I had this terrible habit in my teens of imposing diets upon myself, under the guidance of no one wise enough to tell me otherwise. They were ridiculously unhealthy; nutritionally and psychologically.

The first I can remember was in my first week of high school, during an ice-breaking activity in one of our pastoral classes, a human-bingo type thing. We had a list of questions and had to go around the room, asking people if they fit the criteria, until we had them all completed. 'Find someone who has three pets'; 'Find someone who can speak another language'.

'Find someone who doesn't eat junk food'.

In a class of essentially children, this question was tricky. No-one satisfied criteria. So I, like some sort of misguided modern-day martyr, stood up and heroically announced;

"I do not eat junk food!"

Or something to that effect. Point is that I had just committed myself to total junk-food abstinence in front of 30 or so of my peers, despite my normal and healthy partiality to it. Now I was socially accountable. I remember thinking, 'Now I might actually lose some weight!' - albeit off my slim 12-year-old body, but details like these didn't occur to me until many years later.

So for the following school lunches, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything from the canteen. As if my friends, happily munching away on the occasional ice block or chips, would even remember my valiant pledge, let alone judge me for doing the same as them.

Of course, I didn't abstain for the remainder of my six years at school. But man, did I feel the glare of judgmental eyes when I did indulge. Whose eyes? I'm not sure. Perhaps that monster Perfection.

I think he was looking on and laughing at me every time I tried.