According to London's Daily Mail, Kate's schoolmates called her Blubber when she was 16. The paper quotes Winslet as saying, "When I was 15, I was nearly 14 stone [196 pounds]. I was uncomfortable and self-conscious. I knew I wanted to be an actress and was big. Over a year I sensibly got down to 10 stone [140 pounds]. Then I became addicted to losing weight and went too far. I was never anorexic or bulimic. I went through a three-month experimental laxative time which was absolutely awful."

Winslet claims she got over her dieting obsession without things getting too bad. She says, "Luckily I was strong enough to be able to say to myself: 'What are you doing? You are just really hungry.'" Now Kate is estimated to be about a size 8 and confesses, "The whole weight thing drives me crazy. This stuff is so important to me because I have been there and know what a vicious cycle it is."

But even though Winslet has what many women would consider to be a enviable figure, she admits to her own flaws regularly. She told Movieline's Hollywood Life magazine, "I am very, very normal. I am actually proud of all the marks and scars that I bear."