Sticking to a diet required me to have a permanently low self-esteem. But happily, I developed other skills beyond a fluctuating weight, eventually building up a different source of self-worth.

My dad was a diplomat and after living in America, where I was born, he was posted to Cairo.

When popularity is your only goal, doing well in class is going to feature very low, if at all, on your priority list.

I would like it to be a legal requirement for all businesses to be linked to a charity.

Society prizes a girl for being thin more than anything else she might bring to the table.

There is so much that is positive, wonderful even, about state schools. At a state school your kids will learn to live alongside and appreciate other kids from many diverse and different cultures.

I don't think I've got the expertise with which to nit-pick, and I freely admit that my motivation to support charities has been emotional, rather than as a result of being particularly well informed as to how the money is used.