We've all been there, those days when we're feeling really low, its our time of the month or we've just ate a ton and feel bloated and not so sexy. A lot of us turn to the internet to calculate our BMI, get healthy eating tips or to get some info on the latest exercise breakthrough. However we've disturbingly discovered the new internet sites that are feeding into our bad body image – and they are by no means pro anorexia sites.

Logging on to the first website that appears in google after typing body fat calculator I come across www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator and decide to try and put my mind to rest about my current low self esteem by working out my true body fat. As a size 6-8 at 5ft 3inches I'm no hippo. I work out at the gym 3 times a week, participate in callanetics often and try and eat healthily but enjoy treats too. You may be wondering why I would be measuring my body fat in the first place but as a previous anorexia sufferer, I still battle the body image demons and often find nowadays weighing myself actually helps as I realise I haven't gained any weight and it was all in my mind.
Out of curiosity I'd like to know my body fat percentage so I click on the calculator, type in my measurements and, hey presto, up comes my results.

But to my horror I don't see the healthy number I expected – it tells me my body fat percentage is 30.68% which is equal to obese! I fight back tears as I try to come to terms with the results. Am I obese? I question myself. I begin pinching at my thighs and old body demons resurface. As my mother enters the room she notices watery eyes and asks what's wrong and why did I need the measuring tape?

I explain to her about the body fat percentage calculator and how it calls me obese and suddenly feel better as she scoffs “If someone wearing a size 6 clothing is obese then what is normal size!” I try to reassure myself of course I can't be obese, my BMI is just at normal and no-one has ever branded me fat or anything. However I start to wonder what if some poor younger girl out there goes on this and really, truly believes that she is overweight? It worries me a lot. I glance at the chart results again and double check to see if I have done anything wrong – nope it is all correct but I also spot right next to the result a link saying 'Try Hoodia Max!'

I suddenly feel truly disturbed. The website had been designed to tell even thin people that they are overweight- in a bid to sell dangerous diet products! Anger pulses through me. It is not just personal – I have been through it all, severe anorexia, obsessive exercising and constantly trying to keep up with today’s miniscule size that us women find almost impossible to emulate without damaging us mentally and physically.

I feel angry at the companies trying to promote this to naïve, body-conscious women. I feel enraged at the fact we women find it hard enough to be confident in this day and age without some fake internet calculator telling us we are fat, obese, in need of a good dose of diet pills and diet 'plan.'

I wonder how many more of these websites are being made to deliberately challenge young women and feed into their minds that their not good enough, too big and that we are desperately in need of some of their pricey products.
I realise that the diet industry is a big money maker, it is companies like these who's job is to promote diet plans and pills and whatever else they can convince us with. However there is a line to draw and a professional foot to be put down. It is not their job to tell a young slim person that they are obese; this is very dangerous and unethical and sites like these should not be allowed to give out false health information.


With thousands of diet websites, blogs and tips around there is already to much information on the subject of weight and how to lose it. Diet pills are widely promoted and few people actually know the dangers of diet pills. Using diet pills can cause heart attacks and even death.

Sarah, 20, told of how diet pills almost killed her “I bought diet pills off the internet after reading that Nicole Ritchie took them to lose weight and that it worked. When they arrived I was so excited about losing weight that I didn't even consider them to be dangerous at all. I started taking them and I don't know if it was just in my mind but I didn't feel as hungry as usual.

“Within a week I'd lost 3lbs and although I felt slightly slimmer I felt ill and exhausted as I couldn't sleep after taking them and thought about food 24/7. I couldn't work out as I was so tired and achy. I started feeling faint at work and was also snappy and moody. I went to the doctors and not surprisingly he told me to come off the diet pills or else I could suffer a heart attack or even die. I was so scared I burst into tears but I was worried I'd gain weight again. I put the 3lbs back on and now I've lost half a stone just by exercising. Diet pills don't work and their crazy dangerous.”

We are already a body conscious bunch, so we don't need anymore false promotion and the advertisement of diet pills to lead us to feel worse about ourselves. Ladies out there who have seen these websites and been put down on them don't believe them, these sites have nothing to do with health, websites such as these are there to sell products, not make us feel good.
 
 
 
 

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