Submitter: Murray PR [View Response Source PR Company Listings ] Release Date: 03-01-2006 20 views on Response Source View all releases submitted by Murray PR Use Response Source to send requests to all PR contacts.

Britain has an underground world of desperate women who stash away junk food and bolt it down in secret, reveals a survey in a brand new magazine, launched on the UK's news-stands this week.

The survey, from LighterLife magazine, exposes a community of guilt-ridden women who lie to their families about how much they eat and will even throw away food because they can't trust themselves not to eat it.

The ground-breaking 132-page weight-loss and lifestyle glossy is strictly a ‘model free zone', and the first to address weight loss through the mind, rather than the plate.

It commissioned BMRB to ask 1142 women, nationally representative, if they had attempted to lose weight, and 61 per cent – 693 - said they had. Their confessions make disturbing reading.

They reveal women who'd rather have chocolate or a takeaway than sex. Many are serial dieters, yet abandon their efforts after a week. They're an alienated, unsupported community, some of whom would rather deceive their own children than give up food.

This is perhaps unsurprising, says the magazine, when women say their men are trying to sabotage their diets – “some men even try to fatten women up to ensure they don't leave them.” Fifteen per cent believed partners encouraged them to eat more (and 11 per cent thought their family were up to the same trick, while eight per cent said friends were trying to ruin their diet).

Bar Hewlett, founder of the weight loss specialist company LighterLife, which is launching the magazine, said the saboteurs buy the wrong food, tempt dieters by eating in front of them, and even make them feel guilty.

She said: “This confirms our own experience of men who fear the ‘new you' – of someone who emerges confident, assertive and beautiful after successful weight loss. They're scared a woman will leave them if they don't ‘up their game', and believe they won't be able to ‘control' them when they're thin. It's a matter of ‘when she was fat she did what I told her'. So they'll do things like surprise their wife with a romantic meal, when all they want her to do is put on weight, and so control her.

“Our survey reveals the extent of British women's desperation, a desperation that we sometimes see at LighterLife,” says Bar. “There have been women who hide food in the washing machine, under the plastic bag inside a cereal packet, under their jumpers and even up their sleeves. And if someone discovers the evidence, some mothers blame their children for hiding or eating the food, and for dropping empty wrappers under the car seat. The favourite place to eat it is the toilet or bathroom, where it's okay to be alone with the door locked.

“Another trick is to ask if anyone wants a cup of tea so you can nip to the kitchen and stuff something in when no one's looking. Some buy two sets of shopping on separate receipts – the family shopping and the ‘my food', the fattening stuff they're keeping secret. They may even eat it all on the way home from the supermarket. And some mums will buy lots of treats for the kids, eat them, then secretly replace them.

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