Who can forget those photographs of a skeletal-looking Teri Hatcher jogging through Hollywood with weights in both hands and bones protruding-through her skin? Actress Kate Hudson, in a quest to shed the five stone she gained while pregnant with son Ryder, admitted to working out up to three hours daily for three months.

To prepare for her role as the sexy Daisy Duke, Jessica Simpson worked out for two hours a day, six days a week. Justin Gelband says: “You can get addicted. Unless you’re a professional athlete, you don’t need to do more than one-and-a-half hours a day to get a great result.”

Amber Kenain, general manager at Crunch gym in Hollywood, a celeb favorite, told Glamour magazine: “There’s one singer-actress who works out at my gym for about five hours a day, even on weekends. She spent her birthday here.” Peterson admits: “To be fair, a lot of the top women are doing the right things: eating healthy and exercising, but not obsessively. It’s the up-and-comers who I see going to crazy extremes.”

He adds: “Forget trying to look like a celebrity - look at you. The reality is, the girl that’s ten pounds overweight but loves her body is winning against the girl who is underweight but hates herself. “There’s no straight guy in the world who knows the difference between a size 14 and a size 4.”