Media Ideals: The Real True Hollywood Story
Well, after Lindsay’s last post on the sketchiness of the BMI, lots of people seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. As an incredibly unreliable method for judging weight, the BMI is a profit-driven standard that doesn’t tell us much at all about individual health. If you believe you are healthy based on other more reliable indicators (like activity level, physical fitness or your doctor’s opinion), then forget what the BMI says you are – underweight, overweight, whatever. It simply doesn’t hold up for way too many people. But understanding how unreliable the BMI is for determining a person’s healthy weight should motivate us to find more accurate indicators of health for ourselves and our loved ones — not to give up on achieving a healthy weight altogether.
We at Beauty Redefined believe a big part of the problem is that too many women have no idea what a healthy weight or size actually is. It should be no surprise that the vast majority of females as young as 3 choose an ideal body that is at least 10% underweight. With the help of for-profit media upheld by advertisers who make billions off unattainable beauty ideals, we have all come to believe a very distorted picture of what it means to look like a woman. The only weights or dress sizes we ever hear or see are for models and celebrities ranging from size 0-4, and we know that they are not representative of regular, healthy people. The average model is 5’11 and 117 lbs (which is drastically underweight, even according to the BMI). The vast majority of women we see in any form of media are underweight, not to mention digitally altered, softly lit, and styled by an entourage of experts from her head to her toes. But what about those female celebs who do appear to be of a healthy size and weight?
When It Comes to Size, These Aren’t Such “Little White Lies“
If, by chance, the beautiful women we see in popular culture are not underweight, they often wholeheartedly profess to being a
size or weight that is not reflective of their actual measurements! Take reality TV star Kim Kardashian for example. A little over a year ago, Kim blogged to her fans that she loved her cellulite and “va va voom” figure and they should embrace their own bodies. Just weeks later, she made sure the world knew that she was a “curvy” size 2 and no bigger. But Kim isn’t alone in claiming a size evidently much smaller than her actual self. After media controversy swirled around Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jessica Simpson gaining weight last year, both women set the record straight by simultaneously claiming they “loved their curves” and were very happy with their “size 2″ figures.
Or take 5′ 9″ singer/actress Jennifer Hudson, who told reporters in 2007 she weighed 140 lbs., after dropping 30 since her 
American Idol days. She said that in a sea of size 2 celebrities, she enjoys representing the “real women” out there with her healthy figure. But after signing a contract with Weight Watchers in early 2010, she now self-reports to have lost 80 lbs. total, and wears a size 4- 6. If we do the math based on what she has told the press, that means the curvy singer would currently weigh 90 lbs. (170 lbs. during Idol, 140 lbs. in 2007, -50 with Weight Watchers in 2010 = 90 lbs!) Unlikely.
Take a glance at full-length shots of Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, or Jennifer Hudson, and then grab a pair of size 2 jeans. Something tells us these celebs are telling a dangerous not-so-white lie to the girls and women who adore them and who can’t help but compare their own real weights and sizes to these inaccurate claims.
The Camera Doesn’t Lie … Or Does It?
It doesn’t help that our No. 1 source of health information aside from doctors is women’s magazines, and those may be the worst offender of all in terms of representing extreme thinness and beauty ideals as “fitness” or “health.” Now add the little-known fact we try to share at every chance: No image you see of a women in media has gone un-altered. Photoshopping is, by all accounts, an industry standard, and the art of digital manipulation knows no bounds. When Oprah adorned the cover of a 1989 TV Guide with her head plastered on actress Ann Margaret’s (much thinner) body, that was only the beginning. Today, some models featured in magazines are not human at all, but parts of women digitally pieced together to create an ideal.
But don’t forget about broadcast media! Did you know many celebrities will only be on camera with a filtered lens to blur away any “imperfections” like pores, moles, wrinkles, blemishes, or stray hairs? Were you aware that film can be stretched to create a taller, thinner image? And soft, flattering lighting is standard on the set of nearly every television show and movie? Shows like E! News, Extra, and Entertainment Tonight do not interview celebrities at press junkets without soft lighting, cameras with filtered lenses on hand. Even those “off the cuff” Q & A’s with your favorite celebs are manipulated to create an unreal ideal. And don’t forget about the entourage of stylists to create the perfect package – we’re talking wardrobe, hair, makeup, nails, eyebrows, etc. The final product, the only one we’ll ever see, is a carefully crafted ideal even our so-called “ideally beautiful” celebs can never meet!
No wonder our perception of “average” or “healthy” is incredibly skewed toward thinness and perfection.
And since we’ll see billions more images of women in media than we will ever see face to face, we must counteract those images with reality. What does normal look like? What do accurate weights and heights look like? We have a strategy for rejecting these lies, and it begins with looking each other face to face and seeing some honest, realistic numbers. For a much-needed glimpse of reality, check back this Monday, Feb. 7, to see our latest project, titled…
One of the things that I think you need to examine is the relationship between “sizes” and clothing cost. I am betting that a size 2 of a 2000 dollar dress is larger than a size 2 of a 20 dollar dress. There is a similar phenomenon in men’s clothing (though reversed.)
http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/03/jenna-fischer-why-actresses-obsess-over-weight/
Yes! Clothing sizes are another profit-driven idea that controls lots of people’s feelings about their bodies. Excellent point. And celebs will pay huge money to have dresses designed for them in a supposed “size 2″ just so they can claim that as their dress size in the press. Such a good point.
if you saw J-Hud during dreamgirls she had gained lots of weight back and lots not forget that she gained about fifty pounds when she was pregnant. I think she probably weighs 130 or so now. also, bc she worked out she sculpted a body too which could make her a smaller size than her weight indicates.