By Catherine Portland

She's brash, bold - and apparently incomprehensible.

Jordan's latest step towards her goal of global domination has faltered after it was revealed her new reality TV show had to be shown with subtitles in the US because viewers were unable to understand her accent.

Katie & Peter follows the glamour model - real name Katie Price - and Australian hubby Peter Andre around as they go about their daily affairs and is being shown by the E! channel stateside.

An E! spokesman told the Daily Star: "It was an issue of accent and because of terms being used differently in the UK and US."

However, our Katie is unlikely to be daunted - with more merchandise than the Olsen sisters and an estimated personal fortune of £30 million, she is no dumb blonde.

That said, her fame originates from her surgically-enhanced physical attributes.

And reports in the last week that she and Andre went on a cosmetic surgery spending spree on their latest visit to North America link nicely to another media story based on a poll by supermarket giant Tesco.

It found that one in five British men are on some form of diet with one in ten spending between thirty minutes and an hour thinking about their weight on a daily basis.

It seems the pursuit of physical perfection is no longer the preserve of females and Andre, with his trendy hairstyles, gym obsession and designer clothes, epitomises the trend.

Apart from a few commendable renegades, ladies buy into the latest diet fads, pore over glossy magazines full of unattainable physiques and berate themselves for eating too much, not exercising enough, having a small cleavage, having an uncomfortably ample cleavage and so on ad infinitum.

All in spite of the fact that the aforementioned magazines regularly feature surveys that consistently show most men prefer curves and are fond of bosoms per se, rather than spectacularly large ones in particular.

As someone wise once noted, men read magazines with women in, and women read magazines with women in too.

The only difference being that lads' mags - for all their objectification and latent misogyny -are generally far less objectifying and misogynistic than your average celebrity publication.

So, we girls are found of self-flagellation; that much is clear.

But what about men? Most of the blokes I know, whenever the old chestnut of whether it's better to be a boy or a girl comes up, say they like being male because of the freedom to eat what they like when they like and not worry about it.

There manifestly isn't the same pressure from the media and men themselves to be slimline, but that's not to say men are immune to the implicit rebuke of the covers of mags like Men's Health, which invariably feature very attractive, muscular males with defined six-packs and not a love handle in sight.

The pressure to obtain the unobtainable is mounting and, appealingly frank though they may be, the likes of Jordan and her hubby have a lot to answer for.

They portray themselves as down-to-earth, accessible and real, but with the physical image they project they perpetrate an illusion of perfection that creates a damaging model for young boys and girls alike.