Are most actresses very very slim in real life?

[Mitford1789]

I saw a well known actress a few days ago, standing behind her in the queue for a coffee. She was dressed down, however was clearly very pretty in person. However I was taken aback by how slim she was. I would say she was slightly taller than average, not a tiny person if you know what I mean. But so so slim. Do you think most famous actresses/singers etc are like this? Maybe I’m very naive.

Of course they eat very little and work out each day. The only interview that seemed relatively honest was one with Madonna who said that her personal trainer was at her home nearly every day except on a Sunday as she needed one day not to work out and eat some cake.
She also liked gardening.
Mostly they try to make us think it's not anything they are actually doing ; it's obvious that this isn't the case as you need a will of iron to be so committed to staying slim. Hence the reason I'm not and have put on weight over the years. It's sad if having an eating disorder is the only way to stay so slim but I bet many have gone this route as under pressure to not put on weight.

@reallyreallyborednow

Bridget Jones if Irc was about 9 stone in the books, and the narrative was that was massive. I didn’t feel it was clear that that was just how BJ felt, or whether the reader was supposed to also think it’s massive.

The film definitely presented her as on the larger side rather than someone who was slim, thinking she was big, iyswim.

In the 90's/early 2000's all the magazines were full of perfectly fine women going on and on about being fat and bloated and their big pot bellies and bingo wings, all while stating they were a size 10. Possibly a 12 for a few, who wrote like they were 30st.

Incredibly damaging. Magazines were just there to tell you what your next insecurity would be.

@reallyreallyborednow

Bridget Jones if Irc was about 9 stone in the books, and the narrative was that was massive. I didn’t feel it was clear that that was just how BJ felt, or whether the reader was supposed to also think it’s massive.

The film definitely presented her as on the larger side rather than someone who was slim, thinking she was big, iyswim.

136lbs - 9 stone 10.

I know that because I hit 9 stone 10 at Xmas and wanted to cry because that had always been the point for me that I'd need to properly tackle my weight gain (I'm 5' 3")... I'm now 10 stone 1 and can't shift it at all - I blame my age!

So the whole media was fucked, basically.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

Look at the reality of someone like Renee Zellwegger vs her Bridget Jones persona. Didn't she describe gorging on a diet of doughnuts and the like to achieve BJ overweight - the language she used was telling.

Well, I walked past Renee Zellweger all the time during the three weeks when she was working undercover at the Picador publicity department without clocking anything particularly abnormally tiny about her back then.

I've worked with Claire Foy and she's not especially thin. Just normal sized, albeit fairly short (probably 5'3).

Photoshopping is just as big an issue as pressure to diet, imo. Someone mentioned the lack of stomach pooches - most actresses (other than the super skinny Hollywood ones) do have stomach pooches in person, they're just photoshopped out - video footage can be digitally altered to remove things like bellies just as easily as still images - and it's also standard for actresses to wear things like Spanx and sometimes more than one pair of Spanx.

@MmeLaraque oh it absolutely would happen the other way. There are almost daily threads on here slagging fat people off, yet somehow that's ok because 'health' MN is appallingly fattist.

Doesn’t Liz Hurley eat off a side plate?

And I’m sure I read that when there is a red carpet event, the celebrities starve themselves for four days.

I couldn't starve for four hours let alone days!
I guess they just pick at leaves or a bit of fruit.

@HaveringWavering

*Doesn’t Liz Hurley eat off a side plate?

I seem to remember it was liz talked about eating 6 raisins as a snack…

@reallyreallyborednow

Bridget Jones if Irc was about 9 stone in the books, and the narrative was that was massive. I didn’t feel it was clear that that was just how BJ felt, or whether the reader was supposed to also think it’s massive.

The film definitely presented her as on the larger side rather than someone who was slim, thinking she was big, iyswim.

Except she really wasn’t that big at all in the films! Maybe not 9 stone slim but still relatively slim.

There are famous women who are naturally slim. You can see that their heads are in proportion to their bodies and their necks look normal.
There are others who are obviously underweight. Kate Middleton is one. In close-fitting dresses, her stomach appears concave. In photos of her standing next to ordinary professional tennis players, she looks about half their size.
Eating disorders are I suspect rife amongst celebrities. And they were in the past as well. Many celebs spoke out about using dieting pills i.e. speed in the past to obtain an unnaturally thin body.
I am not jealous at all of someone being unnaturally thin. It is dangerous and bad for your health. And I have not lost touch with what a normal weight looks like.
I think with men, make actors in the past were generally slim and men were usually slim. I think we have lost touch with what a normal slim man looks like. I suspect most people know what a normal slim women looks like, even if they are fat.
Women like Kate Middleton I suspect have an eating disorder. And to all the naturally slim brigade, there are plenty of photos in the years she was engaged where she looks a normal healthy slim.
I think denying that some female celebs are too thin simply feeds a culture where eating disorders are normalised.

And some women are able to conceive and give birth naturally and still be underweight. There are plenty of women in very poor countries suffering from malnutrition who still get pregnant and have babies. There were babies born in the Nazi concentration camps.

@dorangme

I also think it's fascinating that so many famous people are described as having a sort of 'aura' or glow. I wonder what produces that in a person? Is it there from birth or does it come with their fame?

I think it's a rich thing, less stress, more holidays etc.

Hmm. Not sure. I bumped into Jane Birkin in Paris once with her daughter Lou. She was dressed in old jeans, white tennis shoes, white T-shirt and a beige mac. No makeup. Very slender. She was in her 60's but there was just something so very charming about her. She had such a youthful vibe, was so polite and pleasant to all around her and interested in what was going on. She was reeling off names of restaurants for me and my Parisienne friend to try, so fast she was almost breathless! It was her charm and charisma that gave her the glow though of course she was always a pretty woman.

@AllIknowsofar

Doesn’t Liz Hurley eat off a side plate?

And I’m sure I read that when there is a red carpet event, the celebrities starve themselves for four days.

Someone reportedly said she ate off a children's plate, or maybe even a doll's plate...?

I think denying that some female celebs are too thin simply feeds a culture where eating disorders are normalised.

This is very true. IMO one of the big problems with the industry is the sheer homogeny of size. A size 8 is not excessively skinny (and it's very weird reading posts claiming that women who I know are probably an 8-10, slim but not skinny, as being the size of toddlers or barbie dolls), but an industry where everyone is expected to be a size 8 is dangerous and creates and encourages EDs and body dysmorphia.

There was a silly phase of people eating with cutlery for children. I think it was supposed to take longer to cut things up hence you ate less!

@pinkpapaya

There was a silly phase of people eating with cutlery for children. I think it was supposed to take longer to cut things up hence you ate less!

I don’t know if it was a common practice but it certainly made it into an episode of Ab Fab!

Paloma faith came into a nail salon I was in. She was so tiny I didn't recognise her.

To the posters complaining about the remarks on here, these are mostly actors and singers being discussed and the glaringly obvious question is - can only skinny people reach the pinnacle of their career in these industries? Since when did you need to be thin in order to act or sing? What message does this endless stream of thin celebrities send out to those embarking on a career in acting or singing?

There was an outcry about 'heroin chic' models a couple of decades ago. Much was made of how the fashion industry claimed that models needed to be ultra thin in order for the clothes to hang correctly and there needed to be some uniformity of size in order for them to fit the samples. While I don't like or agree with this argument, I can at least understand the thinking behind it. But acting? Singing? Reading the news?

Re: naturally slim v ED, I think you can tell the difference, by looking at people

think if you were to calculate their BMIs they would mostly be borderline anorexic

There’s so much fucking ignorance on this thread. Anorexic is not a weight category.

In terms of sizing of clothes, there is vanity sizing.
But there was also a national resizing of clothes I think in the nineties?
The measurements previously used for sizes had been drawn up decades before. But women's frames had got bigger as people got healthier. I know as a teenager my gran was tiny next to me because she had a tiny frame, even though she had a bit of a belly. The resizing was meant to address that women's bone structures had changed.

@OhGodNotThisAgain totally agree anorexic is not a weight category.

What they mean is many of these women are underweight and some will have an eating disorder.

@PlumpandDeliciousFatCat - Ha ha! I had forgotten about Ab Fab - Brilliant!