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Want an insight into the life of a crazed Body Gossip? Follow Ruth on Twitter as she counts down the days to the biggest night of her life - 29th March 2009, the first ever Body Gossip performance. Find Ruth on Twitter - her name is BodyGossipRuth. And hear about the celebrity updates, the highs and lows, the frustrations and joys of a busy Body Gossiper... Ooh - and tickets for Body Gossip are now on sale, buy them here: www.bodygossip.eventbrite.com And don't forget - keep sending your stories in, the Body Gossip National Writing Competition is STILL OPEN! Events will be happening all through 2009, and YOUR story about your BODY could be chosen to be performed by a CELEBRITY! If you want to get in touch, go to Contact Us and say hello! Love, Ruth x

The time has come - it's really happening.  Body Gossip no.1 is GO!  March 29th 2009 at The Hub in London.  And Ruth is a very happy bunny (with the longest To Do list in the world...)

After 2 and a half years of plugging away, freezing on red carpets, cornering celebrities, long drives to Edinburgh, lugging a sofa across the country, cold calling celebrity agents, annoying celebrity agents, making friends with celebrity agents, visiting amazing schools, meeting incredibly generous people, and BEST OF ALL receiving HUNDREDS of real stories about real bodies written by YOU...

...after all that...

...Body Gossip is HAPPENING!

The 15 winners of Body Gossip no.1 are:

Athena Stevens - Sarah Wallace - Lisa Parry - Emily Holdsworth - Sophie McKenzie - Lynsey Bowes - Abigail Graham - Susan Hemming - Stephen Wall - Charlie Whitworth - Tracey Hammet - Megan Ford - Laura Nation - Aisling Bea - Delys Phillips

The celebrity cast list will be announced shortly - but it's VERY exciting!

The Competition is STILL OPEN - this is just the first Body Gossip event.  There will be MORE so please keep writing your stories and sending them in - submit them in The Competition on the website.

And don't be a stranger - get in touch, write on our wall, tell your friends about Body Gossip - the show written by YOU about YOUR BODIES, celebrating REALISTIC BEAUTY!

Today I read something that scared me to my (healthy and well-protected) bones. "Size Zero is back." After all the brilliant progress that we have seen recently - Size 16 model Chloe Marshall winning Miss Surrey and entering the Miss England finals in July (Go Chloe!), the work of the Model Healthy Inquiry and Beat (Eating Disorders Assn) at London Fashion Week, the Dove campaigns, the Nivea campaigns, Marks & Spencers introducing size 12 mannequins (bring on the size 14 as well!). I thought people were beginning to wise up! I thought that FINALLY healthy, realistic beauty was being accepted, celebrated even. But then you get Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail bitching about the beautiful, curvy, healthy Princess Beatrice. She's backed up by Julia Hartley Brewer on Richard & Judy. And now I read in the Observer (08.06.08) that the dreaded size zero is once again flaunting its bones, & I shiver at the thought of how many young people will suffer. So I do the only thing I can do right now - shout about BODY GOSSIP. Size Zero threatens the health of young people by portraying a devastatingly dangerous form of beauty - women and men with their bones poking out their shoulders, young girls who no longer have their periods, people who are fainting, losing their hair, even DYING. BODY GOSSIP does the opposite. It celebrates the REAL stories about REAL people's BODIES- the beautiful bumps, the cute curves, the marvelous man boobs and the brilliant bums! If Size Zero is BACK - then Body Gossip needs to get BIGGER! Go to www.bodygossip.org and get involved in this extraordinary campaign! Write your story about your body, tell your friends, write on my Bebo page, find 'Sofa Sogood' on facebook and be our friend! LET'S START A BODY REVOLUTION!

OK OK I know she's royalty, but I think I'm allowed to talk about Princess Beatrice's bottom for just a second, seeing as journalist Allison Pearson and Julia Hartley Brewer seem so obsessed with it. Am I allowed to get damn angry for a minute? Allison Pearson wrote in the Daily Mail that Princess Beatrice should wear a sarong, rather than show off her beautiful curves in a bikini. WHAT?? How dare this journalist publically slag off a 19 year old young woman who has a NORMAL body. She's not only unfairly criticising Princess Beatrice. She's also giving a damn right DAMAGING and CRUEL message to young people everywhere - she's suggesting that curves are wrong and that we should all starve ourselves. I'd go so far as to say that people like Allison Pearson are contributing to the rise of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. She's causing young people all over the world to starve themselves to death in persuit of "perfection". But what is this "perfection"? Forcing their bodies into a shape that isn't natural for them? To me, Princess Beatrice looks like a healthy, beautiful woman - and for that I celebrate her, because she's being REAL. Did you know that if a woman had the dimensions of a shop mannequin, she wouldn't menstruate. Is this what you want Allison Pearson? If I could meet that woman, I'd tell her that everyone has a natural, healthy body shape. Princess Beatrice has hers, I have mine, you have yours. If we're healthy, eat well and exercise in moderation, we'll see our healthy, natural body looking at us in the mirror. And it's bloody hideous that an ignorant journalist, out to sell her column, is willing to criticise Beatrice's natural, healthy body - she's only perpetuating a problem that's already killing too many young people. You want my advice? Love your NATURAL body. It's yours, and it's up to you how long you live with it - starve yourself to keep Allison Pearson happy, and you won't be around for long. Love, a very angry Ruth

Hey, really exciting news - the Body Gossip sofa has been invited to the Alternative Fashion Week in London's Spitalfields Market next week - 21-25 April. I'm really excited, because the Alternative Fashion Week looks AWESOME - check it out at www.alternativearts.co.uk ALSO Chloe Marshall, the fantastic, beautiful, size 16 supermodel, is 100% on board with Body Gossip and I'm really looking forward to chatting to her about all the ways that she wants to support our Body Gossip campaign! Love, Ruth x

The singer Sandi Thom and actress Sarah Jayne Dunn (who played Mandy in Hollyoaks!) are confirmed as judges for the Bebo Body Gossip National Writing Competition! They're both really looking forward to reading YOUR stories about your bodies and body image. Look out for their video blogs - coming SOON! Love, Ruth x

To celebrate the LAUNCH of the BEBO NATIONAL WRITING COMPETITION on Friday, I went to the Voyager School in Peterborough and met years 11, 12 and 13 - I told them all about Body Gossip, and some of the students wrote on my sofa - they wrote some AMAZING things, and it was a really successful day. We filmed it, and the video will be HERE very soon! I'm chuffed to have heard from loads of the students already on Bebo - please keep the love comin'! And everyone - spread the Body Gossip love, tell all your friends, don't be a stranger - say hi on Bebo! And enter the writing competition - get writing, get sharing, get celebrating! Love, Ruth x

Hey, and thanks for coming to the Body Gossip website! I'm really excited to welcome you to this site, which is the result of nearly two years' work - and we're still only at the beginning!

Let me tell you a little bit about Team Body Gossip.

I'm the Body Gossip Mum, having lived and breathed it since I had the idea in August 2006. I was living in New York, studying at the New York Film Academy, and I became really aware of how body image was affecting so many people - I became very conscious of my own body and how, as an actor and presenter, I was expected to look a certain way.

Back in the UK, I decided to create a show about body image - and how it affects all of us. I'm hooked on how empowering the script is going to be - real people celebrating their REALISTIC beauty, their HEALTHY, NATURAL beauty. That's exciting, that's groundbreaking, that's powerful.

So, from August 2006 I signed my life away to Body Gossip - and since then it's been often joyous, sometimes frustrating, but always interesting!

And joining me on my Body Gossip journey are my two Main Dudes, Ben Scriven and Mark Johnson - aka Absolute Legends. Both Ben and Mark have coaxed, cajoled and inspired me, and I think they both rock excessively.

Mark is my extremely clever, massively talented, well-connected, dashingly handsome and ice cool Ideas Machine - all that, AND he has a full-time job!

Ben is my best mate and The Man Who Can Do Everything - he's directed and edited AND written and performed the music for all the Body Gossip films you'll see on this site and on Bebo over the next few weeks, AND he took the fab pictures on this website - clever guy huh?

So that's us - we're a small team, but we've got big ideas.

Keep checking this site over the next few weeks - the first phase of the writing competition is launching on Bebo on 28th February 2008, and will run until 28th March 2008.

There'll be new videos uploaded every few days, and I'll be blogging regularly with updates.

And please enter the writing competition! I can't wait to start reading your stories.

Love, Ruth x