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I’m sick and tired of hearing about celebrities who have gained weight as though it were a news story. Weight is NOT a newsworthy story, I’m sorry but it just isn’t.
“And tonight on breaking news at 6 (Insert starlette here) has ballooned to an unrecognizable weight. Will this once ultra slim gal get back to her old size….more after the break.”
FAT IS NOT NEWS. Genocide, world hunger and war; those things are newsworthy. I feel I have to say it many times because in our culture this simply isn’t true. What if we started looking at weight the same way we look at other physical attributes. Saying “so and so got tall” or “wow her feet are small” and “oh, look how long her arms are.” When we look at it in the perspective of other body parts it just seems silly to make it the big deal that it is. “But FAT KILLS!!” you might say. Fat is not really what kills (there can be exceptions to this, like having too much fat around the heart which puts pressure on it when pumping blood, but I will venture to say that this is not the real reason most women lose weight). Bad food choices and lack of exercise however do kill. I know this from personal experience having a father who died of a heart attack because he refused to change his diet and couldn’t exercise. He was never overweight but rather always kind of lanky. This leads me to believe that there is more to health than just fat on the body.
Absolutely, I cannot watch the news, read a magazine or surf the web without seeing a headline regarding weight of celebs. It’s a waste of space, time and un-newsworthy news. In fact today, I saw phrases in the magazine “Look at ……post baby bod, she looks better than ever” or “Oh no, …..seems to be carrying a little baby fat after birth”, Hello! a mother who has just given birth may be two to three sizes bigger than her normal size, but again, she just finished having a child whom was in her womb for 9months. Meaning, she was feeding two people, cut her some slack. Granted, some women can bounce back to their usual size, but for the majority, it can take up a year.
“Bad food choices and lack of exercise however do kill.” Loving this site more and more. At least someone understands and sees through the fake “obesity epedemic”. I can’t stand when people say “Sally let herself go” but they don’t exercise and or eat right themselves, so who are they to judge?
I think part of this practice (announcing celebs’ weight loss/gain etc.) comes from the fact that as ‘celebrities’, many of them are banking on their appearance…for an actor, their body literally *is* their commodity and way of making a living. Models too. For instance, Renee Zellwegger has made a reputation for herself as being able to gain or lose weight at the drop of a hat…due to filmmakers demanding that she put on weight for a role, so it’s “newsworthy” when she does it. Kirstie Alley signed up to be the spokesperson for Jenny Craig (ugh.) and had a show called “fat actress”….so there was a person practically begging for their body issues to be made public.
But you’re absolutely right…we don’t get news flashes when someone’s acne clears up, huh. I do get tired of the constant monitoring of peoples’ body changes.
oh ps LUCY ~ thank you ~ for mentioning the “obesity epidemic”…one of my pet peeves!! !! !!
The cops in this cartoon really say it all….do we need someone looking over our shoulder to make sure we aren’t eating “bad” things??!! I say hell. no.
I totally love this blog! And yesterday, I ate a cheeseburger 😀
Heart disease and heart attacks are strongly rooted in genetics. Check out the Tim Russert story.