Nine-year-olds are dieting, as the Slan survey proved. Many parents of girls in this age group, particularly, are concerned that their daughters are worried about their weight. Almost always, the girls are fit and normal weight, yet they think they look "fat". There doesn't seem to be much that parents can do, because messages to be slim are in the ether around us.

Jacqueline Wilson's Girls Under Pressure is a novel about this issue.

Shortlisted for two major British children's book awards, Girls Under Pressure has got excellent reviews. But I'm worried about the book, because it's basically a how-to-guide on how to develop an eating disorder. All the behaviour is chronicled in detail. The starvation, the binge-eating, the throwing up in the bathroom, the laxative abuse. Anorexia and bulimia are life-threatening. They are not competitive sports, as some teenage girls seem to think.

Girls Under Pressure has an overtly positive message. The main character Ellie, tries desperately to be thinner. She learns that this is a mistake when her friend Zoe ends up in a hospital ward after suffering a heart attack due to anorexia. After visiting Zoe in hospital, Ellie decides not to be like her. She goes home to a meal, lovingly prepared by her mother, and announces to her family: "It's OK. I'm not going to hide bits in my lap. I'm not going to spit it in my hankie. I'm not going to make myself sick." Her father says, "Thank God! I can't believe you're eating." Unfortunately, overcoming an eating disorder isn't that easy. The rational decision that Ellie makes is all too difficult for girls who actually have eating disorders. This makes the book's message misleading - that you can play with having an eating disorder and everything will be okay in the end.