Dieting used to be something you kept quiet about as you munched gloomily on another wretched rice cake; these days, it is something to shout from the rooftops. It has become fashionable: another must-have lifestyle accessory, like a Balenciaga bag or a yoga mat.
If you need proof, just consider that fear of carbs — whereby an otherwise sane person recoils in genuine horror at the idea of a croissant or a plate of pasta — has, in a few years, gone from being the eccentric behaviour of the diet bore to being perfectly socially acceptable. If risotto inspires terror in your breast, you are the norm, not the exception: a fondness for carbohydrates has become peculiar.
It used to be that you asked people to dinner and might get one person making odd dietary requirements; now, I’d say at least half of your guests are likely to be off wheat, off dairy, off red meat, off whatever. This doesn’t make them embarrassed, it makes them proud, in the way that having a personal trainer might make them proud. And no, they don’t think it’s narcissistic.
There’s even a hierarchy of diet-trendiness: the Atkins is no longer considered chic, having become déclassé in the way that ubiquitous things always do, whether they’re hair extensions, French manicures or ways to lose weight. The GI Index looks promising. The South Beach is untrendy but works. The Hay diet — actually more a way of eating than a diet in the accepted sense — is still having its praises sung by spry 95-year-olds with amazing skin, which does it for me (I went back on it last week).
In that weird circular fashiony way, other diets, ones that have been unfashionable for decades, are suddenly enjoying something of a renaissance too — they are vintage diets, as it were. I have two friends who are devoted to their WeightWatchers meetings, whereas five years ago they’d have rather died than admit to anything so naff. (WeightWatchers is well aware of this, and has transformed itself accordingly. And its suggested meals, which used to feature revolting, heavily processed, additive-packed ready or frozen meals, now include plenty of sexy Atkinsy protein).
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Does this collective enthusiasm suggest that we have all finally just given up? Does it mean we are going to try our hardest to achieve that giant-knockers, micro-waist look that our rational self knows is tricky without impressive amounts of plastic surgery? Depressingly enough, I think it probably does.
You could argue, sweetly, that our new-found passion for diets speaks eloquently of a desire for improved health; alas, I fear it has nothing to do with health whatsoever. We are growing increasingly insecure about the way we look, and, as our collective self-esteem plummets, we look to diets to repair the damage.
Dieting is, at bottom, to do with feeling insufficiently sexually attractive. And we are all, clearly, going through a profoundly unsexy moment, which we are, paradoxically, unembarrassed about vocalising.
But the fact that we’ve conceded doesn’t mean that those who haven’t — the diehard non-dieters, the fat-is-beautifulists — don’t still enjoy our secret admiration.
Latest among this dwindling band (although “dwindling” is perhaps not the mot juste) is one Nicki McRoberts. Ms McRoberts, an American who features in a forthcoming VH1 series called Totally Obsessed, weighs 25 stone. She has a 52in bust, 64in hips, and the circumference of her arms is 22in.
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And is she happy? Well, yes — as a clam. Of course, she is clearly also completely unhinged: McRoberts’s ambition is to weigh 42 stone, to which effect she is eating 14,000 calories a day, which seems impossibly gross.
She says images of skinny lollipop-headed women bump-started her eating (she used to weigh 10 stone). “I had seen too many pictures of models and I had just had enough,” she says. “Then, about a year ago, I started seeing all these other confident, beautiful and big women. That was what motivated me. I’ve made it my mission to gain lots of weight . . . In my new body I feel extremely beautiful.” Which is why, presumably, she’s filmed in her underwear.
As I say, she’s clearly insane, and likely to die horribly of some obesity-aggravated condition. Nevertheless, am I entirely alone in feeling a fleeting twinge of admiration for McRoberts in her suspender belt, downing a massive cream bun? She seems to belong to another world, like a diplodocus, and I feel oddly privileged to glimpse her before she becomes extinct. This is an admiration for the past — the sort of nostalgic affection the traveller by horse and carriage might have felt for his coach when cars came in: any second now, that kind of fatness will be punishable by law.
Fat may still be a feminist issue, but nobody cares any more: it isn’t as interesting as dropping a dress size or two. Fat has no champions left, apart from crazies like McRoberts. We might not like those images of stick-thin women with death-like grins and F-cup bosoms, but they’ve won. We’re all dieters now.