Women decide to lose weight for two basic reasons: to get thin, and to improve their health. Both reasons can be valid, but people take the first one to such a ridiculous extreme that it negates the second.

Just as some women's obesity can place them at risk for some heavy duty conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, other women's obsessive desires to be thin jeopardise their health (and sometimes, their lives).

Take a moment to analyse the reasons why you want to lose weight. If you reckon that by being supermodel thin will guarantee happiness, think again. But being the right weight - that is, the right weight for you - can make you look and feel better and reduce your risk of some chronic diseases later in your life.

The easiest way to determine whether you're overweight or not, is to determine your body mass index, or BMI.