I go so far in my book as to say that it is the contemporary female experience to want to be thin

I go so far in my book as to say that it is the contemporary female experience to want to be thin, one that is almost impossible to evade, even in sickness and old age. Since writing it, endless “normal” women have confided in me that they think about their weight every day. They “detox” (or, rather, starve themselves) every Monday; they eat anything and everything they want, but only one bite; they cut out whole food groups; they tell everyone they hate chocolate/ don’t like puddings/feel nauseous if they eat breakfast, as a means of convincing themselves.I have also been approached by countless parents who have begged me with the question as to what they might do with their eight/ 11/14-year-old daughters who are normal, perfect, beautiful, but for whom food is already a drama because they are under the illusion that they are fat.I wonder, despite Rowling’s attitude, whether her daughters can grow up immune to this hideous, visceral pressure to be thin. It is a strong individual who can swim against the tide, and a strong mother who can successfully deflect a child’s exposure to that tide I think of my own experience. My parents were both writers, confident, intelligent, open-minded characters whose aim was to impart their positive values to me.My father did occasionally slip up and call me greedy, but more in a spirit of teasing, usually, than condemnation.

And my mother had an 18-inch waist she liked to maintain, the maintenance of which did not pass me by. They made their mistakes, naturally enough, but I do not blame them for my concern about my weight My mother was the model of affection and encouragement. My father was conscientious about remembering to tell me I looked pretty, even though I never did quite believe him And still I have succumbed. I put it down to the culture in which I live.My rational side agrees with Rowling entirely. The children I have had, the novels I have managed to complete, the daily making of the school run on time, pale beside my dubious achievements in terms of weight Weight is so damn superficial and tedious and insignificant. Every reasonable person knows that, and yet it still plays a significant part in my inner life.Admitting it in public recently, I received a barrage of furious emails haranguing me to think about people in the Third World, which was to miss the point Others told me I should Get a Life, which was not just. I, like all “normal-abnormal” women who are neither obese nor anorexic, DO have a life.

And yet we still worry over-much about a few extra pounds which are not unhealthy and do not have any “extra” about them.I do not have any answers, except to say that pronouncements such as Rowling’s and Yukky Skinny features in magazines have to be a force for good. With any luck their drip, drip effect may begin to sink in with creatures like myself. I hope it might mean that some time soonish many more women will, like Rowling, be able to congratulate themselves for our maternal, spiritual and intellectual achievements instead of our purely bodily ones, and reach for the sticky toffee pudding in a spirit of pure pleasure, free of guilt. ‘Eating Myself’ by Candida Crewe is published this week by Bloomsbury. Ah, April: and life burgeons all around! Buds are unfurling.

Female frogs swell and turn the same pale yellow as Boris Johnson’s hair. I spent much of last week standing by the pond, cogitating on two things: why can I never see the exact moment when the spawn comes out? And what must it be like to have an affair with Boris Johnson? I still haven’t worked out the answer to the first question, but after much deep-browed thought, I’ve made progress with the second. The allure of Boris has been a hotly debated subject around these parts. “Is Boris an Errol Flynn de nos jours?” asked an email message.