Generations of children have traded banter - or bullied, depending on your perspective - about weight, and Enid Blyton even named a character in her Five Find-Outers series "Fatty".

But a report by the all-party parliamentary group on body image has recommended that the government investigate putting "appearance-based discrimination" on the same legal basis as race and sexual discrimination.

Under the Equalities Act 2010, it is illegal to harass, victimise or discriminate against anyone on the basis of a number of "protected" characteristics, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability. People can and are prosecuted for verbal abuse if it is deemed serious enough.

The parliamentary group, supported by the charity Central YMCA, has published a report, "Reflections on Body Image", recommending a review of the "scale of the problem of appearance-based discrimination and how this would be best tackled".

The report found that one in five people had been victimised because of weight, and that appearance was the main basis of bullying in schools.