Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw chose the Manchester Evening News to exclusively launch her major fund-raising campaign to fight eating disorders.

The Tracy Shaw Foundation will offer education and advice to those most at risk.

The Derbyshire-born actress, who plays bubbly Maxine in the soap, wants to start by raising enough money to make a video which can be circulated to schools with self-help packs.

In an exclusive interview with Melanie Clarkson of the M.E.N, which launched the campaign, Tracy opened her heart about her fight with anorexia and spoke about the lowest ebb of her illness. Weighing barely five and a half stone, Tracy was confined to bed 24-hours a day in a psychiatric ward alongside schizophrenics and manic depressives.

After a slow and painful recovery, Tracy went on TV last year to talk about beating anorexia - and 20,000 people called a helpline number as a direct result.

"I wanted to do something positive to help," said Tracy. "After a lot of discussion I decided to start the Foundation to help tackle this epidemic."

Today (Wednesday June 21) Minister for Women Tessa Jowell was holding a summit in London with fashion industry chiefs, editors of womens' magazines and health professionals following recent estimates by the British Medical Association that there are 60,000 sufferers of eating disorders in the UK.

The M.E.N has pledged that its fashion pages will only feature models who reflect the shape of "normal, healthy women".

In its comment column the paper praised Tracy for making a "life-long commitment to help others overcome the tyranny of eating disorders".

It added: "The M.E.N is happy to support her, as we know that in practically every secondary school or college in the north west, there will be someone wrestling with an actual, or potential, eating disorder.

"We are also aware of the social pressures which foster these disorders, chiefly a fashion industry which drapes it wares on the bony shoulders of stick-thin models."

The Tracy Shaw Foundation is also being backed by Granada Televison.

More details can be found on the Manchester Evening News website http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk

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