ANGRY MOB

With it’s obsession with botox, removal of cellulite and bust enhancements (usually those of Victoria Beckham) as well as celebrities weight losses and gains - such as those of Kerry Katona, Trinny Woodall and Jessica Simpson - could it be that  the Daily Mail is playing a significant role in contributing to the increasing number of sufferers of  body dysmorphic disorder?

Hardly a day goes by without the Mail criticising one celebrity or another for either losing weight, putting on weight or losing their youthful looks.  Indirectly the criticisms are levelled not only at the celebrities but at the Daily Mail’s own readers who may be having similar weight or health problems. 

When it isn’t insinuating indirectly, via this criticism, that its readers are too thin, too fat, too old or in a recent coup ‘too hairy’ to be out in public, The Daily Mail uses a more direct approach:  that of churning out and endless stream of seemingly contradictory articles, which tell readers how they can improve their imperfect bodies, faces, and legs and informing them where they can get surgery or an alternative. 

It would be hard to find a part of the female body that hasn’t come under the critical scrutiny of  the Daily Mail.  In an effort to find one I conducted an online search for ‘knees’ and came up with some surprising results.  Knees, for most people are very useful joints - especially when it comes to walking and running around. They are not normally associated with love at first sight or of paramount importance when picking a partner.  We do not usually read or hear ‘He saw her knees across a crowded room and there and then he knew she was the one’.  However, judging by the number of references to knees in the Daily Mail search (3051), compared with just 48 in the Daily Express, (though admittedly some of these were references to injuries and sports articles) it would appear that they are considered, by the Mail, to be the single most telling part of the female physique.  By anybody’s standards, it would seem that the Daily Mail has a more than an unhealthy obsession with them.  I might add that none of the 48 references to ‘knees’ articles in the Express search contained criticisms of women’s legs.

Included in these articles on the first four pages of the search (there are over 300 pages!) were the following:

‘Kate Moss shows off Knobbly Knees on night out with lover’

‘Elle Mcpherson’s wrinkly knees give away her 44 years’

‘Nicollette Sheridan reveals her desperately knobbly knees’

'Does Eva Longoria have the worlds knobbliest knees?’

‘Paris shows off knobbly knees in shocking fashion faux pas’

'Scary Skinny:Nicky Hilton makes a show of her shocking knobbly knees’

'Posh’s  knobbly knees are the talk of New York'

'Mischa wins contest for knobbly knees'

'Why Kate's legs may no longer be the bee's knees'

'Nothing to shout about: Lulu's wrinkly knees reveal her real age'

'Pregnant ‘Jlo reveals her enormous bump and bulging knees'

'Even Nigella's famous décolletage can't distract from her jumbo knees'

And finally, halfway down page four of the search: 'As the new trend for shorts takes over the High Street, Liz asks, can anyone over the age of 18 REALLY wear hotpants? Yes, just avoid Lycra...and hide fat knees'; an article in which Liz Jones  tells Daily Mail readers that they should hide their fat knees at all costs this summer. Though interestingly, it includes a picture of a model whose legs and knees (if I’m not mistaken) appear to be as thin as those of Eva Longoria, Victoria Beckham and Trinny Woodall?

So is the Daily Mail contributing to the increase of Body Dysmorphic Disorder?  I’ll let you decide.