Who's Fat?

I have now heard on three different television shows and seen on the covers of several magazines how Mariah Carey has slimmed down from a size 8 to a size 2 and looks so great. These shows and magazines are talking about how she was chunky before and now looks phenomenal.

Since when is a size 8 “chunky”? Since when did a woman who wears a size 8 need to lose weight? And since when is a size 2 healthy? And in this day of eating disorders, why the hell is the media getting away with calling a girl who wears a size 8 fat?

The average American woman is 5-feet-4 inches tall and wears a size 12. By telling the world that Carey was fat when she was a size 8, the media is telling the average-sized American woman that she is really fat. And by setting a size 2 as the ideal, the media is setting a standard impossible for most women to meet.

In my early 20s I wore a size 2. I was anorexic and starved myself and barfed up anything that my family or friends forced me to eat. At my worst, I ate three rice cakes a day and drank four cans of Diet Dr Pepper, and I was 86 pounds and a size 0. I could even shop in children’s stores and departments for everything but jeans and pants because they were too short. My family told me I looked terminally ill — “You look like an AIDS patient,” my mother said. My friends said I was “so skinny it’s gross.” And my boyfriends told me I needed to gain weight.

Yet the media is portraying this size as ideal? Now clothing manufacturers are now offering size 00. That’s right, encourage girls and women to starve themselves and barf up what little food they do eat.

The fact is that Mariah Carey wasn’t fat when she wore a size 8. I understand that some people are naturally thin; however, I don’t think any woman is naturally a size 0 or 00. And being that thin is unhealthy.

A couple women who work at my company are that thin, and they look like skeletons. One of them works out at the company gym every afternoon and at a private gym early every morning. She also takes walks around the campus during the afternoon. No one sees her eat, and I’m guessing she takes lots of laxatives because she stinks up both gyms with her rotten flatulence. People who have experienced her stench claim that her farts are like nothing they’ve ever smelled before.

Yes, many Americans are obese, and that is unhealthy. Got it. But calling someone who wears a size 8 fat is causing health risks and damaging our society in different ways. Expecting everyone to wear a size 2 is outrageous. Allowing the media to dictate what size we wear is ridiculous.

In fact, the media snapped photos of Tyra Banks and Jennifer Love Hewitt in bathing suits and then called them fat. Neither of those women is fat, and viewers and readers should have issued one honking backlash at the media. But no, Americans sat back and believed what we were told and lamented about how if those women were fat, then we average folks must be grossly obese.

By the way, how come we never hear the media say that Jack Nicholson or Kiefer Sutherland looked fat in their swim trunks?

People, particularly women, need to stop giving the media so much power. Stop allowing the media to determine the size you should wear. Send letters to the celeb rag mags and tell them to stop bashing women who aren’t a size 2 and praising women who are skeletally thin and look like they’re going to die any minute. Perhaps you could boycott such publications and television shows, refusing to allow them to make you feel bad about yourself. Until we take a stand, the media will continue to dictate how thin we should be and what size we should wear.

When Celebrity Obsession Goes Too Far

I feel sorry for Miley Cyrus. I’ve never seen an episode of “Hannah Montana,” and I only know of Cyrus from the television and covers of the rag magazines at the grocery store. But from what I’ve seen recently, I feel sympathy for the girl. One minute she’s America’s sweetheart and the next the media is ostracizing her for “seminude” photos in Vanity Fair. Then Cyrus dutifully apologized for the photos claiming to have made a tremendous error in judgment.

Shame on you, Miley Cyrus, for apologizing when those photos are neither wrong nor inappropriate.

The photographs of Cyrus that appeared in Vanity Fair were taken by Annie Liebowitz. Anyone heard of her? The Annie Leibowitz. As in the greatest celebrity photographer of her time. Leibowitz’s photographs are art. It’s certainly not as though Cyrus posed for Playboy. The photographs show not even the tiniest hint of nipple or curve of breast, and nary a pubic hair is present. Rather, Cyrus posed — her front completely covered up — wrapped in a sheet with her back exposed. Without even a subtle suggestion of her bum or crack.

I don’t understand why the media made the photos out to be scandalous. So she portrays Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel. Are Disney Channel viewers also Vanity Fair readers? I can’t think of a single 10-year-old who reads Vanity Fair. And if they are that advanced, then they ought to know that Hannah Montana is merely a character Cyrus portrays.

The problem, once again is the media. Without the media’s exploitation of the photographs, Hannah Montana fans would have had no knowledge the photos existed. The media had to make them out to be dirty and shameful, however, and now children have seen them.

Instead of reprimanding Cyrus for “immoral” behavior, parents ought to be reprimanding the media for making a big deal of nothing and for treating artistic photographs like porn. Parents should also take this opportunity to teach their children about fantasy (Hannah Montana) versus reality (Miley Cyrus) and about art.

Furthermore, just because Cyrus portrays a children’s television character doesn’t mean she won’t grow up — which is why it’s important for parents to teach their children the difference between fantasy and reality. I’m not saying it’s OK for her to go the way of Britney Spears and turn into a raging, snatch-flashing, junkie party-girl, but Cyrus is a teenager and no one can stop that from happening. If Disney has a problem with the simple process of biology, then perhaps it should stick to cartoons.

Some critics went so far as to claim that the photographs of Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray, in Vanity Fair were suggestive of something other than a father-daughter relationship. Obviously these people have nothing better to do with their time than monitor celebrities and dream up disgusting fantasies. The father-daughter photos, also taken by Liebowitz, show a loving father-daughter relationship and, in my humble opinion, do not suggest anything improper or incestuous.

Celebrities have chosen a career that is in the public eye, but I don’t believe that the public or the media have the right to make presumptions and craft wild stories just to sate bored housewives and gossippy teenagers. Perhaps if the media hadn’t interfered so fiercely in the lives of celebrities like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, those young girls wouldn’t have felt the need to continually shock with their behavior.

This also brings up the sad fact that we are a celebrity-crazy society. People talk as though celebrities are their friends, and they want to know the intimate details of their lives. My former roommate was addicted to the celebrity rag magazines, shows like “Extra,” and reality TV. She and another friend would talk about actors and actresses as though they knew them personally: “Omigod! did you hear that Angelina is expecting twins? I heard that Jen’s even more jealous than ever now. Ooh, and I heard that Katie left Tom. Who didn’t see that coming?”

I’ve never understood why people think that because someone made a movie, the general population has the right to know everything about that person. Each purchase of a celeb rag magazine pays the papparazzi and gives them permission to stalk celebrities — even when the celeb doesn't want the attention. I mean, what woman wants to be photographed in a sweatsuit with no makeup while she’s in the grocery store?

If society could overcome its obsession with all things celebrity, then maybe Miley Cyrus’ artistic photographs would be appreciated, along with her decision to pose for such photographs, rather than made out to be scandalous and pornographic.