Pamela, you act as if it’s never occurred to Abigail to lose weight. Losing the weight isn’t going to give her wide hips, now, is it? She made it very clear that the problem is that she feels irrationally insecure. Why would her irrational insecurity suddenly vanish even if she does weight?

Do you have a problem with big people?

Abigail, rather than putting your energy into trying to be a shape you’ll probably never achieve, I think you’d be better off putting your energy into changing your attitude. This will be hard — possibly even as hard as permanently losing weight — but the rewards for your quality of life could be amazing. The method I would recommend is mindfulness meditation and gentle self-correction when you find these irrational thoughts coming up. But there are many other methods that can help overcome insecurity and poor self-image, like journalling, or therapy, or whatever.

Does your boyfriend love your body? Is he willing to help you out with this by confirming that every now and again, with compliments and the like? You shouldn’t depend on him for confirmation that you are lovable, but having his support could be a help.

All my best wishes.