This was an article in the news on 18 October 2007.
In the media spotlight: Kate told her mother she has been persecuted because she is too skinny
Kate McCann looks exactly like most of the mothers I see waiting at school gates near where I live: casually-dressed, pleasantly dishevelled, with a lithe prettiness which is miles from made-up glamour.
Without the central tragedy of her life, would you give her a second glance in the street? If you did, you'd probably think in passing: 'She looks nice.'
Yet Kate McCann this week told her mother that she believes she has been persecuted because of the way she looks. That she has been portrayed as a bad parent because she is slim, and doesn't look like a comfortably rounded hausfrau cutting cookies with one hand while a baby is glued to her ample bosom.
Apparently she said: 'If I weighed another two stone, had a bigger bosom and looked more maternal, people would be more sympathetic.'
Can this be true? We live in the Yummy Mummy era, when glamour and mumsiness are allowed to stroll hand-in-hand down the high street, and countless columnists have called into question the old stereotypes of capable 'Fifties, pinnyclad motherhood'.
Hence the 'slummy mummy' who muddles along, makes mistakes and knows a dash of lipstick will make her feel better.
And for most of us, it's all just fine. We live in a tolerant age when we don't demand conformity to the stereotypes any more.
But perhaps - given Mrs McCann's comments this week - some of us do.
Certainly it's very hard to untangle the issue of looks and behaviour, since what we are like is partly expressed in how we look.
We have to analyse Kate McCann's heartfelt outburst in relation first to her experience in Portugal, and then to how it's been for her since she returned home.
