This came through to me from Nancy Hayssen, author of 'Sexy at any size' and I thought I'd share it - see what you think?

"Today I received one of those notes which made me happy and cry inside at the same time.

"My name is Jessica*.

I'm 17 years old and I'm trying to become a Plus Size Model. I have started taking model classes and am currently in the running to be National American Miss 2008. Everyone I know says I am fully capable of becoming a Plus Size Model, but I am not very confident."

* name changed to respect privacy

Accompanied was a poem ...

I'm Sorry

I'm sorry...if I'm not skinny enough for you to see my ribs.
I'm sorry...if I'm not pretty enough to be "your girl".
I'm sorry...if I'm not tan enough for you.
I'm sorry...If i don't have a dream body that turns you on.
I'm sorry...if i won't drop down to my knees to get you to like me.
I'm sorry...if my hair is not long enough.
I'm sorry...if I'm not the "hottest" girl you have ever seen.
But most of all...
I'm sorry that most guys can't accept a girl for who they really are.

....As Nancy's naked body lay for all the television crew of CBS' Entertainment Tonight and soon the world to see.....

"What am I doing?", she said to herself. But, she did it for all the women who don't feel good enough because of the thousand of negative media images they've seen...Nancy says this is for the teen girl right now who is struggling in defining herself and is going on a "diet" at ten years old.

This is for Jessica, the sweet girl who just emailed me feeling not confident enough, apologising for not measuring up to society's definition of beauty.

This is for every man and woman on the planet... Embrace and accept yourself just the way you are - Right Now.

Nancy on Youtube

After waking up to yet another dire warning about how we're all going to die - apparently having a few treats at the weekend is now out too - I thought I had to post something uplifting today.

I've been watching some of the Sky 'Real Life Stories' about weight issues this week. Some have been pretty standard "I'm fat so I'm having my stomach stapled/going to a slimming club" stuff but two really stuck out - a programme on former Slimmers of the Year, where the detestable Sally Anne Voak went back to see what had happened to people who'd had the title bestowed upon them in the previous decade.

One lady admitted that she'd been anorexic when she won her prize, abusing diuretics, laxatives and starving herself (she wouldn't eat or drink at ALL on weigh in day) and so all the time she was winning accolades she was in the grip of a serious - life threatening - eating disorder. One woman went mad with the credit cards when she lost weight, and her husband saw her change so much that he begged her to put the weight BACK. Another put five of her ten lost stone back on and said that she was a damn sight happier for it because she hated being obsessed with diets and food. She says she's a better mother to her child now she can focus on him...and not her every morsel of food.

Eye opening stuff.

So...if the myth of major weight loss making your life perfect is just that, a myth, where does that leave fatties? Unhealthy and miserable? Well, no. Another programme saw fat women dispel stereotypes - we had the BBW club full of size 26 and over women having a great time, attracting men, and even posing for a BBW calendar (all very tastefully done) then a roly poly kissogram who found that since she's been taking her size 20 body out on the road and having fun with it, her self esteem has rocketed - and people love it!

Then we had a fat dance class instructor running classes for bigger women, dispelling the myth that all fat people are lazy. She runs classes and social events for people who might otherwise feel out of place ice skating, dancing and working out.

I might also add, that if you think all fatties are unfit, ask my gym instructor who has told me recently that I managed more step ups in his fitness test than anyone he'd seen that day...incuding a 16 year old lad! Unfit? Bah. I manage every task he sets me, even boxing for 30 minutes. And I ain't skinny.

So, the good news for fat people - there is plenty of it. You just have to look behind the scare stories and believe that you can be just as good, just as fit, just as healthy and just as gorgeous as anyone else.

So there.

Have you ever wanted to suffer the indignities of a slimming club in the comfort of your own home? Be virtually nagged into slimming down and shaping up by a computer generated Marjorie Dawes, who will no doubt tell you (with the advice of a proper nutritionist of course) exactly where you went wrong and admonish you for sniffing a bar of chocolate?

Well, now you can! Obviously spurred on by the success of the Nintendo Wii Fit (which is absolutely hilarious, and actually a lot of fun...) Nintendo have now got with the (diet) programme and are bringing out My Weight Loss Coach for Nintendo DS "a game for every adult, male and female, who considers reaching and maintaining their target weight a challenge."

Well, that would be pretty much everybody then?

The programme even says that it "respects your daily life constraints" - does that mean it understands when I get PMS and want to eat Green & Blacks chocolate until it's coming out of my ears? and it very kindly "tracks your progress and achievements by improving your energy balance." - does it actually eat for you then?

I have to say that if it's as accurate as the Wii Fit, which very kindly makes me weigh about two stone less than the evil scales at the gym did a few weeks ago, it will be great - but pretty pointless.

What I want to know is whether the virtual class leader will tell you to eat dust, give you that horrible pseudo-sympathetic look when you gain weight and ask "Is it your *special* week, love?" or try and sell you diet versions of boiled sweets that make you pooh through the eye of a needle if you eat more than three in one sitting....:D

How's that for the 'longest blog post of the day' title?

Sorry...so sorry...for not being a good blogger and staying in touch more. If the truth be told, the freelance writing work has somewhat taken over my life and when I get to the end of a working day, my creativity seems somewhat depleted. But I digress.

Apparently, as we all probably know, size 12 is considered fat. When John Lewis announced it was using size 12 mannequins, the world gasped in a collective intake of breath. Size 12? What was that all about? Nobody would ever buy clothes from a shop that demonstrated its wares on such outsize mannequins, surely?

Anyway, now Leah Green is causing ripples in the fashionista's skinny lattes by beating 200 other women to be crowned Miss London - despite being rejected by model agencies and told she needed to lose weight.
Leah Green, who's 22, will be competing for the title of Miss England against regional finalists from across the country, including size 16 Chloe Marshall.

Read the full story here

Leah told the Daily Mail that she has been rejected by several model agencies.

"I have tried to get into modelling," she said. "But I've been told I'm too fat and I need to lose weight. One agent told me I would have to work hard to achieve the gaunt look he was after.

"If you have to be the size of Victoria Beckham or Girls Aloud to even get a look in, then it just isn't for me."

It makes me angry that a perfectly normal sized woman is told she has to lose weight. In fact, a woman who is smaller than most of the UK female population is still considered too big to be attractive enough to model clothes. When will these agencies realise that we don't want to see clothes modelled just on very tall, slim, children with unattainable bodies...we want to see a wide range of figures so that we'll have a vague idea of what we might look like in their clothes.

Let's face it, we've all bought clothes online or by mail order, seduced into thinking that maybe that dress will look good on us, when it actually makes us look absolutely ridiculous because it's cut for the size eight slip of a thing that's wearing it in the photographs, and not for the size 16 woman who wants to buy it. Bigger women have curves in places that most models don't even have places and it's about time that people who try to sell us their clothes actually gave a stuff about the people who want to buy them.

Except that I forgot...most catwalk designer types don't even think that women over size 10 exist.