Happy relationships banish weight worries The women answered questions about their body weight, previous experience of diets, their self-esteem and body image self-consciousness, as well as about the intimacy and satisfaction of their relationships. Those in an unhappy relationship were more likely to be on a diet and feel self-conscious about their weight. They also weighed themselves more often. Sabina Vatter, who carried out the research said: "These findings suggest that our satisfaction with body size, shape and weight has more to do with how happy we are in important areas of our lives, like our romantic relationships, than it does with what the bathroom scales say." Recent research suggests that around one in four people in Britain are on a diet at any one time while the number of pre-teen children treated in hospital for eating disorders has tripled in four years. Experts claim increasing numbers of children are struggling to cope with a celebrity culture which sexualises childhood, glorifies size zero figures, and bombards them with images of unrealistically slim models. A fifth of all girls aged seven to 11 have been on a diet because they are "overly scrutinised and judged on their appearance," according to a recent study from Girlguiding UK. The research was presented at the British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology in York.