Good Girls Do Swallow

'We are constantly bombarded with images that tell us we can have the perfect life,' she says. 'We are told we must be a size eight, have flawless skin, always look young and have a partner. But it's completely unrealistic.

'While we are constantly comparing ourselves to what we believe is the perfect life we are always going to fail because no one has that life. Everything is so much easier when you realise that there is no such thing.'

There was only one other body that she hated as much as her own and that was her mother's. To her the homely figure represented what she herself could become.

'People say to me "you are so brave to write a book like this", she says. 'I tell them "I'm not the brave one, my mother is the bravest person in the world." She knew what was in the book, I gave her the manuscript a thousand times to read. I gave her every opportunity to say "I don't want this in, I don't want that in" and she choose to keep it all in.

'She felt guilty, as any mother would, and I told her there was nothing to feel guilty about because when I was bulimic how would she ever have known? Bulimia is a private, private illness so you're not going to be shouting it from the rooftops.

'I could sit around and blame her for not being the perfect mum but what is the perfect mum?' she says. 'At the end of the day if you want to get over an eating disorder or whatever issues you have in your life then you have to accept where you came from. If you can accept your mother's imperfections, you are a long way to accepting your own.'