts of new ideas. I almost certainly will not have access to the career opportunities these studies will afford me.

Of course, there's every chance I'll send off my application and not get into the course anyway. But at least I'll have tried.

In short, if I don't step outside of my comfort zone I will be passing up the chance to change my life for the better.

There are massive parallels here with losing weight. Hopefully I don't have to spell them out.

Random thoughts

Today is one of those 'all over the place' kind of days. I've got guys here wallpapering my bedroom, 11 feature articles to sub-edit and an application to prepare for some study next year. Perhaps not surprisingly, my thoughts are a little all over the place, too. Here, in no particular order, is what's on my mind today...

1. I spend a lot of time beating myself up for not being creative enough. Creativity to me means writing novels and painting pictures and crafting crafty things. But then again, I am a professional writer. And what is asking the right questions, extracting the salient points and stringing them together in a fresh and informative way if not creative? My point is I've realised I need to spend less time berating myself and more time making use of the skills and tools that I have. What I'm looking for is already within me. The same goes for you and losing weight.

2. I have a gorgeous but obviously slightly unhinged friend who thinks running 42km for no reason is fun. Said friend has just jetted into New York to run the Big Apple's marathon on Sunday. She had this to say about her journey: "Gee, Americans are big. One lady couldn't fit in the toilet on the plane. Motivates me to run more!" I think there's something in that for all of us, don't you?

3. Why do people insist on pronouncing crooner Michael Buble's name boo-blay? Surely it should be bubble?

4. Aussie healthy fast food chain Sumo Salad has a genius new ad campaign, which parodies those "every cigarette is doing you damage" anti-smoking TV commercials. Sumo's ad goes inside the guts of a burger fiend to show what all those icky trans fats do to the body. It's very CSI and very, very clever.

5. We're more than halfway towards racking up 50 followers for the blog. Don't forget, when we reach 50 I'll be drawing the winner of the first ever Three Piece Suite giveaway, a hamper of health and weight-loss goodies. To be in the running, simply become a follower and comment on a blog post.

The wisdom of Tex

My dog, Tex, is a fussy little bugger. When we first brought him home, a 10-week-old ball of ginger fluff, he didn't eat for two days. In a panic, I rang the breeder - who told me he probably just didn't like what was on the menu and was holding out for something better. Sure enough, when I switched from dull dry food to juicy chicken, he practically inhaled it. The cheek.

Even now, at nearly two, he leaves most of his dry food untouched. It doesn't seem to make much difference: the vet says he's the perfect weight. But sometimes he'll scoff the lot. I used to think he was just a contrary little so-and-so who enjoyed making me waste 80 per cent of a $40 bag of food. But then I realised something...

When he's hungry enough, he eats the dry food. When he's not hungry, he doesn't eat it.

Everything I need to know about weight loss, I learned from my dog.

Can I get a hallelujah?

There are three things they say you should never discuss at dinner parties: religion, sex and politics. Detonate any one of these conversational bombs and you're apparently guaranteed fireworks. (If you're having dinner at my place, this list also includes musical theatre. Do not even get me started on musicals. What is the point of them? Just when the story gets going, it's interrupted by a naff song. Rubbish.)

Well, today I'm going to break the cardinal rule of small talk and tell you why I think religion is a) stupid, and b) like weight loss.

Bear with me - I have a point, I swear.

I have a problem with organised religion. I want to be clear here: I do not have a problem with faith or belief in God. I just don't get why we're told the only correct way to express this faith is to sit in a drafty church every Sunday, read a musty old book and follow a bunch of archaic and arbitrary rules. I just can't imagine that God would say, 'You must build giant, expensive houses in which to worship me and cram them with priceless art and artifacts - or it doesn't count'.

Did you know the art and property in the Vatican is worth an estimated $50 billion? That would make a significant dent in erasing African debt. How is that fair?

But my biggest issue with organised religion is that it encourages people to abrogate responsibility for themselves. If you're a devout Catholic or Anglican or Muslim or whatever, you're told that your god is all powerful, that nothing you do makes any difference because it's all part of a bigger plan. To that end, you need never make a decision and can behave as badly as you want because it's all being sorted out by 'im upstairs.

It confuses and concerns me that organised religion wants you to look everywhere but within yourself for guidance, for comfort and for the answers to life's big questions.

And here's what I think all this has to do with shedding kilos: if you fail to realise that the power is inside you, you're not going to solve your weight-loss riddle. If you look to the gods of Tony Ferguson and Jenny Craig, and worship at the altar of voodoo shakes, you're going to be searching for that elusive 'sign' forever.

Stop waiting for someone else to solve your problems. Look inside yourself - that's where the answers are. Amen!

Striving for perfection

It has been suggested to me on more than one occasion that I'm a perfectionist. It's a fair assessment: I try to do everything well and, yes, have been known not to attempt things at all if I'm not confident I'll succeed at them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

But my perfectionist tendencies pale in comparison to go-getting Brit Paul Mason. Paul, 48, is one of the world's heaviest men, tipping the scales at 445kg. But wait! There's more. He got that way on purpose.

Yes, you read that right. This bloke ate excessive amounts of food - including an enormous lunch AND dinner at his local fish 'n' chip shop each day - because he wanted to be officially recognised as the fattest guy on earth.

Three years ago, Paul lost 120kg with medical assistance - but wasn't happy with his new, ahem, slimmer frame, according to hospital staff. "When he left he moaned he was missing the chance of becoming the world's heaviest man," an insider says. "And when he got home he ordered takeaway pizzas, curries and Chinese meals. He was often seen going through the McDonald's drive-thru section for cars in his special wheelchair."

Ah yes, the wheelchair. The custom-made chair was funded by British taxpayers, as was Paul's modified home. It's estimated the costs associated with his obesity total more than $175,000 per year. Now Paul needs surgery to reduce his appetite or he will certainly die. The operation he requires will cost more than $35,000 - and will also be taxpayer funded.

Look, I'm not having a go at Paul. Really, I'm not. He clearly has deep psychological issues and as a civilised society we have a duty of care to helping him resolve those. BUT I do think it's unfair that taxpayers should be forced to continue to bankroll Paul's illness, particularly as he has access to ample medical assistance and evidently chooses not to take it. I've blogged before about the concept of mutual responsibility: I'm happy for my taxes to fund free healthcare, but people who have the ability to reduce their need for it have a responsibility to do so, as far as I'm concerned.

Paul's story also follows on nicely from yesterday's post about obesity now being so common it's perceived as "normal". Is it normal for a man to engage in competitive weight gain? I don't think so. I don't think anyone could possibly think so. So what the hell are we going to do about it?

PS - Yesterday was the second-highest number of hits on the blog ever. Thanks for reading! Do keep coming back - and tell your friends!

'To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful'*

I guess it had to happen. I suppose it was inevitable. But it's still a crashing disappointment. A Brisbane researcher has found that obesity is now "so common it is perceived as normal".

Associate Professor Leonie Callaway surveyed 412 pregnant women and found 30 per cent were either overweight or obese before they fell pregnant. Of those, 36 per cent said they thought their weight was normal. Just 16 per cent of the women whose weight was in the highest BMI category said they thought they were obese. More than half had seen their doctor for a check up before they fell pregnant, but just 17 per cent could recall their GP recommending they lose weight.

For the record, being obese can make it harder to conceive. It can also lead to complications with pregnancy such as gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia and delivery problems.

But the real issue is this scary word, "normal". I don't get how obesity can really be the norm.

Technically, Leonie is correct. The dictionary definition of "normal" is "conforming to the standard or the common type" and, with more than half of Australia's adult population now overweight or obese, it seems the common type is indeed fat. (Remember Life. Be In It's obese cartoon poster boy, pictured? Is it a coincidence that his name was Norm?)

But, to my mind, "normal" is more than that. I think that, as well as the numbers, there has to be an acceptance. Being nice rather than nasty to each other is normal, for example, not just because the majority of us do it, but because the majority of us accept that it's the appropriate behaviour. It's the basic principle of civilised society: systems work because we believe they work.

Which means that, where obesity is concerned, we're not only getting bigger, we're apparently cool with that. We've grown (pardon the pun) to believe that it's okay, that it's a reasonable way to be. That's what I don't get: how and why have we convinced ourselves that it's super-fine to be uncomfortable, unhealthy and unable to do all the things we want to do?

But hang on, maybe we haven't. Judging by the continued fevered expansion of the diet industry in this country, not all of us feel that being overweight or obese is the norm. Plenty of us are still determined to shed those unwanted kilos - and many of us will do anything to do so.

So if being overweight or obese is now perceived as normal, perhaps signing up for an endless cycle of dieting, losing and regaining weight is, too. Which normal would you prefer?

* Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist

It's freebie time!

Everyone likes getting something for nothing, right? And every blogger likes getting lots of readers who post lots of comments and spark lots of interesting debate.

So in the interest of attempting to achieve all of these things, I've decided to launch the first ever... drum roll please... Three Piece Suite giveaway!

Here's how it works. In my years as a health and weight-loss writer, I've accumulated a LOT of paraphernalia. I'm talking books, DVDs, fitness equipment etc etc. And I don't need all this stuff, so I thought you might like it!

I'm going to put together a hamper of 'get real' weight-loss goodies and give it away once I hit 50 followers. The dollar value will be in the region of $100+. To win, simply become a follower of the blog and post a comment. Easy as bro!

The winner will be drawn once the blog reaches 50 followers - we're at 17 now, so get your skates on (you existing followers will also be in the running, as long as you post a comment).

Good luck!

Sty of the Tiger

I went to Melbourne on the weekend and, on the way back, Tiger Airways lost my luggage. Which means I have no deodorant or toothbrush or tweezers to tame my currently caterpillar-esque eyebrows.

Which means I feel too disgusting to do anything but sit in my house in my own filth.

Which means I won't be posting til tomorrow, when I will allegedly have my bag back and will at last be as fresh as a daisy.

See you then.

Plus-size Pretty: Christina Hendricks

Do you ever wish it was 1960? No. Must be just me then.

But if I could have swanned around looking as foxy as today's plus-size pretty, then I think I'd rather have enjoyed the swinging sixties. Meet Christina Hendricks, aka Joan Holloway from THE BEST SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TV, Mad Men.

I have a serious girl crush on 34-year-old Christina. Who wouldn't? She is dayum fine. As cool-as-a-cucumber office manager Joan, she rules the roost at Sterling Cooper Advertising and turns heads in her curve-hugging, jewel-toned frocks. This is a woman who knows how to flaunt what she's got.

As a size 12-14, she's hardly 'plus size' in real terms, but in TV-land the fact that Christina is undeniably seen as a sex kitten is nothing short of miraculous. May there be many, many more va-va-voom bombshells like her on the small screen.

Meanwhile, I'll be on eBay trying to find a dress that makes me look this good.

Ajay or Hayley: who is the biggest winner?

All this argy bargy over whose fault it is that women don't like their bodies gives rise to an important question: in the 21st century, just who are our role models?

I mean, if we're officially not allowed to admire thin models and celebrities and aspire to look like them, what are our alternatives? I can't be bothered igniting the whole Beth Ditto/obese-celebs-are-just-as-unhealthy-as-rail-thin-ones argument again, so I'll just precis my previous point on that front: dangerously overweight women in the public eye aren't setting us much of an example either.

So that rules out as role models all the famous folk at the extreme ends of the body spectrum. Who's left? The approximately 5,999,999,999,000 ordinary women out there, perhaps? Well, yes, but most of us aren't likely to decide we want thighs like the woman who runs the local coffee shop or our kids' school principal. Rightly or wrongly, when we think of body heroines, most of us gravitate towards public figures - perhaps because it's easier to find pictures of them to stick to the snack cupboard. (The coffee shop lady might find it a bit weird if you suddenly started snapping pix of her.)

I'm thinking about role models because Ajay Rochester is in the news again. For you non-Aussies, she's the desperate-for-fame former host of the Australian version of The Biggest Loser. And this week she's got her knickers in a twist because local gossip rag Woman's Day has published months-old pictures of her in a bikini, allegedly with her "stretch marks" and "baggy skin" on show for all to see.

Most of us would be mortified if shots of us in swimwear were splashed across a national magazine, but that's not Ajay's problem - she posed for these pix, after all. No, her issue is that these pix have popped up in the same week as rival magazine New Idea put Ajay on its cover (pictured), also in a bikini and with a suspiciously smooth, stretch mark-free bod. Can you spell 'airbrushing', Ajay?

Ajay, who once weighed 140kg and now claims to weigh 53kg, got paid a lot of moolah for the New Idea spread, in which she talks about finally winning her weight-loss war. So it's understandable that she'd be miffed these other pictures, which seem to suggest her New Idea look is NOT all down to hard graft, have surfaced. She's threatening to sue WD and all sorts.

Now, I'll tell you upfront that I'm no fan of Ajay Rochester, whose real name is Leigh Towler, because she was always exceptionally rude to the staff of my magazine. But my personal opinion aside, it concerns me that Ajay is the sort of 'ordinary woman' struggling slimmers might look up to.

Yes, she lost a lot of weight. Yes, she was a struggling single mum who achieved a modicum of fame and has now moved to America, where she is reportedly stalking Oprah Winfrey in a bid to get famous there, too. I suppose those things are admirable, in the sense that she realised she needed to change her life so she went out there and changed it.

But at what cost? If the gossip mags are to be believed, Ajay is reportedly poised to have $30,000 worth of cosmetic surgery procedures, including liposuction and a tummy tuck. She also faced trial for welfare fraud (though no conviction was recorded). She chucked a bit of a wobbly when she was dumped as host of The Biggest Loser, too. Is that the kind of role model you want?

Meanwhile, we have champion Olympic swimmer Hayley Lewis announced as the new Biggest Loser host. Hayley, a mum of two, says she would cringe in embarrassment when forced to stand on the winners' dais in her swimming cossie. The 35-year-old weighed 74kg at her heaviest and slimmed to 63kg through healthy eating and exercise. Hayley seems approachable and down-to-earth; there's not a whiff of that desperate-to-be-famous stink that seems to surround Ajay.

For my money, Hayley is a much better body role model, because it's not just about having lost weight for her. It's about having done it sensibly and healthily, it's about being a nice person as well as a famous one, it's about being authentic and true to yourself. It's not about having a massive sense of superiority and entitlement just because you shed some kilos.

What do you think? Who do you admire? What qualities do your role models have - both physically and otherwise?

Birthday Experiment 2.0

A few weeks back, I launched The Birthday Experiment. The purpose of said experiment was to haul myself out of my state of self-induced inertia and bloody get on with things. I hoped that, in the process, I'd reconnect with some of the get-up-and-go I seemed to have in spades a decade ago, which has largely been replaced in recent times by plenty of sit-down-and-bludge.

My deadline was my 29th birthday, October 3. The fact that this was 10 days ago and I'm only now getting around to telling you how I did probably tells you a lot about the success of the experiment...

Just kidding. I certainly didn't fail. In fact, I was able to cross a lot of things off my list. I got oodles of jobs done in the new house, things like having new floors laid and getting the dodgy wiring sorted out. I even got quotes for a new bathroom - which were so astronomically expensive I had to lie down for several days afterward.

Alas, I didn't manage to get the wallpaper hung in the bedroom. I got a quote from a guy that seemed so laughably extortionate I hung up the phone in disgust. But then I got some quotes from other people that were all in the same ballpark, so now I'm thinking I'll hire the first guy after all. And then I'll retrain as a wallpaper hanger. Clearly that's where the money is.

Health wise, I did reasonably well. I've begun doing weights every weekday and am pretty proud of my guns now, let me tell you. I cut back on the booze, too. I didn't quite manage the thrice weekly runs but, in my defence, this was largely because I got myself successive hideous throat infections and was too busy popping antibiotics to think about jogging. I did join my local gym, however. Those of you who have been reading from the start will know what a BIG step this is for me - I have attitude about gyms in general. The new gym doesn't open til October 29, but I'm psyched to give it a go.

Perhaps the element of the experiment I was most eager to achieve was the creative stuff. I always wanted to be a writer, literally for as long as I can remember. And yes, I write things for a living. At home. Sometimes in my PJs. To many people that probably sounds like as writerly a life as you can get. But, to me, bashing out a feature about the local chicken shop for 20 cents a word (yes, really) doesn't quite live up to the romantic notion I've had in my head these 29 years. So I set myself the task of writing at least five pages of a new creative project. And I did that - I started a new novel and a new play.

I started, then I stopped. But hey, at least I started.

So has The Birthday Experiment been a success? I would say yes. I proved to myself that those reserves of motivation and go-get are still there to be tapped into when I set my mind to it. Of course, as often happens, the initial flush of enthusiasm that set me off and running faded after a couple of weeks and it became harder to keep going. Sound familiar, slimmers?!

But reminding myself that I can achieve pretty much anything I set my mind to was the most valuable thing to come out of my little experiment. I just need to set my mind to doing more constructive things than watching episode after episode of Mad Men.

Y'all know I love to make resolutions, so now I'm making a new list: 30 things to do before I'm 30. Suggestions welcome!

Weight loss goes gay

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I honestly can't work out whether this is a genuine product, or a hilarious spoof.

What do you think?!

What women want

I am deeply, utterly and irrevocably obsessed. OBSESSED, I tell you. The source of my fixation? Mad Men. Undoubtedly the best show on TV at the moment; quite possibly the best show on TV ever. The costumes! The brooding! The Brylcreemed hair!

It's the sort of TV show that reminds me why I became a writer - if I ever write something even one one hundredth that good, I will be very happy indeed. In one episode I watched this weekend, the teeth-chatteringly sexy hero, Don Draper (pictured), meets a pretentious lefty hippie pal of one of his bits-on-the-side. When the guy learns Don works in advertising he accuses him of 'selling the lie' and asks, 'How do you sleep at night?' To which Don, smooth as silk, replies, 'On a bed made of money'.

I love it. LOVE it! This line had me chuckling for ages because I can relate to Don's quick-fire delivery of it. Like ad men and politicians and used car salesmen, we journalists are quite used to being told we're the root of all evil. Like Don Draper, I have a catalogue of (I hope) witty ripostes that I can trot out when I'm accused of shattering the fragile self-esteem of a generation of young women or, you know, singlehandedly bringing about the destruction of the world as we know it. I even have a special sub-section of comebacks for when people find out I not only worked for News Limited but - shock! horror! - have great admiration for Rupert Murdoch, aka the Antichrist.

There are few practitioners required to defend what they do for a living as frequently as members of the media. And the accusation most commonly levelled at us is that we are destroyers of healthy body image and instigators of everything from wobbly thigh fixation to eating disorders. Frankly, I find it very tedious. It's like the noughties equivalent of blaming Margaret Thatcher for all the ills of the world.

Don Draper wearily tells those who point the finger at him that advertising is merely giving the public what they want, that people want to be told what to do. And that made me think: is the media in the same boat?

We're told we must bear a large part of the responsibility for making women believe size 0 equals the ideal body. We're told it's our fault that many girls with curves feel they're not good enough. We're asked to hold our hands up and say, yes, we are the reason you don't like your body. But are we? Are we forcing images of slim women upon you against your will... or is this what you want to see?

I'm not sure how people think multi billion-dollar media corporations work but, trust me, they're not flying blind. They don't stick Renee Zellweger on a magazine cover and just cross their fingers and hope people will buy it. They spend millions upon millions of dollars on market research and consultants who analyse readers and potential readers and report back exactly what will make those people buy that magazine. They know where you live, how much money you make, even who buys the groceries in your house. And if they can't make you buy their product, they can certainly make you talk about it.

So it stands to reason that if mags are full of skinny chicks, it's readers that put them there. It's the basic free market principle of supply and demand. It's the same argument the paparazzi used after the death of Princess Diana, when the world and his wife were shouting for gossip rags to be banned. 'Um, hang on a sec,' the paps pointed out. 'If you don't want to see pictures of Diana, stop buying Woman's Day and the four thousand other magazines like it.'

Notoriously mental fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is in the headlines again today saying that, despite what people may say, everyone likes looking at thin, sexy fashion models on the catwalk. 'You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly (but) no one wants to see curvy women,' Lagerfeld is quoted as saying. He is obviously taking a simplistic viewpoint, but has he got a point?

As you know, Three Piece Suite is all about responsibility. It's about facing up to your body issues, whatever they may be, and making a commitment to sorting them out. Is blaming the media for the way we feel about ourselves another way of absolving ourselves of our responsibility? Or am I just struggling to get comfortable in my bed made of money?

Sick note.

For 17 days now, I've felt pretty atrocious. I thought I was on the mend... but this morning I've woken up with an exciting new bug! Lucky me!

Rather than write nonsensical sick person posts, I'm prescribing myself bed rest and Sex and the City DVDs for a few days. I'll be back next week y'all!

xK

All the real girls

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: I'm starting to feel sorry for models.

German magazine Brigitte has just announced it will stop using models completely from 2010, choosing instead to feature only 'real women' in its pages. I'm all for seeing more readers in women's mags. After all, I always tend to skim over the expert comment and skip to the real-life anecdotes in feature articles. I just find my peers' experiences more relevant, and I don't think I'm the lone ranger there.

But what bugs me is this term 'real women'. What does it really mean, and why do those allegedly in the know seem to feel it doesn't apply to girls who have their picture taken for a living?

Not to put too fine a point on it but, technically, being a 'real woman' requires nothing more than a set of reproductive organs. Of course, I don't think that's what people mean when they talk about 'real women'. I suspect most people think of a 'real woman' as being smart, savvy, warm, compassionate, fun and, most importantly, comfortable in their own skin.

Who says only curvaceous broads fit this description?

How 'real' you are surely should not be governed by how big or small you are. Why is someone who fits a size 0 deemed to be 'unreal'? There are plenty of women - even models! - who are naturally thin. They haven't starved themselves to look the way they do, and they're not trying to betray the sisterhood by conforming to the big bad media's idea of a perfect body. They're just being who they are. As it happens, some of these women fit fashion designers' sample size garments, and earn a nice chunk o' change for being photographed in them. Should they have their feminine wiles called into question because of what they do for a living?

My best friend recently reminded me that, when I was about 13, I announced: 'If your thighs don't touch, you're not a real woman!' I know why I said that. It's because my thighs do touch - always have - I'd rather they didn't, and I was trying to make myself feel better about them. Is that what's going on with the 'real women' campaigners? Are they trying to make themselves feel better by making slimmer women feel bad? Are they doing exactly what they accuse unhealthy-looking celebrities and models of doing?

So sure, let's get more non-celebrity ladies in the pages of our favourite glossies. But can we cut it out with the 'real women' thing? Please?

Back soon!

Morning gang!

Just a quick note to apologise for the lack of posts these past couple of days. It's been a long weekend here in New South Wales, plus it was my birthday and much partying was done by all... but mostly by me.

Consequently, I'm a touch behind the eight ball but will be back with you ASAP!

xKitty

Please help.

Morning all,

As you've probably heard, a devastating tsunami hit the Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga yesterday. Hundreds are feared dead, and at least four Aussies are among those confirmed lost.

So I'm going off-topic today and asking you to please dig deep to support the people affected. The Red Cross has launched an emergency relief appeal and you can donate HERE.

Samoa, we're thinking of you.

xKitty