Poor Marcia Cross. Her publicist must have a perverse sense of humor. The “Desperate Housewives” star was on the cover of last week’s Parade magazine poised to take a big, juicy bite out of a luscious-looking peach.

This is the same Marcia Cross who recently told the British gossip magazine Now “It’s like they pay me not to eat. It’s a living hell.”

Marcia, honey, we feel your pain. Thanks to you and your forty-something size 0 neighbors on Wisteria Lane, women of a certain age who weigh more than a hundred pounds live in fear of being exiled to Lane Bryant Lane. Anorexia and bulimia are on the rise among middle-aged women, and they’re calling it “Desperate Housewives Syndrome.”

Why is our relationship with food in this country all about feast or famine? It seems we’re either stuffing or starving ourselves to death. French women may or may not get fat, but at least they know how to eat without making a minefield out of mealtimes.

The Duchess of Windsor famously said “a woman can’t be too rich or too thin,” to which I can only say, “Paris Hilton.“ And, I might add, “Mary Kate.”

I’ll side with the Duchess of Wales, who’s not afraid to be seen biting into an apple in public. My message to Marcia; draw courage from Camilla and dare to eat a peach. It won’t kill you, and it might do the rest of us a bit of good as well.