It’s estimated that British women who diet spend on average 31 years trying to lose weight. One-in-five women who diet are permanently or regularly on a diet, and one woman in ten would shockingly rather be skinny than intelligent.

What is it that feeds the female obsession regarding body image, weight and dieting?

Superskinny Me: The Race to Size Double Zero follows two journalists – Kate Spicer and Louise Burke – as they go on a no-holds-barred journey into the world of extreme dieting – exposing the dangers to both mind and body. The movie looks beyond the glossy magazines and Hollywood’s ‘lolly-pop’ starlets to issue a life-size health warning about the latest fads and crash diets, and exposes the physical and emotional fall-outs of them.

Both journalists, healthy size 12s with average BMIs, are aiming to drop five dress sizes in five weeks. With a ‘Don’t Try This At Home’ warning, both Kate and Louise have undergone rigorous physical and mental tests by a team of medical experts from Imperial College led by Dr Le Roux. At an appointment with Kate, Dr Le Roux dispels the long-held dieter’s myth that laxatives aid weight loss.

Broadsheet freelancer Kate has written extensively about body image. Kate says: “I’ve always really enjoyed immersing myself in journalism, doing stupidly what I call ‘method journalism’ where you get involved in the story, and the best way to understand something is to become it. Obviously I have my own issues with my body. I’m 37, it’s not going to be perfect. I’ve also been fascinated with those car crash girls who live very strange lives in order to fit into fashion sample sizes, and I’ve always wondered what it entails to be like that.”

28-year-old, Louise Burke, features editor for the Sunday Mirror’s supplement Celebs on Sunday, has never worried about her weight. A slim Louise is a perfect size 12 and, unusually, has never been on a diet, but her job exposes her to all the latest diet fads and crazes.

About taking part in the programme Louise says: “The last thing I want to do is show people how to lose the weight because that would just be awful and that is not the aim of the experiment either. The aim of the experiment is to show and highlight all the horrible, nasty side effects that extreme diet does.”

Following strict regimes of swimming in freezing cold water to raise the metabolism, colonic irrigation, The Watercress Soup Diet, The Lemonade Diet, Just Say No Diet, and extreme exercise regimes, the film has unexpected results, as it is not just the physical side effects that come under the most scrutiny.

Relationships reach breaking point, functioning in their normal daily lives becomes almost impossible and emotions run away. Ultimately for one journalist the experiment is halted, as concerns are raised by the doctor, while for the other, size 00 jeans beckon – but at what cost?

Sunday 22 April 2007