Kate Ferdinand’s latest act reveals a truth about her and all other women like her. I’ve had enough: JENNI MURRAY

Goodness, I find the pictures of Kate Ferdinand in her bikini and exceptionally short skirts in the recent edition of Women’s Health magazine profoundly irritating. The former reality TV star and mother of two, who is married to football pundit Rio Ferdinand, has a wonderful figure at 34 – the kind I would die for – but did she have to say she worries about women being under pressure to use fat jabs?

‘I know a lot of people who do them, and if it makes them happier, then great,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s become this thing where the woman who doesn’t want to jab feels pressure to do so because everyone else is. And it can feel harder for them to do things in the natural way – to exercise and eat well – because it takes so much longer and the results aren’t as immediate.’

Kate, why can’t you see that the real pressure comes from women like you flaunting your figures in magazines? For those of us who don’t have your slender body naturally, fat jabs represent an amazing medical advance. 

I spent years of trying everything there is – Weight Watchers, Atkins, Dukan, cabbage soup etc. – as well as a gastric operation that left me £10,000 out of pocket, but nothing fixed my obesity. I was 16-and-a-half stone a year ago and felt enormous relief when I began to inject myself in the stomach with Mounjaro.

My choice – and I was full of hope.

This week I was weighed by my astonished doctor: ‘10st, 1lb!’ she gasped.

I haven’t weighed so little since I was a mere slip of a thing at university.

Since when did women who look like Kate feel they have the right to criticise the efforts of those of us who don’t? We’ve been working hard on our bodies for years. Don’t begrudge us what may look like an easy way out but is really a miracle we’ve chosen for ourselves. Under no pressure.

The real reason so many women aren’t having babies? Men! 

I was 33 when I found I was pregnant and was assured by the doctor that, after the first three months had passed successfully, I was likely to carry to term.

A year earlier, an ectopic pregnancy – where the foetus grows dangerously in the fallopian tube – had left me bereft: the operation I had resulted in me losing the tube and, of course, the foetus. So, I was deliriously happy that this time the doctor had given me – and the child I so longed for – the OK.

My delight, however, was tempered by anxiety. I wanted a child. My biological clock had been ringing an alarm bell, warning me not to leave it too late but, at the same time, my excitement was tinged with fear. I’d worked very hard since joining the BBC. First in local radio and now as a reporter and presenter in Southampton on the evening regional news programme, South Today. But I was not on the staff – presenters never were. As a freelancer with only yearly contracts, would my career survive a baby?

How would my loving partner and I manage without both salaries? What would happen to the career I’d fought for and loved?

This was 1983 and I’d seen so many friends forced to give up their jobs when they became mothers, ending up as the parent expected to stay at home and look after the the child. Men never seemed to think childcare was their responsibility.

Life changed dramatically for women who chose to raise a family. No salary, no exciting work colleagues to keep the brain in gear, no work apart from changing nappies, cleaning the house and trying to converse with a tiny creature who didn’t yet speak.

I’d seen former colleagues out of their minds with love for their little person, yet it was clear that, for women, babies radically restricted their lives. Men, meanwhile, seemed to carry on just as they had before children came along.

I wish I could say things have improved in the 43 years since then. They haven’t. It’s still the woman who ends up doing the lion’s share of the childcare. There are many more women working in demanding and exciting jobs than there were all those years ago, but the ones who go ahead and have children often find their lives change completely.

Is this why a substantial number of women are now putting their foot down and saying ‘no’ to motherhood? I was at a party recently with a small group of friends of my age. Several of their children had come along too – now young adults around their late 20s to early 30s.

I’d known most of them since they were little, knew how hard they’d worked at school and university and that they all had very good jobs. Two were lawyers expected to work ridiculously long hours. One was a doctor trying to be accepted as a surgeon in the health service – still tough for a woman apparently. A couple were teachers, full of stories about the nightmare teenagers can be but also proud of the young people they’d taught who had flown off to the best universities.

None of the three couples had children of their own and none of them had an urge to have them.

Of course, I went into interviewer mode. Yes, they were aware of the ticking clock telling them not to leave it too late. But they were determined their minds would not be changed by biology or by pestering parents who longed for grandchildren.

Each of them – men and women – expressed horror at what they saw going on in the world right now. The threat of war filled them with anxiety. I tried to make them see reason. That humanity would somehow survive and people had always had children no matter how hard their surroundings.

But they dismissed my old lady’s wisdom and said it wasn’t only the big, scary events that made them reluctant to breed.

No, it was personal. How would they manage financially if one of them had to give up their job for a child? How would they afford it? They all knew childcare was an expensive business.

The women in particular were determined motherhood was not for them. They loved their jobs and the pleasure good money could buy. They were not going to give up any of that. Why on earth should they after all their hard work? And there was no indication that the men would be happy to step up instead.

It is surely fears like these that are causing the terrifyingly low birthrate across the Western world: in the UK it’s currently 1.56 children per woman, far lower than the 2.1 essential for a sustainable population. Some countries are trying to rectify the problem by targeting women. Hungary charges no income tax to a woman with three children.

Russia’s heavy-handed and frankly creepy policies include offering £1,000 to pregnant women under 25 (some regions have extended this to schoolgirls), restricting access to abortion and stigmatising the child-free.

In France this week, letters were sent to all 29-year-olds reminding them that fertility diminishes after 30 – as if women didn’t already know that – and that they should get on with it.

This is a pester I suspect many will ignore. The ticking clock is a trope modern women live with – if they’re not being reminded of it by relatives, they’re being bombarded with ads for egg freezing.

Perhaps a letter just to men might be more effective, telling them not to leave it too late. Indeed the only UK statistic that shows a rise in the number of people becoming parents is among (very much) older men.

Since 2023, there has been a 14.2 per cent increase in births to fathers aged over 60. Not a good age for the endless night feeds, nappy changes or sheer tedium of the playground.

Most important in my view is that we create effective paternity leave and give young men a chance to get to know their children, inspire them to want to be an active parent. Sharing responsibility for work and home life with the mother is the best way to relieve the burden women see when they think about having a family. Cheaper childcare might be promised, too.

What I would have liked to communicate to the young people at the party is that having children should not be bypassed if it’s at all possible.

Nothing has given me more pleasure and joy than the two boys I thought might ruin my career. They didn’t. We managed – and they’ve always made me feel more alive than anything.

The snowdrops are in bloom all over my garden. Pure white cheeriness in all this gloom. Spring can’t be far behind. 

Skirts have no place in school

In the next academic year dozens of schools in Wales and the north of England are banning school skirts and telling everyone, boys and girls, to wear trousers.

It’s part of an equality policy. What a good idea. No rolling your skirt over the top to make it shorter and flash a bit more leg and no boys trying to see a girl’s knickers.

Excellent. Both sexes starting life on an equal footing.

My local hospital and GP surgery have become second homes to me in recent weeks. Lots of attention needed to eyes, ankles, heart and back. But a scan showed my brain is working fine. Now I know why. Scientists have found that three cups of coffee a day lowers the risk of dementia. I’ll have another strong latte, please.