WELCOME to a world where we're slaves to a new religion - the television advice guru.

From telling us what not to wear, to what to eat, how to decorate our homes, train our dog and even bring up our kids, there's no escape from the lifestyle expert.

We've been bombarded with programmes claiming to change our lives.In fact,there's been such a surge in self-help coaches,a new category of most popular expert was introduced this year at the National Television Awards.

But there's a real danger they'll leave us unable to think for ourselves, according to Professor Frank Furedi, who wants us all to just switch off.

Here,we reveal some of telly's worst offenders and give our verdict on the advice they hand out to viewers...

 

...Victoria Stilwell

WE'RE a nation of animal lovers so it was only a matter of time before some bright spark TV executive created a new dog training guru.

Victoria Stillwell, of C4's It's Me Or The Dog, has plenty of advice on how to have the perfect pet.

Having run pet training schools in the UK and the US, she's fostered 40 dogs from rescue centres over the last five years.

That's the upside. The downside is that if you're relying on her advice, you should never have bought a dog