IGChloe Madeley is guilty of taking pointless selfies
Not just any selfie but one of the ones they take in a mirror in a state of semi undress to show off how skinny they are.
A teenage girl sees it and thinks to herself: “I’d like to be that thin, I think I’ll stop eating.”
Who is to blame, the girl or the celebrity? Answer: the celebrity. I’ll tell you why.
Whether or not it is their intention celebrities who post these sorts of skinny selfies are not just saying: “Look at me!” but “Look how thin I am!”
They aren’t promoting health and fitness as their supporters claim – that’s what nutritionists and sports stars such as Jessica Ennis do.
No, all these celebrities are actually promoting is themselves.
It isn’t even subliminal.
The message is as crystal clear as that Pussycat Dolls song that enrages feminists and grammatical pedants alike: “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”
Or when it comes to their female fans: “Don’t you wish YOU looked like THIS?” And while most women blessed with brains over brass would respond: “What, hungry and desperate?
No thanks, love,” there are plenty more impressionable young girls out there who find such celebrity self-portraits thinspirational.
It is all very well arguing that if you’ve got it, flaunt it, but what if your actions prompt a sixth former to stick their fingers down their throat?
It only takes one Twitter follower, after all.
My suggestion would be that if you cannot bear the burden of that responsibility then stop posting these sorts of selfi es and consider exiting showbusiness stage left.
In last week’s column I quoted Priory psychiatrist Dr Alex Yellowlees who said increasing numbers of young women are documenting their dieting like celebrities in a trend that is fuelling eating disorders, evidence that this behaviour does pervade our society.
I cited Made In Chelsea star Millie Macintosh and Chloe Madeley, daughter of Richard and Judy, as examples because they have posted skinny selfies.
I could have also mentioned Miley Cyrus but we’ve all had it up to here with her.
Within minutes I found myself being trolled online by fans. I was fat. I was jealous. I was boring.
I am none of those things. I am just a mother of three who is sick to death of being subjected to this extreme form of vanity.
What is the point of it except to suggest that the only measure of a woman that counts is her waistline?
I’m all for women being fi t and healthy but self-objectifying themselves in this shamelessly shallow way? So much for girl power.
Suffragettes went to jail so women could be judged by their brains rather than their boobs and here come these high-profile narcissists posting self-portraits in their bleedin’ underwear.
When will these self obsessed starlets learn that with great power comes great responsibility? (Voltaire/Spider- Man).
They might imagine that they are being “fitspirational” rather than “thinspirational” but what matters here is not how celebrities perceive themselves but how others perceive them.
I haven’t got anything against thin people, what I oppose is the arrogant artificialness of it all.
These contrived images are about as genuine as your average photoshopped magazine cover (and yes, the media is largely to blame for encouraging these egomaniacs in the first place).
IF YOU want to promote strength and vitality post a sweaty selfie running up a hill, not some stage managed, soft-lit, thigh-gap enhancing mirror image of yourself in Lycra.
Forget cup sizes, washboard stomachs and sculpted buttocks, the most attractive quality a person can have in life is humility.
It is what makes us real. And that’s why this needs to be said: real women do not post skinny selfies.
Real women realise that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUTTER isn’t bad for you after all. Well, we all suspected it, didn’t we?
I cannot have been alone in wondering how on earth a synthetic spread capable of surviving a nuclear apocalypse could possibly be better for you than a knob of unsalted.
The Government should not only issue a grovelling apology to dairy farmers but also dairy lovers now it has been revealed that its 1980s advice on dairy fats was completely flawed.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the humble egg, the most versatile food stuff known to man, was much maligned by Edwina Currie’s scurrilous salmonella scare, we now discover there was no point at all in drinking that most evil of liquids, skimmed milk.
(I always thought it served no purpose other than to ruin cups of tea and render cereal inedible). Still, there is reason to celebrate.
Crumpets have never tasted so good. Strawberries can once again be lathered in cream. And from now on, when it comes to milk, only blue will do.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FILMMAGICUma Thurman was accused of having plastic surgery
THERE ARE fears that actress Uma Thurman, left, is suffering from Renée Zellweger syndrome, characterised by a sudden inability to look like your former self.
The Kill Bill star sparked plastic surgery rumours after appearing on the red carpet in New York looking “remarkably different to normal”, according to one commentator.
But isn’t it simply the case that she had forgotten to put on her mascara? What woman of a certain age isn’t unrecognisable without her warpaint?
Perhaps Thurman gave up on make-up after suing Lancôme in 2008 over the continued use of her image on adverts after her contract had expired.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I FEEL like the only woman in Britain who hasn’t read 50 Shades Of Grey. I certainly won’t be watching it at the cinema.
If I wanted to see a middle-aged man tying up a younger woman for thrills I’d dig out one of Paul Daniels’s old magic shows (That’s tragic!).
I never read any of the books “everyone” has read. I’ve never read any Harry Potter.
Or Gone Girl. Or the Bible. It is not through fear of following the crowd.
I just find over-hyped things such a disappointment.
I’m sure it would be the same were Christian Grey actually to exist.
At first it would all feel very exciting but after your umpteenth trip to B&Q and yet another chiropractic appointment you’d probably end up secretly wishing you could curl up with a good book instead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But isn’t it simply the case that she had forgotten to put on her mascara? What woman of a certain age isn’t unrecognisable without her warpaint?
THE JAILING of a Korean Air executive for an air-rage incident involving a packet of macadamias isn’t necessarily the nuttiest snack related thing to have happened on an aeroplane.
Cho Hyun-ah, daughter of the airline’s chairman and head of in-flight service, was sentenced to a year behind bars for losing it after she was served the nuts in an unopened bag instead of a dish.
She was found guilty of forcing a flight to change route, obstructing the captain and forcing a crew member off the plane.
But is that as nuts as some of the things that are written on the little silver in-flight snack packs?
If the standard peanut warning of “this packet contains nuts” wasn’t preposterous enough someone once read the following “instructions” on a packet of airline nuts: “Open packet, eat nuts.”
Just imagine what would happen if airlines were to start serving fruitcake?
0 comments:
Post a Comment