SEX scandals and celebrity splits aside, nothing sends magazine editors scrambling for their cheque books faster than a fat star in a swimsuit.

Splashed across a double-page spread with a prominent pointer on the cover, the images - often captured by a paparazzo - will be given the full glossy treatment.

But nowhere within the confines of the accompanying story will you find the word "fat". It's been airbrushed out. Overweight and obese will also be conspicuously absent.

Instead, the article will be dripping with saccharine cliches congratulating the unwitting subject on her positive approach to body image, presumably demonstrated by her willingness to wear bathers to a public beach, and lauding her largesse.

Don't be fooled, though. The truth is that women's magazines hate fat stars. Indeed, they love to hate them - and it's big business.

Once derided for promoting unattainably thin body images, the weeklies have increasingly taken on with gusto the duty of recognising and celebrating "real women".

But as always in the competitive land of ladies' mags, the motive is Machiavellian and the term "real women" has become bloated with an unacknowledged sense of irony.

Step inside the hallowed halls of glossy magazines and you'll quickly discover the golden rule - that sex sells - has been usurped. It's now cellulite that sells and it sends editors into a frenzy of excitement and reaching for a thesaurus of full-figured euphemisms.

Overweight celebrities and reality TV stars are held up as modern-day role models, while the entertainment industry's former wallflowers are quickly becoming its most bankable assets, transforming former Big Brother contestant Chrissie Swan and MasterChef winner Julie Goodwin into unlikely covergirls in the process.Paparazzi pictures of a larger-than-life Libby Gore on a beach are run with stories espousing her bravery for embracing her fuller figure.

Similar shots of Nigella Lawson will be paired with an article about her being comfortable with her curves, while Magda Szubanski will be looking more vibrant than ever.

Whether any of these claims is actually true becomes irrelevant in the rush of celebration.

Having worked as news editor at a leading weekly in a former life, I lost count of the number of times these phrases flowed from my keyboard.

But despite the gushing platitudes, the praise is meaningless. The real reason magazines rush to fill their pages with pictures of plus-size people is because they believe it's what readers want to see, and that by showing them celebrity fat photos they will feel better about their own body issues and will be more likely to invest in another serve of glossy inspiration the following week.

The positive stories are merely an afterthought; a thinly veiled attempt to justify publishing the most unflattering photos they can find and to make readers feel less guilty for scrutinising every stretch mark and cellulite-riddled limb.

Besides, they quell any community backlash. It seems perfectly acceptable to ridicule a public figure by publishing pictures of them at their most vulnerable as long as the words are nice. It's akin to running a picture package of stars without make-up and saying Angelina Jolie has learned to embrace her acne and Madonna is proud of her wrinkles. The purpose is to titillate readers, not validate a realistic view of women.

But whatever the motivation, the inconvenient truth is none of these full-figured celebrities represent a healthy body image any more than the waif-thin model. Far from it.

Being overweight contributes to two major health issues: heart disease and type 2 diabetes; and obesity is linked to cancer, depression and kidney disease.

They aren't examples of real women, either, clocking up far bigger numbers on the scales than the average Australian woman.

It may seem trivial but the fact is the women's magazine industry is a publishing powerhouse that generates millions of dollars and shapes the attitudes that generations of women have about their bodies.

While it's encouraging to see a transition away from promoting skinny models as the ideal feminine image, the pendulum has only swung from one extreme to another.

And by normalising obesity or, worse yet, celebrating it, the message is equally reckless and irresponsible, particularly when the nation is battling an obesity epidemic and one-and-half-million Australians are already tipping the scales at unhealthily high levels.

When The Sunday Telegraph recently revealed that the average Australian woman weighed in at 70.1kg - and found a part-time model happy to illustrate the point - the response was overwhelming.

According to her body mass index and the vast majority of readers, she was overweight and needed to shed a couple of kilos. Even the model conceded as much, as did the Australian Diabetes Council.

Its head of education and prevention, Kristen Hazelwood, said the nation's soaring obesity means the next generation could be the first who don't outlive their parents. But she lamented people still didn't grasp the severity of the situation.

Flicking through the pages of full-fat glossies, it's easy to see why.

Ask magazine editors to explain the disparity between the public perception and the one displayed in the pages of their publication and they'll say they are simply embracing women of all shapes and sizes.

But in reality it's a principle that underpins the three immutable rules of all successful glossies in the country. They are the rules that denote what women want or, at the very least, what women's magazines tell them they want:

RULE #1: BIGGER IS BETTER

Readers are hungry for a diet of high-fat celebrity content, and if you're able to dish it up they will eat up every copy.

Of course, overweight celebs can't feature on the cover every week (that would give the game away), but served up at regular intervals, the nation's biggest stars will usually prove the biggest sellers too, especially if you can throw food into the mix.

Even the ever-popular queen of daytime TV, Oprah Winfrey, is only considered "cover gold" when she is losing a battle with the bulge.

Countless hours are spent trying to tempt celebs such as Kate Ceberano, Symantha Perkins and Ajay Rochester to pose in revealing outfits and tell women it's OK to ignore those life-shortening extra kilos.

And when the well runs dry, attention turns to The Biggest Loser.

RULE #2: ECONOMY OF SCALES

The only thing that beats a fat photo is one that comes with a happy ending. Before-and-after images are glossy gold; perfect fodder for a magazine celebrity weight-loss special.

They are special, of course, because it is probably the last time the celebrity will be considered interesting until she piles the weight back on.

Ricki-Lee Coulter was once a glossies regular, talking about her curves and full figure, but she has quietly disappeared from their pages, losing her vital pulling power after going on an exercise and diet regimen.

While Kirstie Alley's yoyo diet has kept her on covers over the years, perhaps the best approach is to simply stay the same.

Szubanski was praised for more than a year after her 26kg slimdown - even after photographs and industry insiders suggested she'd fallen off the weight-loss wagon.

RULE #3: SKINNY IS SCARY

In stark contrast to the way overweight women are portrayed in magazines, skinny celebrities are treated like Lycra-clad exercise demons.

If they're not experiencing "baby joy" or inviting readers to their "dream wedding", they rarely sell; unless, of course, they're miserable.

Bec and Lleyton Hewitt will forever be on the verge of busting up and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie torn apart. There will be grave fears for anyone even slightly underweight.

Together, these three principles establish an extremely skewed perception of women in weekly magazines - and one that could have real consequences on readers.

Repeatedly sold to women at thousands of supermarkets and newsagents across the country each week, it creates an expectation that it is normal to be overweight.

If promoting stick-thin models was the thin end of the wedge, surely this is a far weightier issue, no matter how comforting the fat photos might be.

Originally published as The devil wears Lycra