The unspoken hazards women negotiate over eating and dieting

When women return to work after the long Easter weekend, you’d think they’d arrive in citrus colours, in keeping with the season. Or pastels. Or neons. 

Instead, many, in the next few days, will wear funereal black. Head to toe. That wardrobe choice dictated by the need to conceal the weight gain caused by a calorie-sodden Easter.

Easter used to be the great dietary jail-break weekend. You were SO good during Lent, never touching a chocolate — with the exception of St Patrick’s Day, which was a bit like getting out on parole — that the Easter weekend wasn’t long enough to celebrate sweet (literally) freedom.