I THOUGHT I was normal until I watched a TV programme earlier this month.

That programme was The Truth About Size Zero.

The idea seemed commendable enough: TV personality Louise Redknapp does a bit of investigative journalism about the horrors of the stick-thin culture by undertaking an extreme crash diet and exercise regime in an attempt to drop to a US dress size zero in just 30 days.

Yet it's going to take much longer than that to stop me reeling from the programme's multiple flaws. And longer still for some people with eating disorders to dismiss the "trigger effect" it may have instilled.

Throughout the course of the 30 days Louise did indeed appear to become more miserable, unhealthy and lacklustre as a result of her "boot camp" regime of tiny portions and exhaustive exercise.

But come on, to be seen lauding her new, trim figure would have surely been something of a public relations faux pas. (In subsequent interviews she actually said she began liking the feeling of being thinner.) And I'm sure being tired and grumpy wouldn't be enough to put some people off attempting similar weight loss - despite the TV doctor vehemently stressing that her approach was unhealthy. After all, people know the risks of smoking, for example, but still they do it.

Then there was the styling.

You only have to look at any make-over programme to see that the "before" pictures tend to show a hunched, unsmiling creature while the after pictures, to add that much-needed contrast, include the obligatory beaming grin.

This time we had the opposite. Before diet, Louise was shown all groomed and glossed, probably thanks to an hour or so in make-up. The after photos had no such treatment. But let's face it, who exactly does look their best with hair scraped back sans slap?

I bet she could have looked great as a size zero with the right lighting and make-up. Or am I being cynical?

While many people are praising Louise for her gutsy approach, others are criticising the programme for making waifism appear so achievable. Indeed, the footballer's wife is now being held up by anorexics as a role model, who thank her for the "tips" on how to lose all those inches so quickly.

But one of my biggest bugbears is the number of times the word "curvy" was used to describe the size eight starlet.

Forgive me. Dawn French is curvy, Jennifer Lopez could perhaps be described so. Sophie Dahl a few years ago maybe. But not Louise Redknapp, surely?

Alarm bells started to ring when she looked at her tiny pre-diet frame and lamented how she looked as though she needed to lose weight.

I remember a time when a size eight figure was considered skinny. And as a woman whose wardrobe contains mainly size 12 clothes, I'd always considered myself smaller than the size 16 average.

After this programme, for perhaps the first time in my life, I felt disproportionately large.

Yes, I felt like I had to lose weight. And this is coming from someone with - as my colleagues will testify - a very rounded appreciation of food.

So what effect it had on other, more vulnerable, folk is anyone's guess.