To think that skinny celebrities do have a negative impact on women and girls?

[thatisnotcoffee]

How could they not? When you constantly have this ideal body type pushed in your face as the only right one and and when size 14 is considered to be overweight then how can that not effect you?

Dakota Fanning is considered to be a good role model for teenagers and young women but she's a stick! How can that be healthy? She's 21 and still has the body of a child.

I watched an interview with Amanda Holden recently and she's wasting away. I also looked up Gillian Anderson recently when I found out the X Files was coming back and I was shocked to see that she's also very thin. I was even more shocked when I looked at even older pictures of her from 10-20 years ago and I realised she was very skinny even back then. I just don't understand how being that thin can be healthy tbh.

This sort of shit just makes me feel like crap and that I must be a hippo at a size 16 even though that's the average size.

Helena
The cost of a few people flushing a few pills down the toilet is a drop in the ocean compared with
the bills for diabetes, COPD, bariatric surgery, heavyweight equipment and all the other costs of the obesity epidemic.

How many patients read the leaflet with pills anyway?

why would you flush meds down the toilet? they need to be returned to a chemist who can dispose of them safely!

I do Talkin I read every leaflet and pore over everything that may ruin what ive achieved. Thats what it does to you.

Why does it have to be romantic lead? You're saying why are women only valued for how they look but then only want examples of romantic leads? Do you see many overweight men in romantic lead? No - because the whole point of these rom com things is to be idealistic, to get us sucked in to this fantasy romance with these beautiful people and it gets us hooked.

I can give you lots of larger (not just in weight but figure) female leads who are fantastic in their own right and don't need to be romantic leads.

What I see are two conflicting issues. The media give us the ideals of what they think women should look like, and for the most part I think the weight is fine. But people are trying to combat this by going in the complete opposite direction. This 'Healthy At Every Size' movement, the 'fat shaming' brigade when you dare to oppose a view or give healthcare advice that involves weight loss, the shaming of women who are slim...

And funny that Helena, because I'm a fat person myself, I'm a HCP and I do care about our health. Not only that but I care about the health of our future generations. I care about them being born into a world in which averages keep increasing and people make excuses for that whilst shying away from trying to deal with it. I care about my colleagues damaging their bodies caring for an increasingly heavy population. I care about people not being able to undergo life saving or changing treatment because of weight. I care about people being brainwashed into accepting that being fat is just part of life and 'love your body at any size kids!' because no, it's going to kill us.

Sleep i did take two months worth of mini pills to the chemist to be disposed of. I was using the toilet example to prove that the cost to the NHS is only trotted out as an excuse to shame.

Because if it was REALLY about the cost that would include every cost not just the costs that suit certain agendas.

Jack Black.....Shallow Hal.

Jack Black .....The Holiday.

Grays, why are you confused- my point, that yourself and others seem to keep ignoring is that they are 'more' than just their outward appearance. There are more important things in life and women do themselves and their daughters in particular a disservice by this focus on weight all of the time. This self obsession and self righteousness about weight is not 'healthy' IMO.

On my school run I don't see all these obese women just thin and very slim, active women - they are really not being 'abused' for being thin!

Robbie Coltrane had a wife and an affair partner in Cracker.

One actor, 2 films from yonks ago.

I could mention Bridget Jones, Dawn French, HairSpray, Dreamgirls, Queen Latifah in a couple of hers, but I thought they were crappy examples.

I don't think Word is wrong to say a certain amount of blame for the obesity crisis lies at the feet of food industries. Look for Jacques Perretti's documentary, The Men Who Make Us Fat.

A dear friend of mine was feeling low the other day about having, in her words, been on a diet for 20 years and still being a size 14-16. She eats diet food (not big portions either) and the diet industry is a fucking joke which designs it's services so that users will never stop needing them. Healthy, fresh food, in the most accessible places like the Co Op or Iceland near our office, is dearer. My friend is on a pretty low income and has 2 DCs. Of course being organised, prepared and determined is what you need to shop and cook more healthily but whoop de doo, well done you if you manage it every week. Just try not to judge those who don't.

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that we all know leading a healthier lifestyle is possible. But people are deterred by cost, time, being ashamed of how they look in the gym/pool and the consumer world is not set up to stop them from feeling this way. So give folk a break. It kind of reminds me of a douchebag poster with whom I argued about the miners' strike. She told me my grandfather should basically have known better and got out of mining ahead of the game, fool that he was, because a relative of hers did exactly that. Because it's that easy when you don't have the education, money, choices.

Consider the circumstances different people live in, whether financial, familial, social, mental, whatever.

goldenbear and what you're doing is trying to divert from the issue. No-one here, absolutely no-one is saying that we women aren't more than our weight. I'm a mother, I'm an educated person, I'm kind, compassionate, funny at times, a good friend... but that doesn't make this fat any less damaging to my body. And that is what I'm talking about here. Not the worth of women. We are worth more than convincing ourselves that we can be happy and healthy at any size.

The films i mentioned are no older and in some cases more recent than the stuff you mentioned.

And walking past the rack where the weekly womens mags are in supermarkets i see Dawn French get shamed a lot

Robbie Coltrane and Johnny Vegas though.......no.

Helena which is why i said I thought they were crappy examples and why I didn't mention them in the first place.

This is such a tedious argument, you trying to grasp onto some overweight men to try and prove some point, what point exactly? and since when has Johnny Vegas been a romantic lead

I don't really think this is of any value.

Totally agree Agent. Its all very well promoting #ThisGirlCan. But the fact that its had to be done in the first place shows us where we are.

John Belushi was a hefty chap but light on his feet - and Carrie Fisher loved him ...

Nick Frost is never going to be dainty, but he moves so wonderfully in all of the films - and has done romantic lead.

Genuinely larger framed ladies : Toni Colette, Anjelica Huston

Not all people can be slim.

A girl I knew from school was recently in the Daily Fail and the comments about her were vile.
She's big. BUT her neck and shoulders and arms show that she is toned and lean, just big framed

we can ALL aim to be lean.

Greys Overweight men do not get shamed in the same way overweight women do. I never said he was a romantic lead.

Im small shoulders small back big boobs small waist big hips and bum. Im happy as i am

Eerm acc people are changing themselves because of the whole "rreal women have curves" (which really they are trying to say - real women are fat). One of my closest friends has been binge eating trying to gain weight and doing loads of squats so can have 'booty' . Songs which say stuff like "iI hate skinny bitches" and comments such as yours OP are encouraging obesity and reading down young women's confidence. You must be proud.

P.s, size 16 is average but it's also fat. Comments like yours will soon have size 20 as the average in this country.

I don't think Word is wrong to say a certain amount of blame for the obesity crisis lies at the feet of food industries. Look for Jacques Perretti's documentary, The Men Who Make Us Fat.

This is always used as an example of why overweight people are overweight.

But unless those men are forcing people to consume too much food and they're preventing people from taking enough exercise, they're not making anyone fat.

We make ourselves fat and often our children too. We need to take responsibility for it, or nothing will change.

Quote from Jacques Perretti.... "Contrary to popular belief, we as a race have not become greedier or less active in recent years."

This is utter bullshit. People in general eat much more food than they did years ago, they snack more often and since 2 car families are a common site...that coupled with the internet/games consoles/endless TV channels, of course we as a race have become greedier and less active.

I can't believe anyone takes him seriously for stating otherwise.

*sight

OK. In for a penny, in for a pound. If I'm going to get flamed I might as well type my real thoughts

In the past, only the rich could afford to eat too much.
They therefore came to regard gluttony and sloth as bad things and self restraint and slimness and fitness as being signs of good character.

Even as food has become more plentiful and cheap, richer, better educated people have taken care not to over eat and have valued slimness and exercise.

The poorer, less educated people have only had access to unlimited food in the last 40 years.

THEY are the ones who are eating too much and moving too little.

Until the overweight realise that they cannot blame anybody but their own lack of self restraint for their size, nothing will change.

The media reflect the multiple views of their audience.
There are threads in the Daily Fail saying people are too fat, too thin, too fit, too flabby - we each see the ones that fit with our personal prejudice.

Overweight people need to learn to say no to food and yes to exercise.
It really is that simple.

The food industry has no power over those who buy carrots.

14 is avergae that's because people are eating more.
I'm a size 8. I also have flabby arms, flabby belly, flabby arse, flabby thighs. back fat. but am a size 8. I am also EXTREMELY unhealthy. sorry for being a smaller size than you.
we should ALL aim to be fit an healthy. but fit and healthy doesn't mean "be like dakota fanning" who has NEVER done anything bad, or illegal, and is an excellent role model.
always aim to look how you want. I find it extremely disheartening that people want to be anorexic OR obese. why would you want that? why would you not want to have the best body?
I don't have the best body because I can't be arsed. I eat. I have a belly and I can't get rid of it. i don't know how and exercise hurts me because i'm so unhealthy.
still a size 8.
we all just need to stop eating shit and start going to the gym. my OH eats absolutely loads but is muscly and fit. he's not healthy though.

look, EVERYONE needs to stop eating shite food (and i'm sat here eating a bag of crisps) and start running. no one should settle for being 5 stone overweight when you could look extremely ace in that bodycon dress.
don't do it for men, do it for you. YOU feel beautiful. I don't wear makeup or nice underwear for my OH, i do it for me.
always do everything for you. healthiness will help you live longer. do that for YOU.
the fact size 16 is average is not okay. in the 50s it was size 10, because women were all up doing something, eating good food. not crisps and coke like me.

meowth

I am naturally slim. However my mum was smaller boned than me. Her waist was tiny compared to mine even before babies. I get fed up by women picking on other women.

You know what gets on my nerves - boob obsession!!! I don't have any!! Im fed up being made to feel inferior. I feel sorry for young girls! However I am fit and healthy and that is my priority in realty . :-)

Humph. Running just makes me really hungry, Meowth.