Cnn.com always posts a few "unscientific" polls--one on the main page, and one on the entertainment page--and I almost always do them, even if they're usually worded so inanely as to be rendered useless.
This morning (but no longer), the polls were about fat and Hollywood (and maybe yesterday's Entertainment poll too). On the main page, the poll was whether "you" like your male stars slightly flabby or with six-pack abs (like there isn't an in-between); the poll on the entertainment page was somewhat similar, asking if you preferred super-thin or slightly flabby. In both polls, slightly flabby was leading; in the entertainment poll, it had 70% of the vote.
Now, if this is really the case--if the majority of people really do prefer people who aren't sickly thin--then why are so many women stars absolutely disgustingly thin? And I'm not saying that in a "I'm jealous, you're so disgusting (perfect)" sort of a way. No, I mean that these women look unhealthy and scary and actually gross. But the question is, where does that pressure come from? Is it the attention? Because Nicole Richie certainly gets more attention now that she's ill than when she was just a normal girl with some bad hair and questionable fashion sense. Even if the attention is more negative these days. And I've seen Kate Bosworth on no fewer than three fashion websites and in MULTIPLE magazines for her bad fashion sense, and her sickly skinny body.
All I can think when I see these pictures is that these girls are STARVED for something--love, attention, food--and they're not getting what they need. They need people to tell them to eat, and to eat more than 800 calories a day. These girls need to be fed big bowls of fettucine alfredo, and heaping plates of nachos. They need to drink beer and eat pretzels and chips and big sub sandwiches.
I'm seriously not sure where the pressure to be THAT thin comes from. America likes thin, sure. I am 100% aware of that, being the not-thin that America doesn't like. But I really do think that the CNN polls are onto something, in that the majority of American men and women don't want to be with someone who a) looks ill and b) won't go out to the neighborhood restaurant and eat with them. I think that when everyday folks daydream about being with stars, they're not daydreaming about the anorexic girls and scary-buff men. They're daydreaming about thin (yes, of course) women like Cindy Crawford or nice-looking men like Jude Law or George Clooney. I mean, let's face it, George Clooney doesn't have a six-pack. And that's nice, that's fine. Cindy Crawford was never heavy--but she never looked ill either.
Perhaps, as it is, in my opinion, only a look that anorexia could produce, simply the biggest reason for anorexia: there is much in these women's lives that they cannot control--paparazzi, men, the industry--and the one thing they can control is how much they eat. And we pay attention to them for this. We oooh and ahhh in the beginning stages of the weight-loss (Richie, of course) and then turn our ooohs and ahhs to sad clucks and moans (here I am doing it, though I never did the first) when the girls start to look sick, and scary. Would it stop if we stopped?
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