Surely nobody will attempt to argue that there isn’t pressure on actresses to be thin?
The evidence is everywhere, much of it from the actresses themselves. Carrie Fisher’s story, upthread, is a good example.
As well as that, Sarah Michelle Gellar was on the record saying that it wasn’t possible for ordinary women to look like her and her fellow actresses because for them, being thin and looking a certain way was their full time job. They had nutritionists and chefs and personal trainers, and lived on miserable restricted diets and protein shakes.
I also remember reading an interview with Sandra Bullock, when Speed came out - so before she was a big star - in which she said that when she got the call to audition for Speed, she had been, I quote, “eating my way around Florida” because she’d got sick of dieting and wanted a break. She then had to embark on a gruelling diet and exercise regime to return to her previous dimensions, to be in with a chance of being cast. Refreshingly honest.
Some films make a joke out of it: in Knocked Up, the Alison character, who works in TV, is offered a trial in front of the camera, and is told to ‘tone up’. Not to lose weight, no, they were not telling her to do that, but everything had to be tighter and more toned, ie smaller.
Somebody upthread mentioned Judy Garland having been given slimming pills by the studio. Greta Garbo apparently ate very little (and what she ate sounded awful!) to stay thin. So it’s nothing new and it feels disingenuous to suggest that most of the women working in film and TV just happen to be naturally thin and anyone attempting to discuss the harmful effects on anybody repeatedly exposed to this version of what women should look like should stop body shaming etc etc.