The chances are you’ve probably heard that Jessica Simpson has gained a little weight. Not a colossal amount. Not even a lot. Just a little weight on the hips and thighs she once flaunted in a pair of denim hot pants.

For the average woman, putting on a few pounds doesn’t lead to international headlines and global debate. But seeing another woman pilloried over her double chin does make you feel a little self-conscious of your own imperfections.

The media’s focus on the female physique is far from a new phenomenon. Throughout the history of popular culture, the body shapes of famous women have been scrutinised and celebrated in equal measure from Marilyn Monroe’s hourglass curves to Kate Moss’s willowy limbs.

Yet today’s obsession with body size appears to be more intense than ever before with magazines, newspapers and TV shows bombarding us with diet plans, exercise regimes and tips on how to nip, tuck and suck our way to that ‘perfect’ body.

And for one woman, the time has come to stage what she’s branded, a beauty revolution.

Ruth Rogers, a 28-year old actress and TV presenter from Hackney, has single-handedly launched Body Gossip, a writing and theatre project which aims to tackle the nation’s views about body image and challenges the media’s portrayal of unrealistic beauty.

It was while studying acting in New York that the issue first came to Ruth’s attention. She had been spending time with a group of young actresses who, despite being wafer thin, confessed that they felt- and were often told- that they were too fat to be successful.

“Apart from the usual teenaged angst, I had never really experienced negative feelings about my body,” Ruth says. “But I was spending time with people who were gorgeous, talented and intelligent but utterly obsessed with being thin.

“For the first time in my life, I found myself watching what I ate. When I went to auditions, casting directors would openly tell me I needed to lose ten pounds to even be considered for the role. I became convinced that I would have to lose a significant amount of weight if I was ever going to make it.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I developed an eating disorder, but I certainly came close. I was surviving on pineapple and sushi and feeling dreadful. It got to a point where I thought; what on earth am I doing to myself? Why am I being made to feel this way about my own body?”

On returning to the UK, Ruth was so infuriated by the immense pressure to conform to a physical ideal, she felt compelled to take action.

She launched a writing competition on social networking site Bebo, inviting women to submit their thoughts about their bodies to be performed by celebrities to raise money for Beat, the Eating Disorders Association.

The response was overwhelming with the vast majority of entries submitted by 16-25- year old women battling with eating disorders. The youngest entrant was a 12-year old girl who wrote the short story, ‘My Anorexia Problem’.

Shockingly, the girl reveals that her aspirations to become an anorexic are thwarted by the fact that she loves food too much to give it up.

“So that’s my anorexia problem,” She concludes. “The fact that I can’t be anorexic.”

Using a combination of PR contacts and sheer determination, Ruth managed to pull together a cast of 15 UK celebrities to perform the winning entries including Eastenders actress Natalie Cassidy and reality TV star and former anorexic Nikki Grahame.

Three years after her initial idea, the event was held on 29th March at the Hub theatre, London to a sell out audience. The performances were simple and stripped down; no costumes, no stage make-up, just the actor and the story.

An integral part of the Body Gossip message is the media’s exacerbation of society’s body image issues. While she is not of the opinion that the media causes eating disorders, Ruth does believe that it perpetuates the problem.

“Now more than ever there seems to be this media obsession with weight and size and appearance. When you’ve got magazines printing pictures of celebrities with a ‘circle of shame’ pin-pointing their cellulite or their double chin, it’s no wonder that girls feel under pressure.

“It’s the hypocrisy of it that infuriates me. One week the headline will be ‘Jessica Simpson piles on the pounds’ when she’s barely a size twelve, the next they’ll be naming and shaming celebrities they believe to be too thin.”

But is it fair to blame the media entirely? Arguably, they are merely providing what their audience appears to have an unquenchable thirst for. If people didn’t buy the magazines and pour over the photographs, then surely the interest would dwindle?

“Of course we buy into it all,” Ruth says. “It’s right there in front of us and young, impressionable girls are obviously going to look at other girls’ figures and draw comparisons with their own. But the media need to realise that this is happening. They need to understand their social responsibility.”

So is there such a thing as a positive body role model? Celebrities like Kelly Brook and Beyonce may be heralded as possessing the type of body it’s okay to aspire to but should we really be trying to achieve another person’s shape and size?

“I think it’s fine to admire the figure of someone else; it’s when people try and be something that they’ll never be that the problems start,” Ruth says. “The important thing is to recognise what your natural, healthy body should be like and go with that. Eat well; exercise; stay healthy and above all, be natural.”

Ruth’s mission to change the way we view our body image does not end here. She has another showing of Body Gossip on the 10th May and the writing competition remains open for people to submit their feelings about their bodies. Next she’s got her sights set on the USA, in particular LA, the city where the skinny celebrity phenomenon was spawned.

Whether Ruth’s beauty revolution can even scratch the surface on such a powerful force remains to be seen. But if nothing else, she’s making an admirable start.

Tickets for the next performance of Body Gossip on Sunday 10th May 2009 at the Hub Theatre, Kings Cross, London, are on sale now.

http://www.bodygossip.org