Deborah Ross: If you can't be thinner than your friends, what's the point of life? If you ask me, I am much taken with the latest diet bestseller - Six Weeks to OMG (How to be Skinnier Than Your Friends) - because, as I so often ask myself, if I'm not skinnier than all my friends, just what is the point of carrying on? I cannot see any point, can you? Or, as the book might as well be titled: OMG, I'm a Bit Fatter Than a Friend (How to Throw Yourself Under a Train). I did once seriously consider throwing myself under a train for this reason, but talked myself out of it when I realised that this friend was not a true friend, as she would not have allowed herself to be thinner, and, therefore, as she wasn't a friend, I was not obliged to compete in this way. Phew! It was a close shave, though. This book, written under the name "Venice A. Fulton" who, it turns out, is actually a personal fitness trainer called Paul Khanna, advises cold baths, skipping breakfast and no broccoli, as its carbohydrates interfere with the metabolism. This, I'm sure, is all based on the latest theories and though some might say it's just the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense usually peddled by men (Dukan, Atkins etc) keen on culturally strong-arming women into obsessing about the trivial and the banal as otherwise they might be out there running the world - which would be most inconvenient - I do not subscribe to this notion. If you ask me, as you did, I think it's ridiculous. Or, as I recently said to a friend, "You've put on weight, fatty! Great! At which point she stormed from the room and I haven't heard from her since. This was a shame, as she was a true friend, with a decent muffin top on the go, but what can you do? In fact, as any friend who is thinner must be considered an enemy, and as anyone who wishes to befriend me can only be doing so because they consider me portlier (devastating!), I can now see I'm unlikely to have any friends, but that's fine because if I don't have any friends, I won't have any friends who are skinnier than me, which is the main thing. And, instead of enriching my life with friendships, I can sit at home on my own, taking cold baths, counting calories, cursing broccoli and reading books like Six Weeks to OMG, which, some might argue, could just as well have been titled How to Waste Your Life, LOL. How to waste your life? When the alternative might mean I'd have to consider throwing myself under a train? Some people just don't get it, do they? And I feel sad for them, I truly do.