Mar 17, 2007

How thin is too thin?


This is not news, I know, but as I watched Star Jones announce her new show on Court TV last week, I was struck by her thin, drawn, gray face. Rumor has it she is now a size 8 or 10, down from size 22. I recalled how she looked just before her marriage, plumb but delicious, as in the second photo. Instead of stopping at a healthy weight, she kept on losing.


Her radical change prompted me to ask, Why does a woman sacrifice healthy good looks to resemble an emaciated mannequin? In other words, how thin is too thin?



Kate Bosworth looked fit and healthy when she made Blue Crush. She now resembles a lollipop with a big head stuck on a stick thin figure.

What's laughable about this very serious situation is that Victoria Beckham, who is all of a size "0", will not use emaciated models for her new line of clothing.

Designers are still hiring these skeletal women. C'mon, folks, do you really find this starved person attractive?


In the good old days of the 1980's, super models like Cristie Brinkley were actually curvy.


Here's a BMI (Body Mass Index chart). As you can see, most Americans are considered overweight.


With fashions designed for boyish figures in low rise jeans, healthy, curvaceous women feel pressured to lose weight all the time. Poor Tyra Banks had to go into spin mode to explain her weight gain to her size 14 public.



Take a good look above and below, folks. This is what a normal woman's body looks like. These days Jennifer Love Hewitt looks no different than most women in real life.


A friend of mine commented on how short and stocky Selma Hayak looked. He liked taller and slimmer women. Renee Zellweger weighed all of 135 lbs. when she played zaftig Bridget Jones. Can you imagine how small she must be now? Had Marilyn Monroe lived today, she would probably have been considered too porky for leading roles. What a loss that would have been!

Yet aging lotharios like Jack Nicholson have no trouble finding parts, regardless of expanding waistlines. Granted he has talent, but...


...when will the madness stop?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems as if Star Jones is trying for the Whitney Houston look. Sure would like to know how she has taken all that weight off, and in such a seemingly short time, can it be healthy?

Anonymous said...

Great post. I don't know why women want to look emaciated--don't they know there are plenty of men who like curves!

Anonymous said...

I totally agree -- I thought she was attractive before, and if she wanted to lose weight, great...but she doesn't look good in her current thinness -- and I hate those "stylish" glasses that she is wearing now.

Marius said...

I think a confident woman who's comfortable in her own skin is very sexy. Star does not look healthy. Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Toni Colette, on the other hand, look great, I think. Super models and many celebrities are expected to be abnormally thin, which is a shame. It's sad that thousands of girls develop eating disorders without realizing that it's ok to be normal. And as anonymous said above, "there are plenty of men (and women) who like curves!" Amen!

Damselfly said...

Fashion is a disctator. With designers calling their models "walking hangers" where is the love? The love of the female figure with curves and the power to create life. Most women who get down to these weights lose their cycles and are unable to get pregnant for really good natural reasons. But hey- they are more "womanly" and "attractive" than moms who are now sizes 12, 14, and up? Admit it...designers are creating for little boys....oops, I mean girls...sorry for the Freudian slip...lol!

jinxy said...

damselfly, way to call it like we all can see it. It is horrible to see how these women are starving themselves. And I don't care what anyone says, if you can se ribs while your arms are at your sides, then something is wrong with how you are eating (or not eating.) I don't buy this extremely high metabolism crap. Anyone that skinny is doing something wrong and unnatural.

Anonymous said...

she took it off with what she calls "surgical intervention" - aka gastric bypass - also called RNY - also called weight loss surgery. i'm surprised that she's gotten as thin as she is now. i wonder if she's seeing a physician on a regular basis. i had gastric bypass about a year and a half ago and have successfully lost 170 pounds. for my height, BMI says i should weigh 120, my trainer says 150 is more like it, including built muscle. i'll be thin, but healthy. btw, bastric bypass is a life altering surgery. our digestive systems don't work the way yours do after surgery. you have to be committed to changing your life for the surgery to be successful in the long run.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, anonymous, that's true. A good friend of mine had gastric bypass surgery, and he can only eat many small meals a day. He is exercising, but he did not lose to the point where he stopped looking like himself, the way Star Jones did.