I like Fern Britton. I think she's a positive role model for girls and women regardless of size. I've not read all of this thread and I've not read the newspaper article in question. However, I did listen to the newspaper article review on BBC Breakfast this morning so I have a basic grasp of the facts as the "News" of the World sees to present them.
As far as I'm concerned, her weight loss and how she managed it is her business. From what I can gather, a few years ago she took the drastic step of having a gastric band fitted to her stomach. This would have meant going under general anasthetic, which is risky at the best of times but even more so when you're severely obese. The upside of having the surgery would have been that she might get to see her children have children themselves rather than dying early of a heart attack due to the strain on her heart from the excess fat she was carrying; the downside would have been that when she said goodbye to her children before she went into surgery she knew that there was a higher than average chance that it was the last time they would see her alive.
I think, hats off to her. She's a woman who has struggled with her weight over the years, coupled with working in an extremely size and looks orientated industry with people scrutinising every wrinkle, every blemish, every bad hair day and denouncing her simply for being human. She didn't just lose weight by having a gastric band fitted. If you eat lard you're not going to lose weight, even with a band fitted. Losing weight is a very personal thing and she did it with the help of a gastric band, not because of it. She would have had to eaten very carefully post surgery to ensure that the fod she put into her vastly reduced stomach was actually nutritious and not devoid of any nutrients, otherwise she would have become malnutritioned very quickly. And as for exercise, didn't she cycle round the Red Sea (or somewhere like that) a year or so ago?? The training for that wouldn't have been easy, and I daresay that the buzz that she got from the endorphins kicking in as well as the personally noticable difference to her general health and fitness would have been enough to spur her on to continue exercising, thus losing weight quicker.
I hate articles like this. Women have a rough enough ride as it is and the harshest critics of women are women themselves. In the media, where there's a woman willing to judge there will always be a man right behind her willing to stick the knife in and finish the kill.
Give her a break.