to think Duchess Kate is worryingly thin?

[louny]

Just saw pictures of the Royal Family coming out of Church at Christmas and was struck by how incredibly thin Kate is, especially around the waist and hips.

I'm sure I will be accused of just feeling jealous, but honestly I would be concerned if I saw an 18-y-o girl that skinny, let alone a woman in her 30s with three children. I can't imagine how severely you have to diet to be that thin so soon after giving birth. I know she is naturally slim but even so, I am worried the constant media attention is having a bad effect on her self-image/mental health.

Odd that Jessica Chastain has been mentioned throughout this thread by different commenters - I honestly think of her as a more ‘normal’ (in the Hollywood sense) sized actress. Has she lost a lot of weight recently?

Yeah I think vets count as meat, GaryBaldbiscuit.

You keep saying this. Are you their accountant or something? How do you know exactly how many footmen are on the roster?

Oh FFS! So everyone who makes a comment about a very highprofile public figure has to have inside information?

It's well-known that all senior royals have fully staffed residences. Exactly how many, I do not pretend to know, but I'm fairly confident that she would never ever have to wash a dish, sweep a floor, make a sandwich or change a nappy if she chooses not to. If you want to imagine otherwise, be my guest.

You mean like a working sheepdog? Even they get time off for babies.

Inane point. You said she was a SAHM. I said she isn't because she's a 'working royal'. Being 'royal' is her 'job', though your average SAHM probably has much less time on her hands than Kate. And she had plenty of time off from her very limited duties when she had her babies.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that because it's getting silly. All I said was that she's likely got a lot of time on her hands, considering she barely works and has staff to cater to her every need. If you want to believe that is not the case, I don't really think it's worth the argument.

How do you know exactly how many footmen are on the roster?

That's in the public domain. They have two - Corporal Stewart Harvey and Lance-Sergeant Stuart Hayes.

Odd that Jessica Chastain has been mentioned throughout this thread by different commenters - I honestly think of her as a more ‘normal’ (in the Hollywood sense) sized actress. Has she lost a lot of weight recently?

Snap! I made the exact same point and asked the same question!

Chastain has always looked quite 'normal' to me. For actresses who've lost a ton of weight recently, I'd think more of Mila Kunis or Emma Stone.

This popped up my instagram.
My own mother (born in the 1930s) was very slim her whole life until menopause.
I just don’t think I see anyone as skinny as Kate. I look at a lot of photos of people from the past in my job, people did look slimmer (not all of them though not everyone was skinny by a long way).
I think her height and those shoulder pads make her waist look even smaller.

I'm the only person who's mentioned Jessica Chastain and it's not pictures of her, it's films that I've seen her in (where the character doesn't have any especial reason to be very thin). Can't remember off the top of my head but I've always thought it when I've seen her in something.

I think she looks amazing. All my life I was picked on for being too thin, or had people worrying about my weight. Behind closed doors I ate like a bloody horse. I don't eat anywhere near as much as I used to and I'm slightly bigger but still size 8/10 and I've had two kids.
I think people and women in particular should just get on with their own lives and stop scrutinising other women on how they look.
The reason why Kate probably looks so good is because she has her own chef and isn't tucking into fucking turkey dinosaurs and a Donald's every 5 minutes.

And the only exercise I do is walking my dog. I've never attended a gym in my life and don't intend to.

Kate’s not too thin at all, she’s a very nice size. If you look at vanity sizing you’ll understand that being slim, like Kate, used to be the default. A size 10 now and a size 10 even in the 90s are vastly different. I’m currently almost a size 12 (more like an 11!) and consider myself to be very overweight. I am medically overweight. Most women I know would not consider me to be overweight but I am. Kate, to me, is perfectly normal and, I expect very healthy.

She’s also wearing very tailored clothes which highlight her waist when the default is baggy, shapeless clothes. Stacey Dooley is a prime example - if you saw her in a similar outfit rather than the huge shirts and wide trousers she usually wears, I’m sure people would comment that she was skeletal too.

If you look at vanity sizing you'll understand that being slim, like Kate, used to be the default
This isn't true. Most people were not this slim.

I think if you are as tall as Kate, and at the bottom of the healthy BMI range as she surely is, you’re going to look the thin side of slim.

I lived in NYC for 15 years, and now in a suburb of CT, and have never been surrounded so many sinewy people. Not just thin people, but women of 50 with six packs are ten a penny. Everyone is into Soul Cycle, or megaformer workouts, Paleo diets etc. For sure it’s a microcosm of the USA, but there are many parts of America where outdoorsiness and fitness carry far more cache than fast food and slobbing around.

She has a long torso, broad shoulders and narrow hips.

I'm a natural size 6 to 8 and not particularly sporty. Reasonably certain I'd look similar to her if I didn't have a different body type.

Anyway, she's fine. No reason to worry about the ridiculously over-privileged.

Looking at that photo of Kate upthread her head looks way too big for her body. It’s like her head has been photoshopped onto someone else’s body.

Of course she is very slim. She is slim because if she put a pound or two on she would be the Duchess of Pork all over again. She will never, probably until she is in her 70s, be able to be any other weight (just look at the admiration on here for Princess Anne, still fitting into her teenage clothes in her 60s). She looks lovely as she is, slim and healthy. But she has to maintain it or be slaughtered. It is Diana all over again. She was so thin that everyone said she was too thin, whilst at the same time her sister in law was being lampooned for being perhaps half a stone overweight ( and so what if she was?) . Dreadful misogyny that I think has actually become worse.

Look, at her height if she's 120 pounds her BMI is only 17. If she's 130 pounds she's scraping into the 18 zone, yaaaay.....

But if she's 130 pounds I'm Camilla. Megan was 115 before her pregnancy according to her own agency, and Kate ain't no stone heavier than Megan.

I am reminded of Tom Wolfe’s terminology of ‘social x-rays’ for a certain class of women in his book Bonfire of the Vanities. They lived by the motto that you could never be too rich or too thin.
It may have been somewhat misogynistic to categorise women in this way but I think there is more than an element of truth in the observation that these women in 80s New York were deriving self-esteem, and enjoying an elevated social status among their peers, through maintaining a very slim figure. It was a big part of their identity.

I think the DoC is also a product of the rarefied milieu in which she lives. She conforms impeccably to similar standards to those upheld by the mega-rich community described by Wolfe.

Had the DoC married into the royal family in early Victorian times, she would, I suggest, have erred towards the upper end of the healthy weight range rather than the lower end where she must be now. In those days, social cachet was attached to being a little plumper, indicating that you were of a sufficiently elevated status to ensure adequate nourishment was available to you and you weren’t poverty stricken or diseased. I think the DoC would have complied with this norm and she probably wouldn’t have changed so much from her teenage look if the same standards were in place today.

I just happened to look at some pictures from all over the UK, with people celebrating the New Year. 95% of the young women were what I can only describe as chubby. Massive thighs, fat rolls around the waist, double chins, all proudly on display as the new normal. Not surprised people think a slim person is too thin.
I know I will get roasted for this, but the culture of sandwiches and crisps, massive take-aways, cheap chocolate bars and widely accepted binge drinking to the extent that by not drinking you're considered weird has changed how people perceive normal figures. A size 6-8 has become XXS which is totally ridiculous. Then you look at the sizes and realise that size 36 (i.e. 8 in the UK) is actually size 38 in e.g. Italy. You have to live in the UK,
ireland or the US to get bombarded by the amount of junk food and sweets commercials, rarely see it otherwise. And it's really funny to observe. You know Christmas is coming when the shops are full of sweets, nice comfy and stretchy clothes. It is over when it is replaced by Weight Watchers meals and shakes and gym clothes. Then comes Easter with lots of chocolate and comfy bunny jumpers followed by a mad dash to try and slim down for bikinis and summer clothes, with autumn bringing plenty of "accept your body for how it looks like", "be proud to be curvy", "slim is a patriarchal construct" articles.
Meanwhile, companies are churning out tonnes of cheap food, half of which is crap, fructose syrup, palm oil, additives to satisfy our craving for more and more food to buy and eat.
So I am not surprised to see that slim figures are described as not normal and natural because apparently this is not how most women look like.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor is lean for example I get it, but it’s not a word I would associate if that makes sense. To me he looks ripped, toned, strong

Something only rarely discussed is that those ripped Hollywood male bodies are only achieved (especially in the time they have to prepare for their roles) with testosterone or testosterone-like substances.

Yet, so many men deny it, with the usual celebs have great genes and work hard with their PT claptrap I see here. I think people love to indulge the fantasy, maybe they think if they had the time and the opportunity, they’d look like that too.

I don’t know. But it’s something that annoys me. Especially when old photos exist of these people, so you’d know the truth, but they still refuse to see it.

I just happened to look at some pictures from all over the UK, with people celebrating the New Year. 95% of the young women were what I can only describe as chubby. Massive thighs, fat rolls around the waist, double chins, all proudly on display as the new normal. Not surprised people think a slim person is too thin.

Something rather nasty about this part of your post. Did it not occur to you that these were just people out enjoying themselves, not people saying “look at me I’m huge and I look great!”. Do you think people who don’t conform to your idea of normal should shut themselves away?

I think Eerie was pointing out how prolific obesity is, not people's right to enjoy themselves.

I don't think Kate's figure is natural because she has got thinner with every baby she has had. Yes, she will have a healthy diet and work out a lot but that is precisely what is unnatural about it - I bet there is a lot of angst about being in the public eye at the bottom of it all.