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Tasteless telly

Scary media nutritionist Gillian McKeith has now fallen in with the Big Brother school of reality TV. It’s clear that in order to sustain her bizarre shows, she has to ratchet up the level of extremism with every series. Not content with sending people off for colonic irrigation and sniffing their excrement, she’s taken to dramatising their eating habits in ways that are increasingly macabre.

You are what you eat (Gillian moves in) is a misnomer, as it’s actually other people who move in to the home of the programme’s mung bean munching host. She has a posh gaff – looks like Islington or somewhere – and unfortunate victims waddle slowly up her stairs to be berated for their eating habits.

Last night, one of the Essex girls chosen for the experiment was shown a life-sized coffin decorated to look like a choc ice. Inside was the quantity of ice cream that she supposedly scoffed during the course of a year. To describe this stunt as tasteless would be far kinder to Gillian than she deserves, although I suppose we do have to be fair about all this. The lady selected to pay her respects in the graveyard did manage to get through four Cornettos a day, which is definitely going some. I’m guessing one for breakfast, one for lunch and two for dinner? Or are they just little pick-me-ups for elevenses and so on?

What will happen, do you think, when Jade pays a visit in You are what you eat (Gillian moves in with celebrities)? If the show’s not already in development, I want a namecheck and a very fat fee. What McKeith would call a ‘morbidly obese’ fee, in fact.

Gillian McKeith reviewed by the Guardian's Bad Science column:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1285600,00.html

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