A cover girl who isn't size 6? I actually like the pic

[BennyAndSwoon]

here

I had to search around to find a link that isn't DM

I think she looks fab

Good on her

no, katie grand will have styled it probably. maybe not, but most likely. she'll certainly have had a big say in the feel of it.

hmm shmm

Jabberwocky - agree with you that the Dove campaign was EXCELLENT.

Beth Ditto - nope, she is morbidly obese and not nice to look at. Equally, size 0 people are morbidly thin. What's wrong with having a nice size 12 model?? Just don't geddit.

Sorry, I find the picture revolting, no-one is naturally meant to be that size, some (admittedly very few) people ARE a size 6, I am, I'm 5ft6 (if I stand up straight) and my weight has been pretty much constant since my teens. I'm not skeletal, I'm a healthy shape, you can't see all my ribs etc.
Beth Ditto is putting her health at risk and setting just as bad an example as some of the anorexic women in the media.

i actually think she's perfectly nice to look at, i genuinely do. there is something very attractive about that edible rump, those folds of flesh and that, by any standards, pretty face. the image is very stylised, i probably wouldn't think the same had it not been photoshopped to within an inch of its life, but i think that they got something rather yummy and plumplicious and sexy out of it in the end. i'm really surprised and a bit worried by the big and ugh of so many of you. and disappointed, i think, as well.

why am i disappointed? i think because i didn't realise how far we'd been pushed in this beauty myth. i know some women are silly arses about always wanting to look slim etc but i didn't think there would be so many of you who couldn't take the image for what it it, a rather imo attractive lubricious creature and a charismatic performer. i thought you were all cleverer than that. that's all... it's just surprised me.

I don't like the picture.
I admire her for not being ashamed of her body, I think she looks fantastic clothed and as you say, it's refreshing to see something a little different to a size 6 waif, but...the rolls of fat down her back revolt me I'm afraid.
My own spare tyre revolts me too though so perhaps that's why I hate to look at hers.

"Obese isn't attractive, neither is skeletal."

skeletal is regarded as very attractive now in the west by plenty of bubble heads. obese has historically been regarded as hugely attractive and still is in countries with less food to go round. these are cultural things.

she always strikes me as a performer as someone that needs more confidence really

really, sea? why's that?

I have known of cultures where fat males are considered attractive because it implies wealth, but there aren't many cultures where fat women are roundly desired (pardon the pun).

Sorry, but I don't buy into this 'fat is attractive' myth. It isn't. It just isn't. A fat person can be attractive by dint of their personality, but their body?

No. No way. People just weren't designed to look that way. It implies indolence and over-indulgence, rightly or wrongly.

Can a fat person not be a bubble-head too?

oh lord yes. the ones who hate themselves and aspire to thinness while cramming their mouths and doing no exercise, particularly.

i'm not making a huge case for all fat being beautiful, just this one image not being deserving of words like 'revolting' etc. i think that's fucked-up.

I think we're on the same page, Aitch. I don't see the photo as revolting. I see it as a piece of pop-art, and something that's been around a long time.

Shades of Beryl Cook, amongst others!

and desi, ime men from south india like women with a bit of weight on. and this is an interesting article about women in mauritania being force-fed to keep them fat. (also fucked up but rather contradicts your earlier assertion).

Desiderata - Not known of cultures where fat women are desired?? Check out google and I'll think you'll find that is NOT the case. How can you say a fat person is attractive for their personality?!? Many, many, many men worship and adore a fuller figure. I'd argue that men who like exceptionally thin women may as well go out with young men - flat hairless torsos As for people weren't designed to look like that - WTF? - people are just people - and all different.

When I see thin women it makes me so unhappy, as my mother became skeletal just before she died of cancer, to me size 6 = ill

precisely, desi. it's been photoshopped so that she has almost a balloony shine to her skin, it's rubens via pop via cook with possibly a hint of early porn photography (heavy eye make up, blunt fringe and bob etc).

she's only young. i don't think she's being advised properly. it isn't healthy but the media seem to love her.

i only know her control song. what's her other stuff? i really like music but she's never made much of an impression with me.

whoops, forgot to post the article

My first reaction was to her eyeshadow, actually.

Yes, she's a big girl. So what?

Being at an extreme of under- or over-weight isn't good for you, fine, but I don't see what that has to do with this photograph. It's an image of a celebrity on the cover of a fluffy magazine - it's not being held up as a role model of healthy womanhood.

Confident womanhood, yes, & good for her.

I'm sorry about your mum, Minx, but you're twisting the argument to suit your emotions.

Losing weight through terminal illness is a different matter entirely.

I think she looks very sexy, mainly because she obviously believes she's feckin' gorgeous, her confidence is appealing and if I was a man.....

No, not really, but she looks ok to me, it's a strong image and manages to capture her youth and quirkiness.

I said there aren't many cultures where fat women are desired.

The South Sea Islands, amongst others, spring to mind.

It has never been hugely desirable in the west, although interestingly, as earlier mentioned, it used to be an attractive quality in a western male.

Now, the opposite applies.

I'm not twisting anything, I see thin people and it makes me think of illness. There are also all the people around the world starving that tie in with thin/dying. I think it's 'revolting' to aspire to starvation!

i think you're wrong tbh, i think many of the great beauties of their day would now have an obese BMI. i'd even hazard that marilyn would have done at her heaviest.