Naval gazing, By Anne H. Putnam: Book review

This is a no-holds-barred account of weight gain, weight loss and all the psychological torments in between – from the trauma of wearing a swimming costume or not being able to zip up a garment in a shop changing room, to being seen as invisible by boys as a 20-stone teenager.

Putnam's intimate memoir raises the stakes with the most intimate and eye-watering detail on what it means to grow up being very, very big in a world that despises fatness.

She charts the minutiae from early podginess to gastric-band surgery aged 17, followed by rampant romances and at last, an uneasy peace.