Last week, I said I would return to the darker side of watching one's diet. Whilst most of us want to lose weight in order to prevent serious illness and also improve our quality of life, there are some, and it must be said that it is the female gender who are more vulnerable, who take things a step too far. The darker side to can't eat/won't eat is a different world and I'm glad that the government is starting to realise that this is a serious issue, one that needs serious attention as most of these cases end in tragic circumstances.

I know this issue gets a lot of media attention due to the super thin models and a lot of people are looking for them to be banned, but that someone's career you are talking about. You just cant ban them, but guidelines should be set.

Last week was Eating Disorders Awareness Week but the London Fashion week appears to be ignoring the implications of flaunting the skeletal 'Size 0', with models showing hip bones, sunken chests, protruding collar bones, pointy cheekbones and dark sunken eyes. Now that description of 'model' just doesn't do it for me.

I know not everyone follows fashion and may not see these models on a regular basis, but this ultra-thin trend has taken the acting world by storm as well and these actresses are splashed all over our weekly magazines and are seen by millions of impressionable young women. Young girls or indeed a woman looking at these pictures see something they aspire to. This person has an issue other than appearance which must to be dealt with. They are fooled into thinking that if they are thin, they will be more popular, they will be more attractive to the opposite sex and therefore get more boyfriends. This unfortunately is not true. What these women see in the mirror is not what we healthy people see. No one should live their lives watching every mouthful that they consume. Hell, that's no fun.

People can get so preoccupied with their obsession on being ultra-thin that they don't realise just how much they have actually withdrawn from the real world. They become compulsive in their behaviour and their choice of food and they stay away from pubic outings, especially those that have food present.

These people are thin because they have come to realise that they have control over their body and how it looks. But as we stated, this control actually has deeper emotional issues that are obvious on talking to some of these people.

For the overweight individual who does not want to be overweight, they may not appreciate comments on their size and for those that are the complete opposite, in some cases they too may not appreciate comments on their weight. Lets not judge.

For those of you following our exercise programme I am going to throw in a short programme that should last 30 minutes in total and just may see you through that plateau that you have hit.

Do you stick religiously to 1/2 hour of treadmill or cross-trainer, keeping to the same pace? Well if this is you, then you need to up the ante. Challenge your body to get it out of that fat burning frenzy. Don't worry about speed in this programme, just remember the following,

sprint is the fastest pace, jog is next and this is followed by fast walk and then easy walk, which is the slowest pace. Here we go, now remember, this will really get the metabolism up a gear.

Warm up - one minute fast walk

3 min - fast walk

3 min - jog

2 min - sprint

3 min - jog

2 min - sprint

2 min - fast walk

5 min - jog

2 min - fast walk

3 min - jog

2 min - sprint

2 min -fast walk