Actress Kate Winslet is to sue women's weekly Grazia over claims she visited a diet doctor in California.

The magazine claimed Winslet had visited the Chinese Healing Institute in Santa Monica for help with neck pain and also to lose weight.

But the 32-year-old Hollywood star said it was "categorically untrue" and was a "complete lie".

"I am very upset," she told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat programme. "I am going to take legal action. I am not going to let a publication get away with writing something that is so completely untrue."

She added she did not want people thinking she would "ever go to a diet doctor" as she had always spoken out on the issue.

"I know I am a role model to young women, it's a role I take very, very seriously," she said. "I would never want anyone to think I was a hypocrite in doing something like going to a diet doctor."

Winslet's agent, Sarah Keene, told the BBC the actress had met the doctor "several years ago" but for a "completely separate issue".

Winslet, who has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in the film Little Children, recently criticised the "size zero" culture in the fashion industry.

A Grazia spokeswoman said the matter was with the magazine's lawyers.

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