Kate Winslett & the Battle with the Bulge

She was called 'blubber' in school. At age 15 she weighed about 14 stone (that's nearly 90 kilos). In a sea of wafer thin Hollywood actresses, Kate Winslet has always stood out; in more ways than one: for her undoubted histrionic talent (she has been the youngest actor to receive six Oscar nominations), and her very well documented battle with the bulge.

Curvy Kate has her legions of fans for her voluptuous, womanly shape but like so many millions of women the world over, she has had her share of stuggles with body issues.

That having body image issues and issues with self esteem can well spiral out of control and lead to problems such as eating disorders and other attendant problems is a given. In a world obsessed with weight and particularly celebrities and their struggle with it; curvy Kate has not had it easy. Throughout her adolescence her weight was an issue for which she was at the receiving end of a lot of harassment.

There is an interesting anecdote about when she visited the make up department of a shop to find a sales assistant who was one of the people who had bullied her is school and after some pleasantries Kate told her how things were fine for her and – “I just wanted to say thanks for being such a bitch ‘cos you made me much, much stronger,” and just walked off. Bravo, wouldn’t you say! Quite the Hollywood moment!

The media has minutely documented any and all fluctuations in her weight over the years, and it isn't as though she has not felt the need to give into the pressure and lose weight to conform to the Hollywood ‘ideal’. But over the years she has perhaps come to terms with it.

There is another interesting story about her having posed for the British edition of the Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine when the magazine digitally altered her photos to make her look a lot thinner than she was in fact. Kate swiftly issued a statement saying that the alterations were made without her consent. GQ issued an apology in the subsequent issue.

She once said that she ate cheese-filled ploughman's lunches every day and vowed never to be a "stick insect" and said that audiences accept her fuller figure. According to one British publication she described herself as being happy with her appearance despite looking like "the back end of a bus", her stomach as "crinkly" after giving birth to her two children and her bottom as "purple sprouting broccoli."

This is not to say that she has not gone through a series of weight loss attempts. Earlier she had been on laxatives for three months to lose weight and admits that she was once "addicted to losing weight". She has gone on record to say "There's always going to be a part of me that worries about not looking as slim as other actresses", but also later said "I forced myself not to have too much anxiety over that."

May I on behalf of all those who think she is quite stunning, say "Good Luck with keeping it that way!"