MY advice to anyone considering diet pills is simple: Don’t do it. You could be risking your health and you’ll be kidding yourself if you think any weight loss will be lasting. I felt so sad this week when I read about Sarah Houston, from Leeds University, who died after taking a banned slimming drug called DNP. Sarah, 23, was a healthy medical student whose parents, brother and sister are all doctors.

She must have known the dangers of taking the banned pills – which have claimed 62 deaths worldwide – but she was able to buy it online, because it is also used as a pesticide. Combining DNP with an anti-depressant proved fatal.

I hate the whole culture of diet pills. Because desperate people are lured into thinking weight loss is something that can be achieved instantly with the help of a wonder cure or tablets.

Because of the internet we’ve become a generation who expect everything to be immediate but healthy weight loss doesn’t happen overnight.

Obesity is so much in the mind not the body. Pills are like diets, they don’t address why a person is fat in the first place. People need help to regain control of their eating, not pop a pill.  You need to change your relationship with food.

Some people undoubtedly see pills as the cheap option, but handing over £60 for a month’s supply of tablets will work out a lot more expensive in the long run than gym membership or healthier food.

Changing your lifestyle will producing permanent benefits. But popping pills is something you’ll do for ever – because if you stop you’ll put the weight back on.

The internet is full of adverts for “wonder” weight loss cures that claim to be able to make you lose huge amounts in a matter of weeks.  How do you know if the company you are buying from is a reputable and licensed one or just a back street, no questions asked one?

You don’t! You take a huge risk buying diet pills online. Please don’t let there be any more tragedies like Sarah’s.