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.

Who's mentioned anything about "junk" or "discipline"??

The poster talking about crisps on the couch.

All anyone's said is question why women who aren't naturally skinny would pursue a job that demands extreme thinness.

No the question is why are women expected to be extremely thin whether that's modelling or acting.

There is a lot of talk on this thread about what people must eat or exercise like to be thin or vice versa. Of course it is easier to be thin if you eat steamed fish and veg for dinner and easier to be fat if you eat battered fish and chips for dinner. But this is not automatic and people make all kinds of assumptions.
So a friend who is very thin and who some might see as naturally slim rarely eats at home and normally only has a bar of chocolate a day and maybe a biscuit. When she goes out for dinner a few times a week she eats a normal main meal and dessert. It makes it appear that she eats normally and healthily, she really does not.
On the other end another friend who is fat does park run every day, regularly does 10k runs and eats very healthily. She just eats too much and I suspect this is because she tends towards depression.

You can be very underweight and only eating a very unhealthy diet if you eat hardly anything and vice versa.
And a lot of women have disordered eating. It is very common.

You keep ignoring shape & height. At a BMI of 20 you have a 24" waist, I need a BMI of 16 for that. Cant you see the difference?

What?? You're the one ignoring body shape, not me.

I've repeatedly posted that different women naturally have different types of frames, and that what's unhealthily skinny for one body type is normal/healthy for a different body type.

Literally my entire point was that if someone has the type of body type/frame where they'd need to be severely underweight to fit into a size 8-10, why on earth would they choose to pursue professional modelling?

@WisconsinRaw maybe the better question is why models have to be so thin?

The vast majority of models don't struggle to be an 8-10, they struggle to be a 4-6 once they become young adults.

And a lot of women have disordered eating. It is very common.

This comes up all the time on MN: the idea that anyone smaller than a 12 must secretly be anorexic and absolutely starve themselves. It's not true. It's simply not true and it's very damaging.

Plenty of women eat three big healthy meals a day, eat chocolate and crisps every day, have a takeaway pizza and curry twice a week, have no eating issues at all, and still manage to stay a healthy slim weight.

@WisconsinRaw you keep making assumptions about what other people are saying.
Disordered eating is very common amongst women of all sizes, underweight, normal and overweight. Disordered eating is a behaviour, not a weight.

Disordered eating is a behaviour, not a weight.

That was literally my entire point?

You made a big huge post that was entirely based on the assumption that slim women secretly starve themselves.

It's totally wrong to make assumptions about people's diet based on their body shape.

@WisconsinRaw Although I do not believe that someone can be 7 or 8 stone and eat three big meals a day including takeaways and crisps and chocolate every day, unless they are over-exercising. Weight is about calories in and calories out.
Unless your idea of a big meal is distorted. I remember one woman on MN being surprised that her GP told her she did not eat enough when she had an enormous salad every night. Her enormous salad was a plate of lettuce, grated carrot, bit of sweetcorn, cucumber and a few tomatoes with no dressing. She was lucky if it added up to 200 calories. Some people do have a very distorted idea of how much they are eating and what is normal, amongst all weights of women.

I also don't think it's okay to say fat people are fat because they eat too much. Some people naturally have bigger frames, and there are lots of reasons why people are overweight, and some people look bigger than they are because of their body frames and how their bodies store weight.

@WisconsinRaw you are saying people talking about disordered eating are automatically talking about thin women. I said disordered eating is very common amongst women. You jumped to equating that with slimness. Which is why I said disordered eating is a behaviour, not a weight.
Disordered eating is very common amongst women in Britain.

@WisconsinRaw no one denies fat people are fat because they eat too much. And thin underweight people are thin because they eat too little.
Yes medications and ill health can play a part for both these groups of people.

I once went to London fashion week and was in a park surrounded by models on their break. It was actually eerie how long and thin and beautiful they were, like being in a flock of gazelles. They were like being from another planet and ALL of them were sipping water, which was weird when the park was full of normals eating their sandwiches.

Disordered eating is a behaviour, not a weight.

You say that, then immediately post that anyone who weights 8stone (which would put most short-average height women firmly in the middle of the healthy BMI range) must eat fairly little and be in denial about it?

Why is it so hard to accept that some women have naturally slender frames and fast metabolisms, and that it's perfectly possible to have a BMI of 20 while still eating three decent meals a day?

Honestly this attitude is so destructive. Trying to portray a BMI of 20 as being teeny tiny. Claiming slim women all starve themselves and are in denial about having EDs. So damaging.

Women just all have different body types: some women are naturally taller/shorter/thinner/slighter/broader/more pear-shaped. Some women naturally gain or lose weight more easily than others. Because we're all individuals. Like I've said all along, acting should be about being able to play a character not about what your body looks like and we should see a much wider range of bodies on TV. This damaging culture where actresses are expected to all have the same slim body type does so much harm, and it leads to attitudes like this "all slim women starve themselves."

@Crowsaregreat

I once went to London fashion week and was in a park surrounded by models on their break. It was actually eerie how long and thin and beautiful they were, like being in a flock of gazelles. They were like being from another planet and ALL of them were sipping water, which was weird when the park was full of normals eating their sandwiches.

I did a FW when I entertained idea of doing fashion

I felt this too, and I was pretty slim and tall
back then, but yes it felt quite otherworldly

balloonslayer. Corsets. Thats how the Victotian ladies did it. 19" waist? No problem.

You jumped to equating that with slimness.

If your intention was not to equate disordered eating with slimness, why was the majority of your post a very detailed description of the exact eating habits of your "seemingly naturally slim friend" who actually secretly starves herself? Why did you make a second post insisting that anyone who weighs 8stone must be lying about eating three decent meals a day? Accompanied by yet another remarkably detailed description of the exact food intake of another "delusional" skinny woman?

For someone not trying to equate slimness with disordered eating, you're sure fond of pulling out stories about women starving themselves.

Personally I think it's really strange behaviour to try & derail a thread so much & hope you get the help you need.

It's derailing to point out that all women have different body types and that it's wrong and damaging for the entertainment industry to insist on near-universal slimness? I "need help" just for stating that it's possible to have a BMI of 20 without starving yourself, if you happen to have a naturally small frame and fast metabolism?

It's pretty fucking ironic that I'm being attacked and told I'm a troll who needs mental health support by someone who claims to be a model who needs to starve just to maintain the same waist size as a 40-something with a BMI of 20, and posts pro-ana shit about eating cotton balls.

Also corsets didn’t move the internal organs unless the woman practiced tight lacing. Obviously some women who achieved a 19” waist did tight lace. Others wouldn’t have depending on their size etc.

Tight lacing was known to be dangerous at the time and was very much a fetish thing. ‘Respectable’ women didn’t tight lace their corsets.

A friemd of mine is absolutely tiny. She has a small waist, narrow hips and does eat carbs. She has three children and her daughters are built the same as her. Some people are just lucky to be very slim.

@dorangme

Also Kate Middleton is supposed to have a 24" waist so how come she looks in your words utterly emaciated at a perfectly normal size?

Supposed to according to who? Who claims to have measured her and then put it online?

Well duh! Of course I knew about the existence of corsets

I meant that you could lace teeny weeny 14 year old me as tight as you liked and I don't think you'd have got my waist to 18" . I expect they must have started doing it when girls were about 10 so they just grew, or didn't grow, into that shape. A bit like neck rings I suppose.

Girls were put into corsets at puberty.