Nigella Lawson has waded into the row over airbrushing photographs, saying that she has to ask US television companies not to get rid of her “sticking-out stomach”.

The television cook spoke out in response to Jameela Jamil, a British actress, who said the practice should be made illegal and urged her fans to boycott brands which edit photographs to make celebrities appear thinner.

Jamil, 32, a former BBC Radio 1 DJ who stars in The Good Place, the US fantasy television series, said: “For the last time, airbrushing is used as a tool for ethnicity erasure, colourism, ageism, fat-phobia, ableism, racism and sexism.

“It’s there to make you hate your real face and body. It made me hate my face, my body and my ethnicity for the longest time as a young woman.”

Lawson, 58, agreed, replying: “I’ve had to tell American TV stations not to airbrush my sticking-out stomach.

“The hatred of fat, and assumption that we’d all be grateful to be airbrushed thinner, is pernicious.”