Rightly so, Cher Lloyd is EVERYWHERE at the moment, but her presence has reignited one of my pet hates. Because, along with praise for her original style (both musically and fashion) comes a wealth of criticism over her weight. Newspapers have branded her ‘frail’ and ‘worryingly thin,’ viewers have shouted that she needs to ‘eat a few pies’ and ‘put on weight.’
Being a 21 year old female with a mass of physical insecurities myself, I find the whole thing difficult to comprehend. The judgement itself is appalling but what I find more infuriating is the way that being skinny is simultaneously ridiculed and desired.
Cultural conditioning has ensured that we believe that we have to be slim to be attractive. Even girls who claim to love their curves or love food, still struggle with fat days. You’d be hard pushed to find a single woman in the country who doesn’t dislike at least one part of her body. I’ve met girls who claim that they’re body confident and would never want to be a size 8 anyway. But then on nights out when the camera makes an appearance, suddenly they’re worrying about their ‘good sides,’ and standing with an arm on their hip and a sucked in stomach to appear slimmer.
But often it’s these same people who tut at images in the glossies, and yell at the TV when Cher and the like grace the screens. They pronounce she’s ‘too thin,’ despite having been to the gym/eaten healthily all that week themselves.
And what is ‘too thin’ anyway? Would anybody go up to an overweight person and say ‘Bloody hell, you need to lose a few pounds!’ Would anybody say that a fat person on TV should ‘stop eating all the pies’ ? The answer is probably not. It’s not socially acceptable to criticise the figure of someone who’s overweight.
There seems to be a complete lack of balance in our perceptions of what’s normal. The fact is, some people are naturally thin. My mother, for example, stands at an impressive 5’9” and has been a steady 8.5 stone throughout her life. She’s been labelled underweight and when she was struggling to conceive she was actually told by one doctor to ‘eat a few Mars Bars.’ It was revealed, years later, that her battle with fertility was actually down to Polycysitic Ovaries – her weight was utterly irrelevant and the comment downright insulting. She has the best diet of anyone I know and that’s largely because she has a massive penchant for baking, chocolate covered peanuts and puddings when we go out to eat. Her weight is what it is – she’s never dieted in her life. Other people are more prone to gaining weight and have to work harder to keep it off with weekly gym sessions and healthy diets. Both are fine.
What frustrates me more, however, is how people can so casually accuse someone of being ‘too skinny’ without considering why their physique may be in the shape that it is. Generally, extremities in weight are present for a reason. When I’m unhappy my weight fluctuates – I either go completely off my food or begin stuffing my face. At my lightest I was 6.5/7 stone. Some people told me I had an amazing figure. Others said I was skin and bone and needed to eat more. Then, after a rubbish breakup I well and truly tucked into the Ben and Jerry’s and the pounds piled on. Either way, the reason for my weight loss wasn’t because of a cultural or vain pressure to be slim, and my weight gain wasn’t because of greed. Both situations were to do with my emotional state of mind. I’m now a steady 9 stone, but looking back at the pictures of me at my lightest doesn’t make me wish to lose a few pounds – all I can see is the sadness in my eyes.
Sometimes it’s a psychological condition which makes us eat more or less, other times it’s a physical or medical problem. Either way, instead of criticising people for being too thin, surely we should wholeheartedly accept people and their reasons for being the size they are without judgement or malice.
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