So, I caught a few minutes of ET last night. They had a preview on for "Celebrity Fit Club" (which I've never watched, but...). Maureen McCormick (Marsha Brady) is going to be on it, and the preview showed her initial weigh-in. She weighed in at 150 pounds even, yet she looked so ashamed, and the "judge" (or whatever his title is) announced it in this kind of disgusted voice, as if she had just been found guilty of torturing kittens or something.
I just thought "Give me a break!" OK, she's fairly short (5'3"), and definitely out of shape, but it was just so ridiculous. 150 at her height is a bit overweight, but didn't someone say that the average woman is 5'4" and 155, or something like that? So here she is, the shape of an average woman, and being made into this heinous criminal on national TV. And still we wonder why women have such a hard time accepting their bodies....
I started at 152, and I'm taller than her. That puts me just barely overweight, and I can honestly say, I don't think I look that bad. Sure, I think I could look better, and I feel I need to lose some weight, but if someone had treated me the way she was treated at her weigh-in, I'd have drowned my sorrows in ice cream and cookies.
DANG!!! And to think I'll feel like I accomplished so much when I hit 155!! That is aweful!! Why is she really even on that show?? Aren't they kinda of like biggest loser that as a team you have to lose so much weight?? she can't have more than 10 pounds or so to even lose. Sounds like she really needs to just tone up. I hate shows like that. Shouldn't weight loss be more of a private matter and shared with those who support you, not judge you or get mad if you don't drop so many pounds by this many days or weeks?????
Like I said, I'm not really familiar with the show. But the ET host did say that this was the LEAST overweight group that they've had on. Maybe trying to make them more representative of the average person out there, I don't know. I'm not arguing about her needing to drop a few pounds, it was just the drama about the fact that she weighed a whopping 150 pounds that irked me.
I know the publicity thing helps some people lose weight (Kirstie Alley, take a bow!), but for me, I agree with you - I think the pressure of doing it to win other people's approval would drive me to binge. I have a few people in real life who know I'm working at losing some weight, but really, most people just don't need to know, and most of them probably don't even care.
PS - I notice your 10 pound ticker has started to move - congrats! I know how frustrated you were getting!
155. I don't even have that as a goal.
This is why our young daughters have such a struggle with their self-esteem. I have a 13 year old who worries about getting too fat. While I want her to be healthy and fit (which is what I discuss with her), I don't want her to be obsessed about the numbers.
see i'm struggling with this now. I'm SHORT... i'm under 5'3" but if i get to 136 I will look anorexic... trust me. based on my muscle mass I should be around 175 or 180.... is that nuts or what?
Just remember... these shows aren't really intended to educate anyone... they are intended to sell advertising! So the more dramatic they can make them, the better. They do not reflect reality. I really dislike so-called reality TV for that reason. It's all just a show.
I'm 5' 3" and I started at 150 and, trust me, it was not just a matter of needing to tone up a bit. I was well into an overweight BMI and my doctors had been telling me to lose weight for several years. I had about 30 pounds to lose. And even having lost most of that, I could lose 5 to 10 more and not look underweight. It is all a matter of height. The shorter you are, the less you can weigh.
Agreed Barbara - Maureen looked overweight, and I'm not trying to argue that fact that it would be good for her to lose some. It's just the drama that bugged me. You know, that sense of "Omigod, look how much she weighs!" It's not a great weight on her, but as Jayell said, they want to make it overly dramatic, so they ended up making this admittedly overweight woman look/feel like she was ginormous. I guess it rubbed me the wrong way because it was basically MY weight (although I imagine I'm much more fit than her), and they were all "OMG" about it.
I agree that she isn't that overweight-but we have to think about the fact that the contestants are actors, models, and musicians-people who are paid not just for their acting/singing/playing abilities-but people who are judged on their LOOKS.
If you are 10-20 pounds and work in a factory, or a restaurant, or a hospital as a nurse-you might feel like you need to shape up, but it isn't nearly as humiliating as it would be if you turned on the tv or were in line at the grocery store-and saw unflattering "fat" photos of you on the screen, or on a tabloid, with headlines screaming "ACTRESS SUCH AND SUCH IS FAT!!!!"
That is what literally happens to them. And yes, I completely agree that 150-155 isn't really fat. Slightly overweight for her height, and she needs to get more fit-BUT she isn't being compared every day to normal women. She is being compared to all of the other super fit celebrity women out there who are all wearing size 0, 2 and 4.
When Titanic came out, for instance, there was a lot of talk at the time about Kate Winslets weight. She is a little thinner NOW, but at the time to play Rose, she was about a size 8. Not fat by ANY means walking around my neighborhood-BUT-when she is at a public celebrity event with all of the size 2's walking around-she looks big NEXT to them.
Have any of you ever really seen how tiny some of these women ARE? I was at a convention and I was examining some of Natalie Portman's costumes up close-and not only is she very, very thin-but her frame is TINY. The width of the shoulders in her dresses look like they would fit a 10 year old girl, and she is very petite in frame-even her HEAD is tiny! They didn't look like women's clothes-but like they would fit a 10-13 year old girl instead.
I couldn't imagine being under that sort of pressure to be so small-and to have it publicly advertised if I suddenly wasn't. Look at what they have done to Tyra Banks....
I guess that was kind of the point that I was trying to make - many "normal" women do compare themselves to celebrities, and it wreaks all kinds of damage on our minds. And why, just because someone is an actress, do they suddenly have to conform to this crazy industry standard? It's just sick!! Plus, look at all the (quite obviously) anorexic actresses out there right now - even the celebrities can't all conform to the industry standard, yet some of them are slowly killing themselves trying.
Now, as for Natalie Portman, maybe she's just one of those naturally tiny people - they certainly exist. But just because she is a natural waif doesn't mean that poor Maureen McCormick (or Valerie Bertinelli, or Kirstie Alley, etc.) need to be made to feel like they're hideous monsters, just because they conform more to the "normal" mold than the "Hollywood" mold.
Well, I haven't seen any really recent shots of her, but in light of how big she was for a while there, I think she looks terrific. And she's kind of a work in progress - my impression from her JC commercials is that she's still losing. I think I read somewhere that she's in the 160's, and she's on the tall side, so I'm not sure if she's technically even overweight (according to BMI) any more. I think I'd call her more curvy, or voluptuous. I don't necessarily think that everyone who could stand to lose a bit of weight is "fat".
Then again, that wasn't really my point... the point I was trying to make was just that it was infuriating to see a woman who, while admittedly overweight, but really not by very much, being made to feel like she was a circus freak on TV.
It's like at a WW meeting...there are/were several ladies who joined to lose 5 or 6 pounds. The one became a lifetime memeber the following week and then never came back. Huh? What was the point of wasting 20 something dollars for 5 pounds? I don't get it.
About the commercial with Alley and Valerie...I saw Valerie in the people magazine and didn't think she looked that big. But then I saw the commercial and they made her look frumpy in that ugly dress. Of course when you put a bag on her she's going to look huge, and she did. And I think Kirstie is still big but not fat. I wish she would just come clean with her actual weight. She said she started at 220 I believe, or 210 and if she has lost as much as she says I think she would be smaller. Also, have you noticed how she is always trying to hide behind something (a big bag) or stand a certain way to make her look smaller? Kudos to her and Valerie though for doing this on national t.v.
Kirtie Alley is big, and big framed. No matter how much weight she loses, she is never going to be a size 2 or 4, and she is always going to look larger next to a smaller framed actress. No, honestly I do not think that Kirstie Alley is fat. She was-but not any longer. I think she looks good for her height and frame.
That is why I was mentioning Natalie Portman-she IS naturally tiny. You stick Kirstie Alley, Kate Winslet, Rachael Ray, or any other bigger framed female celebrity (and by BIGGER I mean sizes 6-14, which is more NORMAL in regular life-not Hollywood.) and they are going to look like big cows in comparison-when they are completely normal in their size now. An actress may be a size 8 and look great standing next to one of us, but stick her next to a size 0 co-worker, and immediately she looks fat.
These naturally tiny actresses are what the larger actresses are trying to be-and their BONES are larger than the naturally smaller women. The tabloids make them look like they are big pigs-and the reality of it, is that they are never going to be size 0 or 2. It isn't possible for all women, and it shouldn't be.
Yes, Maureen (Marsha Brady) needs to lose a few pounds-but even if she does, she is always going to be held up to her Marsha Brady character by the public. She is never going to look like she did when she was 16 again-but that is the standard that the general public is going to hold her up to.
When it comes to celebrity imaging, I tend to get a bit disgusted. You know, it's like Hollywood is setting the scale fopr what females are supposed to look like, and it is nonsense. I mean, you see the Olsen twins and Lindsey Lohan starving themselves to look thin, filling themselves with alcohol and drugs and god knows what, slowly killing themselves. These are all beautiful young woman, yet are so very unhealthy. There are these women on the cover of Vogue and Cosmo, bones sticking out.... it's sickening. People think they are so very hot, but in reality, they are litterally skin and bones. And here are our kids, trying to conform to this kind of image.... next thing you know they are going to be tossing up their lunches are refusing to eat altogether. It's horrible...
What's wrong with a little meat on our bones???? Sorry, I want to be smaller, but I don't want to be a walking skeleton...
OK, who else finds this annoying?
