10 Years Younger, Thursday 8pm, Channel 4

Posted by Alan Tyers

Our rating:
I sat down to watch this while eating dinner but was soon able to give it my full attention once I had completely lost my appetite.

This happened just a few seconds in to 10 Years Younger: Summer Special when we first heard the phrase "flaps of excess skin".

Said rolls of flesh belonged to Ruth, a 34-year-old charity manager and mum of three who had recently lost nine and a half stone due to fat reduction surgery, leaving her with baggy, flappy skin where the fat used to be.

It was not a pretty sight.

Ruth had spent her life being bullied by people for her appearance and had now agreed to be bullied by Nicky Hambleton-Jones and a team of experts (plastic surgeon, hairdresser, dental surgeon) who sucked their teeth and prodded her like a cowboy builder assessing a damp loft conversion.

"It'll cost you, love," was the consensus. "We'll have to order the parts."

Basically, you know the drill. Topicality was provided by Ruth's desire to get on the beach in a bikini ('cos it's currently summer, innit? Well, sort of) and 10 weeks was the imposed timeframe. A "before" poll of 100 beachgoers put her age at an ouchy 49.

The surgeons did their lifting and tucking and then we were on to the styling, with Nicky providing suitably poisonous assessments of Ruth's wardrobe, hair, taste, bearing and more or less anything that made her who she was.

Still, the end result was pretty sensational and the "after" poll guessed her age at 33. "Now I look just like everyone else," said Ruth happily. Seven other souls pursue that noble aim throughout the series.

Comments

[Wishing]

I am so happy for Ruth, I lived through every moment of the journey with her as if it were mine.
She did wonderfully well to loose all that weight and now with a little nip and tuck looks like a million dollars.
As as a result of an caesarean section I have covered up similar folds on my stomach for forty years.
The world met my beautiful son but my young body was mutilated and deformed by the surgeons in the process. I was told I should be pleased that we were both alive and the scars would fade. I am still waiting.
It is just wonderful that these specialists can work their magic and give Ruth and others renewed self confidence to face the world. Her husband and family must be delighted that she has emerged such a beautiful sexy woman.