Priyanka Chopra has suggested that it’s high-time we turned our back on ‘damaging’ weight-loss magazine articles – and for good.

Appearing in Allure magazine’s first digital cover package,, the actress explained that too many women have been conditioned to think about the need to constantly change themselves.

“We’ve always been treated as second-class citizens,” she said. “We’ve always been told that only one of us can win and only the best one will get the cutest boy…

“Can we for a second love ourselves and say ‘I do not need all of these magazines to tell me to how to lose the weight or how should I starve because I want to please a man?’”

Directly addressing readers with some tried-and-tested advice, Chopra added: “Start with just recognizing what you’re doing. That’s called self-hate, self-doubt, you’re berating yourself. We have enough people doing that to us anyway, why do we need to do it to ourselves? Love yourself, ladies. You’re your best friend.”

Of course, Chopra is not the first to identify this as a problem. Indeed, Kelly Brook recently slammed the celebrity weight-loss DVD industry, saying: “What I’ve seen in the press recently about these women doing these crazy crash diet plans, saying ‘Buy my DVD, you’re going to lose weight in like four weeks’…

“I just think it’s so unrealistic in terms of sustainability.”

Striking a similar note, Holly Willoughby previously declined to answer any questions about her dietary or fitness habits during a recent interview.

“I actually avoid talking about my diet and exercise regime because I have interviewed so many people affected by eating disorders,” the 36-year-old told the magazine. “I know that some people in chat rooms can really fixate on other people’s diets. I just can’t contribute to that.”

When pressed for more information about her daily eating habits, Willoughby’s response was blunt and to the point.

“I love food,” she said. “It’s a celebration, something to be talked over, shopped for, cooked and enjoyed.”

The issue of extreme dieting is so prevalent that the British Dietetic Association (BDA) recently released a list of potentially harmful diets we’re likely to be exposed to in 2018.

“If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” warned spokesperson Sian Porter.

The regimes include the now ubiquitous Raw Vegan diet, the “Alkaline diet”, a range of supplements from Katie Price, the “Pioppi diet” and the “Ketogenic diet” – all of which involve restricting certain types of food.

And, addressing the issue during an interview with stylist.co.uk earlier this year, Eve Simmons, co-editor of Not Plant Based, a site designed to “alleviate food anxieties using medical experts and qualified dieticians”, said that she’s “constantly approached” by young women “desperately seeking recovery in a world which scares them off the food that they are trying to reconnect with”.

“Despite their commitment to recovery and how far they have come, it’s a constant battle to navigate their way through these toxic and, more often than not, inaccurate messages,” she revealed, adding that the ‘weight-loss industry’ is “potentially hugely damaging to everyone - not just those who suffer or may be vulnerable to developing an eating disorder.”

We can only hope that, with Chopra joining all those women in the public eye prepared to challenge body-shaming and the media’s obsession with weight, that the narrative will be changed soon.

Image: Getty