Despite stunning good looks, the teenager never believed she was attractive enough for the modelling world and she developed anorexia and bulimia at the age of 16 and the illnesses left her too tired to work. Unfortunately the lovely young girl lost her fight and died in her sleep at her grandmother’s house of suspected heart failure

According to her father ‘She would say she was fat but she was so beautiful – she didn’t realise how beautiful she was. She had up days and down days. It was like Jekyll and Hyde.

‘I tried to warn her that her organs would fail but she just said: “Don’t be silly”. If you mentioned food it would start an argument.’

I am sure, like myself, many women feel like this due to the media pressures to be so thin in order to be what they class as beautiful. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all I can say is some of these media executives must have strange eyesight.

We have been trying to get a campaign to bring  size diversity to fashion – www.realbodiesunite.com. So why not add your signature and stop having beautiful young women falling foul to today’s representation of what is normal!!! This is ever more apparent with more and more women being at least size 16.

It is good to see that we are seeing more and more Models who are classed as Plus Size but even they are only a 12/14 – still not proper representation!

Our thoughts go out to the family of Bethaney and understand what an awful time this must be for all of them.

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Charlotte O’Neill decided at 15 she wanted to be as slim as Cheryl when the singer joined the show’s judging panel in 2008.

Still painfully thin: At her sickest, Charlotte O’ Neill, who is 5ft7in, weighed only 5 1/2 stone. She is still struggling to reach a healthy weight but is convinced she is beating her obsession

She skipped breakfast, cut down on her normal food portions and gave up chocolate and sweets. Within two weeks, she had lost half a stone.

Although often felt hungry and weak, she felt it was worth it to reach her goal

Charlotte, who is 5ft 7in and originally weighed 8st 7lb, soon reached her target weight of 7st.

But not satisfied she continued to starve herself and when her weight reached 6st her PE teacher took action.

Charlotte was diagnosed with chronic anorexia and admitted to hospital.

Doctors warned she was putting her heart and other organs at risk and put her on a strict meal plan.

Charlotte, from Peterborough, Cambs, then spent nine months in an eating disorders care centre, where she put on weight to reach a healthier 7st 12lb.

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So would you , or have you, starved yourself to emulate someone in the Media?

Yes , well why not tell us your story?

Hundreds of  British slimmers were researched and they  found those who went to a commercial slimming group for three months lost twice as much weight as those who were given diet advice by their family doctor.

Paul Aveyard, a GP and a professor of behavioural medicine, said rather than trying to treat fat patients themselves, GPs should send them to commercial sessions, paid for by the NHS.

Dismissing slimming advice from family doctors as ‘ineffective’, he said groups such as Weight Watchers, Slimming World and Rosemary Conley offered the best hope for fighting obesity.

But what are your thoughts on this subject? – Let us know !

Leisure and cycling retailer Halfords said it is offering the super-sized sleeping bag – 41 per cent bigger than the standard – in response to demand from taller campers who want ‘extra wiggle space’.

Its Urban Escape XL Garda Envelope sleeping bag, at £27.99, is a whopping 104in long by 38in wide, offering room to turn and stretch for the tallest of camping fans. It compares with a standard sleeping bag which is about 90in by 32in.

The  Urban Escape XL model is 41 per cent bigger than the average size with a length of 265cm and width of 95cm. The standard envelope-shape sleeping bag is 230cm by 80cm.

Official figures suggest the average Briton is getting taller at the rate of 0.75 inches per generation. Health of the Nation figures show almost one in three of men under 25 is now more than six feet tall.

This is partly due to better diets, healthcare and more prosperous lifestyles

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H &M’s last campaign starred ultra-thin supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

So it’s refreshing to see the fashion chain challenging stereotypes by hiring a plus-size model for their new ads.

Tara Lynn proudly displays her curves in a bathing suit for the latest Big is Beautiful collection.

The healthy brunette also sports a leopard-print one-piece and a strapless jumpsuit.

But the American model, who has featured in Elle, Glamour and a plus-size spread in V Magazine, hasn’t always been so comfortable in her own skin.

She told NBCLA: ‘I was a size 14/16 (UK size 18-20) in high school, and it wasn’t the easiest thing.

However, what do you think of the availability online and in store for the larger sizes at H & M. Tell us your story

The Daily Mail outlines various treatments that are available and the pros and cons of each one.

We hope this information will be informative.

Here is the full article

Besides the fact that the headline is totally misleading, to compare the extra calorie intake to a cheeseburger is totally irresponsible, as if we don’t have enough to think about when it comes to our health do we then get told that we can eat extra calories in the form of junk food!

I am pretty sure that the scientific results did not say, ‘you can consume a cheeseburger everyday with no worries of what it might do to your body’, instead the research revealed that with consideration of the amount of exercise done by an individual a day then it may be possible to consume an extra 400 calories. These calories do not allow people to be irresponsible with the food they consume nor should they be taken light heartedly. Food consumption should be based on listening to your body’s hunger signals and reflect your daily activity, they are not saying you can allow yourself a cheeseburger, they are saying that extra calories can be consumed through sensible eating.

In my opinion a healthy consumption of food is not reliant on calories – calories act as a guide but can be construed that as long as we do not consume more than our daily limit then it doesn’t matter what we eat – which is not correct, if we ate burgers three times a day but stayed within our calorific limit then that could be interpreted as ‘healthy’ – and this is why there is so much confusion. It seems the papers enjoy making it harder for society!