Channel Five is to examine women's body obsessions in a five-part series that it claims will crack open beauty taboos. My Body Hell is part of the channel's new autumn slate, which will be unveiled in Edinburgh tomorrow. The series will feature a different body issue in each episode, such as body hair, spots, breasts and cellulite and will also look at the weight-loss issue by seeing if it is possible to drop a dress size in a week, as well as live on a strict celebrity diet regime.
Real-life stories will include the woman with Britain's biggest breasts and another whose bust is covered in hair, as well as celebrities undertaking a series of beauty experiments, such as Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton going to a premiere without her makeup and fake tan, and Alex Best having a "bum facial".
Other celebrities featured include former Big Brother winner, Kate Lawler, "agonising" over breast implants and model Danielle Lloyd talking about body hair. The Five controller of factual entertainment, Steve Gowans, who commissioned the show, said: "It's full, frank and really rather shocking. The full extent of what women put themselves through hasn't been shown on TV before, and Body Hell is thought provoking and pulls no punches."
It's clear that, now more than ever, women are under more pressure to look a certain way. With women's lifestyle magazines implying there is a perfect body shape (why else would they claim a celebrity to be too thin one week and too fat the next?), this show comes at the right time, and hopefully Five have dropped their need for titillation and will deal with this topic with great sensitivity and candour. [Mof Gimmers]
Genre: Documentary, Special Interest
