Disastrous celebrity diets

We’ve all heard of Jennifer Aniston and Paris Hilton’s baby food diet. Then there was Beyonce’s maple syrup diet and Liz Hurley eating on a nursery plate using children's cutlery.

So it’s no wonder that a new survey by the UK’s only TV chat show dedicated to cosmetic surgery and aesthetic treatments, MyFaceMyBody.com, found that three out of five – 63% of people polled – said that celebrity diets don’t work. And they knew what they were talking about because 53% of people asked said they had actually tried to follow a celebrity diet.

According to presenter Stephen Handisides, a cosmetic surgery expert and former male model who previously won ‘Specsavers of the Year’ contest alongside Gok Wan, the explosion of celebrity culture means that more people are ignoring doctor’s advice and going to more extreme lengths to achieve their desired look: “Going to your doctor should be the first port of call for anyone wanting to lose an extreme amount of weight – not a celebrity gossip magazine. People should remember that any extreme diet a celebrity like Angelina Jolie goes in is usually for a very short time, just before an awards show like The Oscars, for example.”

The good news is that people are realising that celebrities are not good role models when it comes to dieting. Stephen said: “People aren’t stupid, and the fact that 63% of people we spoke to said that celebrity diets were rubbish shows that they take what they read in magazines with a large dose of salt.”

MyFaceMyBody first aired on Tuesday 29 June on InformationTV, Sky Channel 166 and Freesat 402. The show is repeated on Thursdays at 3pm and Sundays at 6.30pm as well as being re-shown every Tuesday at the same time, with a new episode every month. As well as appearing on Sky TV, the programme is also be available to watch on demand on consumer website MyFaceMyBody.com.