The catwalks are suddenly full of 'traditional' womanly shapes, complete with nipped-in waists. In the real world, women are losing their curves and looking more like men. What's going on, asks Mimi Spencer.

One day we detox, the next we binge. One week it's the organic veg box, the next it's a KFC bucket. And if we're now a nation of foodies how come we spend more than ever on fast food? Have we all got mad chow disease, asks Mimi Spencer.

Raw food, this season's hot chef and the return of teatime. Mimi Spencer reveals the new culinary trends of summer.

Shopping locally for seasonal food might be nutritious and kind to the environment, but doesn't it depend too much on a love of radishes and rhubarb? Mimi Spencer trawled her neighbourhood for a week.

Save the Botox money - the ladies who lunch are now tucking into seven carefully constructed courses.

Christmas food was once piled high in the larder - now it's there under the tree. Enter the 'designer' edible gift ...

They don't diet and they don't spend hours panting round the gym. So how can French women put away as much ice-cream, rich pastries and steak frites as they want and yet stay so slim? Mimi Spencer gets her teeth into the 'French paradox', which has baffled the world's best scientific brains for a decade.

Tarts are cool - as long as you made them with your own damson preserves. Welcome to the New Domesticity.

It's fast, it's cheap and it's sweet. Dating New York style lasts no longer than a plate of petit fours.

Mimi Spencer's fashion plate: There are many reasons for hating summer, and barbecues incorporate just about all of them.