‘In the morning I wake up and I think, “Ooh, you look good – you look skinny,” but by the end of the day when I’ve eaten all that food I think, “Oh God, you’re really fat. Lose some weight.” I did go on a diet a few weeks ago and I did lose five pounds. No – three pounds.’
Anonymous interviewee ‘A’ (age 21, body mass index 22.7)
‘When I first started developing I was absolutely terrified. I remember wanting to remain childlike, and everything that meant. I felt like there was a loss of innocence that I should be ashamed of. There was a phase of a few months when I was about thirteen when I just stopped eating altogether. When I was sixteen I suddenly woke up with huge boobs and I was so embarrassed about them. I didn’t know what to do with them – I just felt apologetic about my body … I love them now.’
Anonymous interviewee ‘B’ (age 32, body mass index 26.1)
‘All the time – I’m always thinking about my body. If I’m due to go out, in the week leading up to it I’ll be panicking the whole time about looking right. It constantly preys on my mind.’
Anonymous interviewee ‘C’ (age 33, body mass index 21.3)
‘I would never walk around naked in front of someone. It’s my backside – he’d dump me in a second. I think my backside looks revolting so I assume men would think the same … I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling like this.’
Anonymous interviewee ‘D’ (age 40, body mass index 24.5)
‘I used to think I was fat, although I now realise that I’m not fat and never was fat, but I used to be careful not to show too many squashy bits. I might have been breathing in to stop my stomach looking fat when it wasn’t. I got it wrong.’
Anonymous interviewee ‘E’ (age 70, body mass index 24.8)
(Body mass index is a frequently used assessment of body weight, calculated as body weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in metres. Figures between 18.5 and 25 are sometimes said to lie within the optimal range.)