Catherine Roche says young girls need positive role models and a healthy attitude to food.

Summer is on its way so it’s the time of year when ladies start to think about eating less chocolate and munching more lettuce.

Our beauty regime steps-up a notch and we may think about walking the dog more, cramming sit-ups into the ad-breaks of our favourite TV shows or carrying our shopping bags further in an attempt to lose a few pounds.

Healthy eating and body scrubs should make us feel more like embracing our swimwear in the sunshine.

But hopefully getting ready for summer will be done the right way – with gentle exercise, healthy eating and a realistic approach to body image.

But TV programmes of late have highlighted just how distorted some people’s body image can get.

The recent ITV1 mini-series, featuring Louise Redknapp, Coleen Nolan and lastly Fearne Cotton, has highlighted the lengths some people go to keep thin and look perfect.

We are used to seeing pictures of women who have gone under the knife on the pages of glossy magazines. Picking between who definitely has, such as Jordan and Jodie Marsh, and might haves such as Posh, Kylie and Britney, has become a startling commonplace pastime among young women.

But the relatively unheard and by its very nature, shocking illness known as ‘pregorexia’ and pro-anorexic websites, made uncomfortable viewing when shown on the programme recently.

Louise Redknapp was pregnant with her second child at the time of filming and clearly found the idea that anyone would deliberately not eat, potentially harming the health of their baby, very alarming.

She meet a “pregorexic” woman who told her she ate just a few apples in in a few days. Louise found this tough to take and the woman was clearly struggling with the need to look after her developing baby and trying to fight an illness. Fortunately, the woman gave birth to a healthy child.

In contrast Fearne Cotton was drawn into a world of ‘pro-ana’ websites.

For a start this horrible phenomenon has been given a “cute” name to make it sound less sinister, which actually makes it all the more sinister.

Fearne had to sift through some horrendous images showing not just very skinny models, but clearly very ill women. And the websites and women she spoke to who use the sites, talked of 10 commandments that all anorexic women should live their lives by to make themselves thinner and thinner. One woman said she was starting a fast which would last five days and pointed out the ribby pictures she was aspiring to look like.

It was very difficult and quite frankly shocking viewing to hear of how pro-active these women are about becoming extremely ill. But, though most of us have a healthy body-image and cannot even imagine wanting to not eat for days at a time, it must be remembered that these women are suffering from a disease that over time has taken a hold of their once-healthy mental state.

When Fearne found pictures of herself on the “pro-ana” websites, she was clearly very upset, as though she is a slim woman, she could not and would not want to be an example to anorexic women and articles since the programme say she has found that very tough to handle.

Fortunately, the flip side was shown. Women who had given birth and wanted to lose their baby-weight in a sensible manner – taking group outdoor exercise classes with their babies, women who had seen the light and stopped having plastic surgery and women who had overcome and anorexia and begun to live normal lives.

Chastising women for their poor body image and eventual slide into medically recognised illnesses is no good.

I have had friends with eating disorders and sadly lost one extremely beautiful and wonderful friend to anorexia and know it to be one of the most gripping, destructive and hugely difficult illnesses to beat.

But it can be done and like with most things, prevention really is better than cure. Though shocking, I found ITV1’s mini-series compulsive viewing and it highlighted issues which are on the rise and need to be tackled.

Young girls need positive role models all around and to have their confidence worked on at all times so they have the inner strength to know who they are and what is healthy. There can be no quick-fix answer to getting rid of, or over, poor body image. But this summer, when you’re thinking your thighs are too big, your skin is too pale, or you deny yourself bread or a burger from the barbecue, try to remember who you are and be thankful that no-matter what shape or size, you are well and healthy and on top of it all a beautiful woman.

l The series can be viewed at www.itv.com/itvplayer