Ariana Grande's Latest Video Sparks Concern Over Influence on Young Girls

Mummy, if I eat these will my tummy get big?’ My eight-year-old daughter was holding three chocolate mini eggs in her hand, looking at them with such suspicion that they might have been calorific grenades.

How I hate these moments when I realise that despite all my efforts to shield my three daughters (the others are aged five and two) from the tyranny of female beauty, somehow the message they have absorbed is unequivocal: it is better for girls to be slim, pretty and delicate.

I have built all the barricades I can against this idea. Not once have I uttered the f-word (fat) or c-word (calorie) around them. Their dollies are squidgy fabric things, not wasp-waisted Barbies. As for being their role model, every day they watch me chucking crisps down my neck without a care.