Fat will never be the new skinny, at least in Hollywood. Celebrities all around the world are engaging themselves in starvation to fit a role in a movie, or walk the red carpet in the tightest dress possible. They are nearly killing themselves trying to fit in a size 0 when the average person wears anywhere between a size 11 and 14. The people we are idolizing are setting a bad example for the entire world.
We know that not all celebrities can look that perfect all the time, but we are told to believe so. Natalie Portman, who starred in Black Swan as the mental prima ballerina, nearly had to starve herself to play the role as Nina. It even went beyond starvation. “Portman trained for over a year for the role, losing extreme weight, cracking a rib and pushing her body to the limit. In fact, at one point, she even thought the role would kill her” says Jordan Zakarin of the Huffington Post. Portman is an inspiration to her fans, but her job is not to inspire people to be skinny and die trying, but to inspire people to be who they are.
The royal princess of England, Kate Middleton, was under so much pressure she could not help but force herself not to eat. It was considered Middleton’s six month “starvation diet”. “To look like Kate Middleton on her wedding day you need to starve yourself for six months before your wedding” said a writer for NewsFlavor. Not to mention, her dead mother-in-law, Princess Diana, was also known for being bulimic at her time of royalty. With cameras flashing from every angle and paparazzi stalking every move, no wonder these princesses felt pressured to lose weight. If 750 million people were watching my wedding, I would feel like the need to be as skinny as possible too.
Dating back to 2004, Mary-Kate Olsen reached headlines of gossip magazines across the nation for her anorexia issues. She was America’s cutest baby on the hit television show, Full House, and was famous for her Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie series. However, according to writer Michelle Tauber, many worshipped Olsen as a source of “thinspiration”. Kids who looked up to her only saw the image she was trying to show her fans. “They finally reached the point where they had to act. They didn’t want to find her dead on the floor from not eating” says Tauber. Olsen got to the point of anorexia that it was not pretty and attractive, but to the point where she looked sick.
In the 21st century, society is trained to believe it is pretty to be skinny and ugly to be fat. We see the issue of weight primarily in famous individuals who are highly respected. They try to set the best example, even if it nearly kills them. What they do not understand is that people want to see their talent, not every bone in their body.