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.

I read someone who worked as an agent talking about the reality of what some women in the industry ate. She said women will say things to journalists like I had a chicken salad for lunch, then a plate of chips later. When actually they had a chicken salad and ate a few bots of lettuce leaving the rest. Then they ate two chips and their boyfriend ate the rest.
Never believe those articles about, what I eat in a normal day.

I catered lots of celebrity private parties in the late 70’s early 80’s , could have cried how much of my hard work was vomited straight down the toilet.

@Bumzoo

Yes. I've seen a few and they were all remarkably thin.

Thinnest ever was Kate Middleton. She's the thinnest person I've ever seen.

I agree. I met her a few years ago and was shocked at how thin she was, she looked like she would snap if you touched her. She was not a natural weight, I've been very thin and didn't look like that, she looked almost anorexic.

If Kate is thin through purging starving, poor William, he's been through this before

There are lots of articles online that say Kate Middleton frequently has plasters and bandages on her fingers and that is a tell-tale sign that she is making herself vomit by sticking her fingers down her throat. Apparently, when you do that, it is easy to accidentally bite yourself. A Dr is quoted as saying the number of injuries on her fingers are very unusual in someone who does not do a job that comes with lots of hand injuries such as a carpenter.
Look at photos Karen Carpenter with anorexia and compare them to the thinnest celebrities and it is clear that they are unhealthily thin.

It is so sad that eating disorders amongst celebrities are normalised. We should have a culture where someone obviously underweight sparks concern.

Can you imagine if Oprah / Harry revealed that Kate's slenderness was down to X Y Z 🙈

@Ilovedthe70s

I catered lots of celebrity private parties in the late 70’s early 80’s , could have cried how much of my hard work was vomited straight down the toilet.

I don't get this sort of thinking. Surely if it's food that's been enjoyed, it's served it's purpose? Bulimia/eating disorders are horrific but why is it anything different if it's purged or digested properly? It's still enjoyed by the consumer? 

@reallyreallyborednow

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

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

Reminds me of Gwyneth Paltrow saying recently how she went "off the rails" during lockdown as she was eating "bread and pasta". Shock horror, she was eating normal food groups...

You really have to ask that question? Fidf is to nurture and nourish as well as enjoy. Not to say "Mmm, that was tasty, I'll throw it back up now though"

jinglinghellsbells I was not attributing weight gain to the menopause. What I said was that bodies change as we grow older and shape can change. I know that it’s possible to maintain a healthy weight at that time.

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.

Yes & Im not sure why it's a bad thing? I'm bigger framed, taller & heavier than my gran was. She spent most of her childhood hungry.

Kate Middleton has 8lb plus babies because what she is eating is top notch quality.

Many women's rib cage expands when pregnant and does not always return after giving birth. I am talking about women who are naturally petite. Your changing body shape does not mean you are fat. And by the time you hit peri menopause, even the naturally slim women do not have a totally flat tummy. They are not fat, it is just life.

Yes I also don't understand why having a bit of a belly or generous bust/bump = overweight/fat? I'm slim but I can certainly pinch an inch

@dorangme

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.

Yes & Im not sure why it's a bad thing? I'm bigger framed, taller & heavier than my gran was. She spent most of her childhood hungry.

Kate Middleton has 8lb plus babies because what she is eating is top notch quality.

Totally disagree about Kate.

But yes look at the frame of older Chinese women and then their granddaughters. The older Chinese women were born and raised during times when there was not enough food to eat. Their frames are slight as a direct result of malnourishment. Their granddaughters may be slim, but their frames are much bigger.
This happened in Britain, but the effects are far less dramatic than than in a country like China with famies in living memory.
Being very petite in frame may be seen as culturally desirable, but it is not a sign of good health in your parents.
A healthy body is strong, slim and solid looking.

Being very petite in frame may be seen as culturally desirable, but it is not a sign of good health in your parents

Not really correct is it? Petite frames in healthy nations tend to be down to genetics. You can have a petite frame and be fit and strong.

Petite frames can be down to environment such as famines or genetics. Yes you can have a petite frame and be healthy and strong. But the genetics side comes down to the health of the nation. As people generally get healthier, do not suffer famine and eat healthy food, then frames generally get larger.

@Dragonn

Being very petite in frame may be seen as culturally desirable, but it is not a sign of good health in your parents

Not really correct is it? Petite frames in healthy nations tend to be down to genetics. You can have a petite frame and be fit and strong.

Quite.

A healthy body is strong, slim and solid looking.

That’s too narrow in definition, you can be petite and have a healthy body

Solid looking? I'm BAME. My daughter's frame is like many in Eastern Asia, very small build, short. She has natural musculature. Very small breasts. Perfectly healthy. Plenty of women in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines have similar builds and bear children and breastfeed no problem with such small frames and weights. My hairdresser has 3 and yet on MN she'd be called one of those '10 year old child' and 'pre-pubescent'. My DD also has very, very little body hair and no need to shave, nor does she want to. Again, this is common in some ethnicities.

I recently read Carrie Fisher's autobiography and she writes about the casting process for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars in the late 70s (she was 19 years old at the time):

'Because, see. there was this horrible fat thing going on! When I got this great job to end all jobs, which truly I never thought I would get because there were all these beautiful girls who were up for the part - there was Amy Irving and Jodie Foster; this girl Terri Nunn almost got the part... Oh! and Christopher Walken almost got cast as Han Solo. (Wouldn't that have been fantastic?). Anyway, when I got this job they told me I had to lose 10 pounds. Well, I weighed about 105 at the time.'

So, Carrie at 5' 1" and 7 and a half stone (BMI 19.84 - the very low end of healthy) was basically told to get down to 6 stone 11 pounds (BMI 17.95 - underweight). Poor Carrie, no wonder she ended up with problems.

In the late 70s I very clearly remember being forced to stand on the bathroom scales by my mother and elder sister, at the age of around 14 or 15 and the gasps of horror that ensued when it was revealed that I weighed 10 stone (at 5'5"). I was promptly put on a diet and it was made very clear that to be as 'fat' as this was something to be ashamed of. Cue a lifetime of disordered eating and a very messed up relationship with food and my own body which hangs over me even now, 40-odd years on.

Look at Kate Middleton when she was at university. Slim but solid looking in that her arms and legs look normal. I am not talking about having a rugby build.
Women in south asian countries who are very petite are born from mothers who often did not have enough to eat. It does not mean their daughters do not eat healthily and are not healthy, but those genetics are not healthy.
There has been a lot of work to show that genetics do matter. If your parents or grandparents suffered famine or malnutrition that has an impact on your genetics.
I am not criticising women with very petite frames, they may be living an extremely healthy lifestyle.

@ilovecardigans I remember at 18 a woman in her twenties told me she weighed 11 stone 3 pounds. I thought she was enormous. She was overweight, but not the elephant size I thought she was. I thought a normal weight was about 7 - 8 stone.

oven petite frames will exist in many nations regardless of whether families suffered malnutrition.

Most nations have times when their population did not have enough to eat in their grandparents time. It was the norm. Even now I have friends working in countries like Thailand who say most people skip some meals because they can't afford to eat three meals a day.

I thought a normal weight was about 7 - 8 stone.

Yes, that was what my mother and sister drummed into me, @ovensoff. It wasn't until the scales hit 8 stone that I was deemed to be 'acceptable'. I recently unearthed some old photographs from around that time and I look absolutely miserable and very thin & pale.