I know some people may like to use the phrase “you can never be too thin”…(I don’t personally know these people but I know they’re out there)… the truth of the matter is that there is such a thing as being “too thin.”  More importantly, although many of us may not verbally express this sentiment, the truth is we still believe there is truth in this statement. How many of us would prefer to be underweight than “fat.” Why else would all of those Special K commercials and similar weight loss ads already feature super slender women?

The video I’ve posted is of a woman named Isabelle Caro, who you might remember from those Italian billboards she did as an attempt to garner awareness of her shocking illness. It’s a very powerful video that I feel speaks for itself.

Tori Spelling, I only have a few words to say.

Tori if you’re out there, we love you and genuinely want the best for you. Please eat a cheeseburger.

*Note about post.

We have been getting comments about this post potentially being a “thin-bashing” post and we would just like to address it. It is unfortunate that we are given a very limited view of “body images” in the media. The reality is that millions of women are exposed to women in the media who range between thin and extremely thin. Here at EAC we feel a sense of responsibility to open women’s eyes to images we are shown and to think about them critically. The reality is that I don’t know what a new mother or woman can feel when these are the images she is bombarded with. As I have lived in LA my whole life I know what it means to be so thin because you just don’t eat. And I can only hope that women will not feel pressure to change the way they look just because they are given such a limited view of appearance from the media.

As we mentioned back in September, the new 90210 cast is a stark contrast from the original cast. But, as this photo suggests, the new generation is not the only one who’s caught the thin bug, and it seems that the older cast may feel the sting as well. Tori Spelling tells USmagazine:

“They scrutinize you so much,” the actress told Usmagazine.com. “You try to be the person who says, ‘Oh, I don’t care,’ but I feel the pressure.”

Although Tori has struggled with the weight issue since the days when the show first aired, we had hoped that things would change now that she had become a new mother. As you know, no one in Hollywood is safe from the expectation of thin aspiration. Though this should be the time that she embraces the new figure that comes with motherhood, it seems as though the media has gotten the best of her.

As many can attest to, most moms feel the pressure to slim down and shed the “excess baby weight”. Yet we at EAC want to ask you: WHAT FOR? Why do you have to slim down? You may say, “But my spouse won’t love me if I gain weight!” If you’re worried about a man not loving you after the baby, then weight is really not the issue at hand, but rather that you fell for the wrong guy. The right guy will love you no matter what.  Believe that. Or at least believe that that’s what you deserve and no less. And if the people who love you still love you just the way you are, then, once again, weight is not the issue, but rather why you don’t love yourself. And you above anyone else must love yourself before you can even begin to think of loving anyone else, especially a new baby! I hope that one day, if I am fortunate enough to be a mother, that I will have enough love for my children and not scrounge around with the scraps that I gave myself.

Hey Guys,

It’s been a great week back in the blogging world! I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all of you faithful readers who have returned to Eat A Cheeseburger, as well as welcome all of you newbies. All of your comments have been so thought-provoking and insightful.

Also, don’t forget about Cheeseburger of the Month. January is coming to a close, so start submitting a pic of your favorite burger this month to tiffabees@yahoo.com along with a little blurb about where the burger is from and why you loved it so much.

Lastly, EAC will have it’s first guest blogger post next week! If you have something EAC-related on your mind and would like to write a post please submit your entries to tiffabees@yahoo.com

Ok that’s it from the cheeseburger girls.

Have a great weekend and remember to love your body exactly as it is.

-Tiffabee

Last night, I saw a powerful one-woman show in New York City which dealt with how a young girl coped with losing her mother to cancer, eating disorders, drug addiction and healing from it all. Mia Perovetz, the writer and lead in the show, gives an honest and vulnerable performance that leaves you completely breathless yet hopeful.

If you happen to be in the City tonight or tomorrow afternoon you should absolutely check it out. Follow the link below for ticket info.

Check out her website and her blog.

Hi All,

Just wanted to update you and let you know that the MTV show Model Makers has been CANCELED!!!! I don’t know the specifics behind the cancellation, but it is effectively no more! America the Beautiful’s Darryl Roberts writes,

I called MTV today to find out when they had planned on airing the show and they said, “We no longer plan on airing “Model Makers.”

This is a wonderful victory. The prospect of this show was scaring the daylights out of me and now I can sleep again.

So, go eat a cheeseburger and celebrate!

Love,
Tiffabee

Your eyes are not deceiving you. This is a 15 pound burger, no exaggeration. A man in Pennsylvania recently agreed to eat a 15 pound burger (not including the toppings and bun)! It took him a little over 4 hours to finish the monster burger and he received $400 in cash and prizes for his accomplishment along with what was referred to as a “burger hangover.”

This burger definitely earns a spot on burger of the month.

For those of you who have been around EAC for a while, you might remember an early post –Anorexia’s not just for white chicks! This Article by Newsweek sheds even more light on this issue.

One study, by Wesleyan psychologist Ruth Striegel-Moore, found that black girls who do suffer from eating disorders are less likely to seek treatment. “I know stories of African-American women who’ve gone to see a physician, with all the symptoms of an eating disorder, and the doctor says, ‘That’s a white girl’s disease’,” says Cynthia Bulik, an eating-disorder specialist at the University of North Carolina.

I happen to be a minority who has suffered from disordered eating and someone very dear to me always used to call it my “white girl mentality.” So I know first hand that this is a common misconception that should be addressed.

What I found very interesting about this article was the suggestion that eating disorders have not had as much media coverage in the past decades, despite their rise in numbers.

Anorexia was formalized as a diagnosis in the late 19th century, though it didn’t become a household word until the 1970s, when feminists protested the rise of Twiggy as the body ideal. Media attention peaked in the ’90s, with Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth,” but has waned in recent years, perhaps overshadowed by obesity. But the number diagnosed continues to increase. In a 2003 review of the literature, researchers found that since 1930, the rate of anorexic women, ages 15 to 19, has gone up incrementally each decade. And between 1988 and 1993, bulimia in 10 to 39 year-olds tripled. Some blame skinny models and magazines that tout an often unattainable aesthetic. But for the majority of sufferers, the problem has historically been far more complicated, regardless of anorexia’s popularity as a political cause.

There could be many reasons why eating disorders don’t seem to get much Health Media coverage. For one reason or another, the media wants to focus on other issues they find more pressing (i.e telling us we are too fat and need to lose weight). But what about those who are suffering from disordered eating? Where’s their mass media coverage?

circa 2001 Princess Diaries
circa 2008 W Magazine

Remember that bushy haired girl who found out she was a princess way back when? That’s the Anne Hathaway I’d like to remember, and the Anne Hathaway I loved. Don’t get me wrong, I still love her, but I’m just not quite sure what the heck happened. Perhaps the photoshop guys back at W magazine were getting a bit mouse-happy or this is just her new look (my guess is it’s both). Whatever the case, she is beginning to look emaciated. For whatever reason, the past few years have been a slope of weight loss for her, and her once charming face that seemed full of life, now seems to be plagued by Hollywood woes.

Here at EAC we are no strangers to celebrity weight loss. It seems the there is a slippery correlation between weight loss and the increase of fame. But why is this the case? It doesn’t have to be this way. I think women are so deeply trained to believe that the more weight they lose the more beautiful they will be. But as  almost any dieter will tell you, the line between thin and too thin gets a bit blurry.

When you try to achieve beauty by shedding the pounds, there no longer exists a limit. Too much is never enough (so we think in our minds). The truth is, however, that there is such a thing as too much when it comes to weight loss. And if you find yourself just as miserable counting the calories as you were when you were eating them, it’s time to see that these things have nothing to do with why you were miserable in the first place. So feel free to enjoy life, and if you aren’t try to solve that by finding out what’s going wrong in your life, believe me weight loss is never the answer.

Alabama is passing a new state law that will require workers to pay an extra $25 a month for health insurance which would otherwise be free, if the employee doesn’t show signs of slimming down to a “healthier” size. The article starts out by saying that,

“Alabama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favorites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat.”

That statement seems way more personal than scientifically factual. Deep-fried Southern favorites?? They create this image of just a bunch of obese people sitting around all day eating Momma’s fried chicken! My issue with articles like these is that they are loaded with many widely accepted misconceptions about weight such as…

1. Your weight is directly correlated with your health.

2. Fat people are fat because they just can’t stop eating.

3. That being obese is an epidemic which needs to be stopped.

4. Penalizing people for their weight will force people to lose the weight and/or be an affective means of changing them.

As many of our faithful readers will tell you, this just simply isn’t true. However the article attempts to redeem itself by saying,

“A recent study suggested that about half of overweight people and nearly a third of obese people have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while about a quarter of people considered to be normal weight suffer from the ills associated with obesity.”

That means big or small there is as least a 25% chance that you will have these health problems. If this is the case, then why are we so preoccupied with weight? Clearly other things must be factored in the pursuit of “health” such as genes and lifestyle habits. Besides that fact, as the article suggest, this whole idea of enforcing weight control laws just seems way too “Big Brotherish”. I’d like to say sorry to the folks of Alabama. My advice: either move or start saving up now cause fat won’t be cheap anymore.

Click here if you’d like to enjoy this lovely article.