Am I the only person who thinks Victoria Beckham looked better in her early Spice Girl days...

I bet you're overweight and insecure about it, can't think why else you'd start this thread.

Huh? You feel sorry for VB??? The Beckham's are the ones to reignite it with mentioning it in their -PR stunt- documentary.

Before that, RL was happily living a life of obscurity with her family in Norway or somewhere.

This is such a nasty thread.

Creating a post soley publicise a negative opinion about someone's appearance is pretty shit behaviour.

I'd suggest it points to a pretty shit personal mindset too - what happy person posts this rubbish?

OP - have a word with yourself.

She’s also loaded, I believe her family is significantly wealthier than the Beckhams, so not with him for the money. He must have some hidden talents to account for the attraction cause I’m mystified😂

Why do you think that is? women 'up north' are certainly exposed to the same media as women in London so why do they not succumb to the 'pressure' from celebrities like women in London?

If you live north of the Midlands that’s par for the course, I live in London, there are lots of skinny women here.

I’ve never seen her look fat either, but she clearly felt pressure to slim down, which is why I included her.

are you her doctor?

Except that's not what I said is it? You know you said something stupid so now you're just making stuff up. How can being medically underweight be healthy - what are you on?

I know a fair few people who could do with a 'little pressure' to help them lose weight and eat more healthily. In my world I don't see many women who are starving themselves, it's quite the other way- most people are a bit, or a lot overweight.

It is healthy to remain slim, Holly has slimmed down because she was putting weight on- I have never seen her look anywhere near 'too thin'.

One of my best friends had AN and I knew 3 other women who had it too. All of them commented at different times that they felt too large as per the cultural paradigm. None of them were objectively large at all.

She looks good in both but like all of us nearing 50 bright sunlight and no makeup is how we really look.

I admire her discipline as I have none. I wish she would adopt me for a couple of years and keep me locked up and feed me what she eats and make me exercise. I’m saying this because I’ve been off work after my son went to University to get my weight down and I’ve put weight on! I don’t have the stress of work or looking after kids to use anymore. Everyone’s living their life mine just involves dodging photos, loads of wine and food. However, I’m starting again on November 1st 😂.

BTW a University degree isn’t everything it’s not like her kids could have gone to the local state schools they would have been media mobbed all the time.

I’d say they’re all very thin, and many have gone through phases of looking too thin. Some may be slim naturally as I am. But the fact of it being natural doesn’t mean it doesn’t exert pressure on women who don’t have such small frames. I’m aware of this as I have a teenage DD.

HW was much curvier previously and has obviously felt pressure to slim down.

We can have every sympathy with those with EDs but blaming healthy/slim/attractive women for triggering it is nonsense.

EDs are based on a distorted sense of oneself, not because celebs are in good shape. I just see it as an excuse to gossip. Nobody here calling Victoria a stick, rail thin or gaunt is doing it because they care about anyone else's body image.

Are any of these people emaciated?

Most are average weight are not even remotely 'thin'. Wouldn't look twice at any of them. A few are thin.

Thin people still exist in nature. Thin people existing is not responsible for anyone else's ED.

Only a few of those listed are extremely thin! Most are just slim. Being young and slim is healthy and normal.

Holly Willoughby? She really isn't thin! She's a perfectly normal healthy weight!

Younger generation - Anya Taylor-Joy, Zendaya, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Nicole Richie, the Olsen sisters, Lily Collins

Older - Kate Bosworth, Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Moss, Princess Kate, Amal Clooney, Davina McCall, Holly Willoughby etc

Kylie Jenner and the world of surgical alteration is whole other question.

This is, similar to what used to be in magazines from celebs who were fairly new mothers. Asked how they have "snapped back into shape" the reply would be "Oh it keeps me slim running after a 1 year old"!! What utter rubbish. If that was the case all mothers would be thin. At least nowadays they mostly admit to punishing exercise routines not so much the restricted eating.

Over40Overdating Are you trying to lump thin people who smoke and don’t look after their diet and probably don’t do any exercise etc with those that stick to a diet that covers all the vitamin and minerals etc they need, don’t smoke but do exercise and saying that they will all have problems later in life

I was trying to make the distinction between the people who are thin because they don’t eat or eat a diet just based on restricted calorie intake as opposed to those who have a restricted diet because it only includes foods that give them all the vitamins and minerals etc they need regardless of calories.

FWIW I don’t eat cake (I really don’t like it)

Can we have some examples of extreme thinness in society? Genuinely, who are we talking about?

Who are these people who influence young girls who are unhealthily thin? I can't think of any women in pop culture in 2023 who fit this paradigm.

Ice spice, Maya Jama, Kylie Jenner etc are not extremely thin. Who else are we talking about?

Most people don't look better in their 20s, you're just equating youth and beauty.

The idea that her busy life prevents her putting on weight - what planet is that coming from? I know plenty of women working 3 minimum wage jobs then coming home to kids/housework/ caring for older relatives. Not one of them looks like Victoria Beckham. When will this equation of low weight with moral rectitude just fuck off?

I have a daughter with an ED and the extreme thinness of many women in the public eye is a massive driver of this, along with the misconception that excess weight=laziness and dirtiness. So yes, I judge this crappy aspect of our society and those who propagate it.

Not blaming VB though, working in fashion puts her in the most brutal arena for competitive thinness. Just hope she's protecting her dd from it.

@yalta that new study ‘suggests’ it doesn’t say definitively that being hungry is linked to ageing more slowly.

There are studies however that show that older people who are a bit heavier - not obese but with some weight on - actually fair better in old age than thin ones.
Anecdotally I have seen that in my family. Mostly as the bone thin ones eschewed food for smoking as they had done all their life to maintain societally approved thinness.

Those on here advocating restrictive eating and referring to anyone eating cake as ‘stuffing’ themselves and saying with certainty that being fat is a one way ticket to cancer and diabetes etc are as problematic as those critical of thinness. Every discussion on weight comes down to the same lazy insults - if you don’t enjoy food fine, but your language projects your own issues around it loud and clear and undermines any health claims.

Disordered eating, be that over or under eating is not good for anyone. The amount people need to eat to be healthy varies from person to person based on factors that can’t be assessed by a cursory glance or blanket judgement.

And holding thinness up as a barometer of health is just delusional - thin people get cancer and diabetes every day. Thin people who stay that way through under-eating also develop things like osteoporosis at a higher rate.

Let alone people who smoke or use off label drugs to maintain a weight their body is not meant to be. People using ozempic to suppress their appetite and buying it off unlicensed sellers online are at risk of gastroperisis (sorry awful spelling!) amongst other things - a condition that costs a huge amount to treat on NHS. Yet they would be held up as healthy by some on here simply because they are thin.

I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life yet I am also the healthiest - backed up by a recent full body check.

To some on here I would be considered average size, to others obese : what actually matters is health and that can be achieved at many sizes despite the absolute certainty of some to the contrary.

Being too thin can cause many painful physical problems as pp's have pointed out. VB is obviously seriously underweight. She mostly hides it nowadays by wearing baggy, shapeless clothes much of the time. Irl she is probably absolutely tiny and fragile. At her age and weight there are big risks of injury due to osteoporosis and other health related issues that can be caused by being underweight for years. It's good to be a healthy weight at any age but it's really not healthy to be underweight as an older woman.