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Hi cherry i have just watched your programme on body dilemmas and i was really surprised. Looking at you i couldn't possible see where you needed to lose weight as you were very slim. However i was deeply depressed to feel that so many women will go to extraordinary lengths to be stick thin. I am 28 years old and weigh just over seven stone which is not a good look for someone who is 5ft 8inches tall. I think people who want to be really skinny should stop and think of the down side of being thin. I am tired all the time and barely having enough energy to play with my 4 year old son. I think your documentery was amazing but i think it lacked the poseption of someone who is having problems with being so thin. Be happy with who you are you are a beautiful young woman and i would give my right arm to look half as good as you. Heather Smith Scotland

What a fantastic programme! It was so nice to feel that I am not the only person who feels like Cherry. Media has a great deal to answer for, and has in effect contributed to many women (and men) feeling insecure about how they look. Cherry was very brave to strip naked but has opened up many questions as to why we feel neurotic about our body image and the constant need for perfection. The programme has inspired me to take a look at why I refuse to eat out in restaurants, weigh myself constantly and count the calories and to actually start to focus on a healthy but happy lifestyle!

I would just like to say that I feel for all you girls in particular, to be honest you are all beautiful and it is just the media's perception that programs us all to think we all have lots to improve. Many years ago I was a bit brainwashed by the media on the perfect girl but my ex unknowingly changed my thoughts on that. My honest thoughts are that 'Nature is perfect in everything but human endeavour is as much as it tries to be, is not'

Loved your programme Cherry! Me and my sister have just watched it and found it really encouraging to know that we are not alone. We're both in our early twenties and when you read your diaries out (which we have draws full of similar ones) it gave us a real slap in the face to think that actually its not healthy to think so negatively about ourselves and that we should start to be happy with who we are so we don't waste anymore time on trying to reach perfection. Thanks again x

I watched the programme last night and I can't stop thinking about all the positive messages coming through to me when I watched it. As a recovering Anorexic and Bulimic it actually helped me a lot to know that everybody has hangups, and you don't have to let the scales control your mood for the entire day. Cherry, I've always thought your body is perfect, I would love to look exactly like you. But after watching the programme I've changed my thinking. As much as I would love to change myself, your body and my body are different, and we should embrace them rather than wish to change them :) I refuse to let my life be dominated by my Eating Disorder and the constant feeling of inadequacy. It has been the biggest thing in my life for nearly 8 years, I do not want to go into my twenties still feeling like I have done for so long. I'm bored of having an Eating Disorder and I want to change, and it gets incredibly hard to keep going when you want to stop, but last nights programme is exactly what I needed to give me an extra boost. So thankyou Cherry, and thankyou to the production team and everybody else involved in the programme.
Vicki xxx

Hi Cherry. Enjoying your series. Feel like you're a friend - a dippy friend - but a friend! Here's an alternative to using your scales. Get a thin gold chain and put it round your waist. Leave an inch between the skin and the chain. If you start to near the chain, you're gaining weight. If you find it draping elegantly on your hip, then you're losing it. Easy. No scales.

I've enjoyed the series so far, the money episode was brilliant! I think part of the body dilemmas could have been about male body issues though. As a male BDD sufferer I can really identify with the issues in the show, but at the same time it does feel more difficult to accept oneself as there's less of an awareness about male body image issues. I think the pressures are out there just as equal for men, albeit in different forms (you can't be too skinny, too pale, too short, too ugly etc). One main difference between the genders though is that men have an added (if hypocritical) pressure in that you are expected to look a certain way (groomed/tanned/buff) naturally and without any expended effort (which is dismissed as "metrosexual" or unmasculine). For example whilst Daniel Craig is hailed as a return to a "natural" rugged masculine look by women, in reality its not a very natural look at all.

cherry healy ,thats how i spell healy cos im irish,anyway i love the programmes u do ,and u hav notin to worry about ur body,.and mine,,im a bloke by the way ,,a man in case u dont know..we hav to live wit wat we were given ,and i think im a stud till i go out and never get a chat or look ,,,im not the elephant man but might aswell be...anyway u are a lovely lookin girl,,and ur baby is to ,,love the show,,keep it up..love ljason,,xxx.IRELAND..

hello im sarah i've just watched your programme and i relate to it alot im 17 and i have a 7 month old son and i cant stand to look at the way i look i'm very skinny thats not what bothers me but i got alot more stretch marks than most people and i cant stand to look at my body especially my belly its the one thing that i think was missing from the programme but i think you were very brave to go skinny dipping and i love all your program's xx

Hello Cherry
I was entranced by this program and thought it made some great points. However, it has left me quite confused between the boundaries between an Eating Disorder and body Dilemma/ Neurosis. I am very similar to yourself in obsessive calorie counting, poor body image, obsessive weighing to the point of depression. Consequently I am very aware at the age of 26 that I don’t want to be like this any longer as it is detrimental to my mental health and happiness and leaves me feeling unable to start a family (/get pregnant) for the fear of gaining weight and having to reveal my body in any way. Therefore, I am presently undergoing eating disorder therapy....

…Yet I’m unable to understand how you and many others can feel like this but keep it in control to the point of not been labeled with an eating disorder and I guess maintain control over the feelings even though they can be so similar to my own and have it as a body ‘dilemma/ Neurosis’ rather than a disorder. Where are the boundaries? Or… is this program edited away from eating disorder labels but in fact most of the people on the program display signs of eating disorder thinking but rather being portrayed in a more ‘normal’ positive way. Therefore, I’m slightly saddened by this programs inability to clarify this when it borders around such a serious subject for many people who have disordered thinking (diagnosed or not). I makes it look ‘normal’ to think like this because a lot do but this is not right this is in my opinion disordered thinking regarding body image therefore not ‘normal’.

Anyhow, despite this lack of clarity I thought this program help raise awareness of a huge problem our society faces and it is sad to see and realize the mass of people burdened by this topic.

Hi Cherry,
I liked the program, it's good people are talking about body image. I wanted to float the idea that body building competitions are - for some guys - similar to the beauty pageants that you showed earlier in the programme. Also, I was wondering what you think of Viv Groskop's recent article (Guardian online). Maybe what we need is just to stop taking beauty (and sex perhaps) so seriously..
Tom

I really enjoyed the programme. However, like a few of the posters above I do worry that our obsession with body image is getting out of hand. I am 24 and weigh just 7 and a half stone. At 5'8" this is way too skinny and I feel like I have a child's body. While in my normal clothes I just look like a very slim person, put me in swimwear or a vest-top and I look very bony. I often feel like people are judging me, assuming I'm anorexic, and I feel uncomfortable about going to the gym as I often feel instructors have an eagle eye on me (I don't think this is just the poor self image making me paranoid, either!).

Watching the scales when Cherry stepped on, she is exactly the weight I would love to be and she looks fab. Trying to put weight on is really difficult when the messages out there are all about fighting obesity. In my head I know that out of the 350 calorie sandwich and the 550 calorie sandwich, the more unhealthy sounding one might do me good, but it just seems counter-intuitive to go for the fatty option! Perhaps a documentary on what it's like being skinny should be next on the cards....

Just an idea but one method that could be used is if a person is overweight and is has ordered food which clearly they should not be consuming a klaxon could sound or warning warning like in space family robinson advising them that in their interests choosing the salad is probably a better idea