This time last year, a woman called Samantha Brick caused controversy by writing an article in the Daily Mail claiming that women the world over hate her because of how beautiful she is.

Last week she has yet again caused spectacular international outrage by stating that “being fat means that you are a failure” and that “every woman who disagrees with her needs to take a long hard look at the digits on their scales”.

Now, I’ve seen some really rather nasty retaliation aimed at this woman over the last few days via horrified blog posts, shocked comments on blogs, angry tweets on Twitter and disgusted statuses on Facebook, many of which contained personal comments targeting Samantha’s looks, her body shape and size, her intelligence and even her surname.

In my opinion it’s one thing to disagree with something someone says, but quite another to attack them with blows aimed so low that the attackers  themselves become no better than the woman in question.

So I’m refraining from joining in the vicious vendetta against Samantha Brick.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely disagree with every single thing she has said.  However I think she has significant issues of her own with regards to her relationship with herself that need to be dealt with, and this is, paradoxically, her way of gaining some kind of validation that she is popular/liked/important.  I think she could do with some therapy, so if anyone knows her, please feel free to give her my number.

Anyway, an organisation called Body Gossip, who I am very much hoping (and working towards) becoming much more closely involved with in the near future, responded to Samantha Brick’s comments by appearing on This Morning on ITV as part of a debate about what she said.  Here is a link to the full article and a clip from the debate – please do take a few minutes to read it and watch.

The comments that Samantha Brick has made are, in my eyes, disturbing, upsetting and very damaging, but they are by no means unique, and many women (and, increasingly, men) believe the same things that she does: that being fat is a failure and that being thin means that you are beautiful.  These kind of skewed visions of beauty need to be changed – they may not be the cause of someone developing an eating disorder but they sure as hell go a long way to supporting one once it’s already started.

I’m going to leave you with an image that I think sums up my views perfectly.  I’d be really grateful if you could all share this blog post to let women the world over know that they are so much more than just a number.

Thank you.