My friend Big Fred is always at me to have a girlie night with him. We will do each other’s hair and nails and watch old movies. I tell him that he’s picked the wrong girl. I chew my nails and haven’t had polish on them since the brush slipped trying to paint the dog’s claws one Halloween.

‘Then we’ll do your toes,’ he persists.

Fred himself has beautiful feet and toes which he paints in a dazzling array of colours in his own personal nail salon. At last count there were over a hundred and fifty choices.

‘Nah, I say, ungratefully. I like my toes just as they come, thanks.’

Then it suddenly dawns on me the real reason he is so keen to have a girl’s night in.

‘You want to show off all those new clothes you bought!’

‘I need someone to tell me what goes with what,’ he admits.

Recently Fred went on the world’s biggest shopping spree for ladies clothes – literally. Chasing up large women’s clothing for sale online he ran across an intriguing advertisement.

A woman who had once been a size 36 had shed a ton and was now a size 12 .

She was selling her big gal wardrobe. And a lot of it was his size.

Big Fred nearly broke his ankles high-tailing it to her door.

She told him she’d lost the weight by taking up smoking.

‘How did she look?’ I wanted to know.

‘Bloody awful.  About 90’

‘Well…90…’

‘She was only 50.’

It got me thinking about eating.

I recalled an article by Christie Brinkley’s daughter on eating cookies. Her mother had watched one day as she was about to hoe into one – and snatched it out of her hand.

‘THIS is how you eat a cookie,’ she told her, putting it in her mouth, chewing it —-then spitting it into the trash. 

What a lousy thing to do a perfectly good cookie. Let alone your daughter.

I once knew a clinical psychologist with a patient who weighed as much as the Liberty Bell. And then she joined Weight Watchers. A year later she had shed the overload, was sleek and svelte and had been made poster girl of the year.

To his amazement within a very short time she had put it all back on.  This time they wired her jaw shut leaving just enough room for a straw. She was determined to get back to being the little cutie.

When she failed to turn up for any appointments he grew worried and went to her home. The door was opened by a morbidly obese man. Her husband. Her very jealous husband. 

Coming down the stairs was the patient. She had a pair of wire cutters in her hand and was trying to wrench the wire from her jaw.

Turned out she wasn’t the problem at all. It had nothing to do with eating. The husband was making her life miserable. Convinced that she was losing weight to meet new – thin – men he went berserk every time the scale tipped the wrong way. She needed to get back to being Mrs Fatty to keep the peace.

Years later in a California desert town a friend and I watched an extraordinary sight in a Walmart car park. An enormous woman was having trouble squeezing herself through the car door to the hilarity of her whole family who were already buckled in and ready to hit the road.

But the solution was a mere scoop away. A can of Crisco was produced and the little kids oiled mama up as the others hooted and hollered and she rolled around laughing. Clearly this wasn’t the first time.

Then with much shoving by the whole gang followed by a huge sucking sound like the water going down the plughole she plopped right on into the car.

No wired up jaws or snatched cookies in that household.  Just big mama and a whole lotta love and Crisco.        

Big Fred is happy to be big. He doesn’t want to be Small Fred. He loves his curves and loves that ladies’ fashion caters to them. He also loves his food and is a good cook.

When we have our girlie night – I have promised to rustle up some girls who love makeup – he will make sure there are plenty of cookies on hand –and I can guarantee him that not one will end up in the trash.