This Body is Just Right

Victoria Beckham is looking a little thick around the middle lately, isn’t she? Posh seriously has lost control of herself and should lay off the cheese doodles and get her fat ass into the gym. It is seriously pathetic how she is just stuffing herself into size 00 clothes; like squeezing ten pounds of potatoes into a five pound sack. She’d better watch that weight or her husband David might turn his eyes elsewhere. How can she even go out in public looking like a two-ton heifer?

Making any reference of the twig-thin Victoria Beckham having even an ounce of body fat on her is nothing short of ridiculous. Promoting that Posh Spice has a figure any woman can or should strive for is just as ridiculous yet magazines publish her diet and fitness secrets with such enthusiasm you think they found some lost scriptures. Her ultra-skinny body and obvious disordered eating are not healthy; her diet lacks diversity and includes calorie restriction mimicking malnutrition. Mrs. Beckham’s reported lettuce, strawberry, and edamame diet, standing at a dangerous 900 calories a day, is not something that women and girls should attempt but they do, following dangerous celebrity diets like they were prescribed by their doctors.

Even worse then the promotion of a “thin at all costs” culture is chastising women publicly who do not fit within some impossible mold created by fashion giants who would rather dress shapeless girls then women. Jessica Simpson is the latest celebrity falling victim to public scrutiny about her weight. She joins other strong, healthy, beautiful women like Tyra Banks, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, and Drew Barrymore who found themselves on the cover of magazines after committing what is apparently the worst offense in Hollywood; packing on a few extra pounds. Celebrity mug shots for inexcusable offenses get less press then celebrity “fat” pictures sending a poor message to the world; it is more acceptable to commit a felony then to eat a cheeseburger.

Canonizing waifs and crucifying curves is mentally and physically damaging to the millions of people who suffer from, or on the brink of developing, image and eating disorders. In recent years many tabloids started publishing stories on women who were too thin, almost in an “effort” to appease eating disorder awareness groups. These “efforts” are nearly as damaging to the human psyche as publishing “fat” photos. Celebrity women can’t win the weight game and in turn all women and girls learn that they cannot win. We are either too fat or too skinny. We are either too tall or too short. We are either too happy or too sad. We hear the old adage that you can never be too rich or too thin but are then ostracized for being too successful or to skinny. No where in these messages do people learn how to be healthy.

We are in the midst of an eating epidemic where people who fail at starving themselves to nothing give up for a life of obesity and its related diseases; hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer. In between too fat and too thin is just right but how do we understand what just right is in a culture that actually calls that fat? When newspapers and tabloids attacked Jessica, Tyra, Jennifer, and Drew their weights did not classify as overweight or obese but were in the healthy “just right” range. Rather then declare “this is what healthy looks like” newspapers and tabloids sent a loud and clear message that healthy is fat.

Celebrities starting fighting back, commenting positively on the bodies of the media’s latest fat scandals but the fight needs to continue. About the worst thing that can happen from Jessica Simpson’s “fatgate” is for the celebrity to come back ultra-skinny in record time, sending a poor message that women’s talents are worthless unless they are also thin. Jessica Simpson is a gorgeous woman with a beautiful voice who is currently sporting a figure reminiscent of the most iconic woman in our country’s history; Marilyn Monroe. I hope she doesn’t go on some crazy crash diet, revealing her "new and improved" body to generations of women who will receive the message that starving yourself is healthier than maintaining a healthy weight. She and the media have the chance to promote healthy but if healthy doesn’t sell magazines we’ll likely see another woman sellout to societal pressure to be too thin.