The cynical truth about those celeb fitness DVDs

This year, as every year, January kicks off with a slew of celebrity-driven diet and fitness DVDs. Thus the image of a reality TV star called Lauren Goodger looking super-slim in coral bikini, stripper heels and enough foundation to grout my entire bathroom is seared into my retinas, featured in one of the sunday papers alongside another image of her jiggling along the beach 12 months ago when she was four stone heavier.

so delighted is Ms Goodger with her ‘ new’ physique ( pictured below), she professes a desire to be naked ‘every day’.

Fans of Lauren can, of course, uncover her weight-loss secrets in her OMG! Workout DVD. Currently, it’s available on Amazon for around £12. But if you wait a few weeks you’ll be able to pick it up for £1 in your local charity shop.

Because we all know the likelihood of it resulting in meaningful longterm weight loss for the average British woman is about the same as Victoria Beckham being spotted chomping on a Greggs’ cream bun.

The cynical opportunism of gurning celebrities like Goodger is irritating enough.

But what really infuriates me is the overwhelmingly negative effect they have on women’s already fragile self-esteem.

BeCAuse that is how this industry works. First it makes you feel i nadequate ( postChristmas bulge, etc); then it shows you an impossible ideal to which to aspire (the dazzling celebrity, preferably in a low-cut bathing suit); then it sells you the snake oil (the book/DVD); then, when that inevitably fails, it sells you some more snake oil.

And on the cycle goes, disappointment building on disappointment until eventually you give up and take to your sofa with a box of Maltesers.

Which might go some way towards explaining why, despite unprecedented levels of public awareness about fitness and nutrition, we are now so fat as a nation that the Nhs is having to invest in special MRi scanners because so many patients can’t fit into normal ones.

Meanwhile, a study reveals British women are so obsessed with their appearance that we worry about how we look up to eight times a day. in my case, more like 80.

There’s a great conundrum here. Never have there been more fitness DVDs and healthy eating regimes to choose from. so why are we getting ever podgier?

Because the cult of celebrity trivialises everything — and obesity is no exception.

Not, i’m sure, that Ms Goodger — or any of the others on this bandwagon, from Davina McCall to Coronation street star Kym Marsh to Lorraine Kelly — mean any ill.

But these are not ordinary women. And yet they try to sell their way of life as a solution for everyone. Which is at best unrealistic and at worst downright dishonest.

Most people, for example, cannot afford a personal trainer. And even if they could, they cannot afford the hour and a half it takes out of their day.

There are those, it’s true, who can get up at 6am for a pre- office, pre-school-run run. But most sane people would far rather have an extra half an hour in bed. There’s always post- work, of course. Assuming your train i sn’t cancelled, your bus driver isn’t on strike or you don’t get stuck in the office.

Then there are children to take care of, housework to do and family crises to sort out. Quite where spiralising courgettes and doing your squat thrusts fit into that i don’t know, unless you count running up and down the stairs with the laundry basket. By turning fitness i nto showbiz, all these celebrities do is gloss over the fact that for most of us staying fit and thin is not a j oyous Lycrawearing opportunity to show off, but just another chore. if you really want to lose weight and feel fitter, there is only one answer. And i’ll give it to you for free: eat l ess, move more. everything else is just guff.