Archive for the ‘skinny’ tag
Victoria Beckham has boosted the sales of a new diet book
Victoria Beckham has inadvertently boosted the sales of a new diet book that highlights the current obsession with extreme svelteness.
Posh ‘n’ text: Victoria’s patronage gave a boost to sales of ‘Skinny Bitch’
Until recently, not many people had heard of the American diet book, Skinny Bitch. That is, until Victoria Beckham decided to buy a copy.
The perpetually pouty British singer - dressed in her trademark dark sunglasses - was snapped by paparazzi buying the diet guide in an LA boutique last month. Within hours of the photo appearing on the web, the book had jumped from 77,939th place on the Amazon website sales chart to 209th - a whopping increase of 37,000 percent.
The sassy book - described as a “no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous” - had failed to garner much attention prior to being lifted off the shelf by the rail-thin Posh. Now its authors are reaping in the cash as thousands of readers turn to the unconventional book for quick weight loss advice.
The book was written by two LA fashion luminaries: former model Kim Barnouin, who has a degree in holistic nutrition, and ex-Ford model agent Rory Freedman. “They may be bitches,” the book warns. “But they are skinny bitches.”
Not for the faint hearted, the in-your-face book is loaded with strong language and no-holds-barred advice such as, “you are a total moron if you think the Atkins Diet will make you thin”; “soda is liquid Satan”; and “coffee is for pussies”.
Based on a vegan philosophy, the Skinny Bitch guide encourages women to eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables while urging them to abandon dairy products, eggs, meat and fish. The authors also issue a scathing attack on meat eaters, calling those who choose to eat meat while attempting to lose weight “morons”.
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Nicole Richie talks about anorexia: ‘I’m Too Thin’
Nicole Richie, whose rail-thin frame has been a source of much discussion in the media, is now joining the chorus of voices saying that she is too skinny.
“I know I’m too thin right now, so I wouldn’t want any young girl looking at me and saying, ‘That’s what I want to look like,’ ” Richie tells Vanity Fair in its June issue. “I do know that they will, which is another reason I really do need to do something about it. I’m not happy with the way I look right now.”
Richie blames her severe weight loss on, in part, her December breakup with then-fiancé Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein. “I get really stressed out, and I do lose my appetite,” she says. (She and AM have been spotted together again recently.)
In an effort to put on a few pounds, Richie says she forced herself to eat – particularly high-calorie foods like burritos – but eventually sought professional help. “I started seeing a nutritionist and a doctor. I was scared that it could be something more serious.”
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The Battle of the Bulge
Their views on food and body image could not be more different: Susannah Jowitt is the author of Fat, So?, which celebrates larger women. Candida Crewe wrote Eating Myself about her battle with anorexia and bulimia.
So what happened when they met?
Susannah Jowitt, 38, is 5ft 7in, weighs 14 stone and is a size 16 to 18.
She lives in West London with her husband Anthony and children Adelaide, five, and Winston, three. Susannah says: When I was 14, I nicked two pieces of bread from the middle of a new loaf of Hovis, then carefully re-sealed the bag with that fiddly piece of sticky yellow tape to escape detection.
Such extraordinary attention to detail was all in vain. My mother had counted the number of slices in the loaf and confronted me with my crime.
It was at that moment that I should have realised all was not well in our family’s Garden of Eating. How many parents count the slices in a loaf?
Such elaborate surveillance was necessary because I was, apparently, a Fat Child and needed to diet. My brother, on the other hand, was a Thin Child, so he was allowed sweets after tea (that’s how I remember it, anyway).
My parents yo-yoed between being people who loved their food (my mother was a truly great cook) and people who paid for their love of food by eating grapefruit. I inherited their greediness but, to my mother’s frustration, I missed out on the guilt gene.
Looking back at photos of myself as an adolescent, I wasn’t even particularly big - sturdy, yes, and with the same frame as my mum, who, by that time, was fat - but certainly nothing to worry about. But worry she did.
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Skinny Celebrities
If popular entertainment revolves around physical appearance - then what might go on in the mind of a TV executive?
Recently actress Alex Kingston criticized TV show Desperate Housewives. Kingston claimed “she was turned down for Felicity Huffman’s role because she has too many curves.” Kingston (known for her role in ER) went on to say “I didn’t get the part, and I know why: irrespective of acting ability, I’m just way too big.”
Of course these are her assumptions - and may simply be ’sour grapes’ - but one look at the cast of Housewives shows that Kingston may be on the mark.
The question is - why? What’s with the ‘thin‘ casting? It is obvious that in certain circles, and in certain TV shows - size is a real factor. This is not to say that women cannot be naturally slim-figured - but why go out of the way to ensure that a female cast remains thin?
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Supermodel Gisele blames families for anorexia
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Supermodel Gisele Bundchen says weak families are to blame for anorexia – not the fashion industry that has been widely criticized for promoting waifish silhouettes.
“I never suffered from this problem (anorexia) because I had a very strong family base. Parents are responsible, not the fashion industry,” Bundchen said in the Friday edition of O Globo newspaper.
In September, Spain barred models below a certain weight from Madrid fashion shows while the Italian government and its fashion chiefs signed a pact to keep sickly thin girls off the catwalk.
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The stunning size 12 model branded ‘too fat’ for TV competition
Poured into a gold swimsuit, Make Me A Supermodel winner Jen Hunter looks as if this outfit was custom-made for her.
But the one-piece triggered a furious row about stick-thin models when her rival finalist Marianne Berglund appeared painfully underweight in the same attire.
Appearing here for the first time in the outfit which sparked the debate about size zero models, Miss Hunter - who was criticised on the show for being too fat - said: “This is what a real woman should look like.
“I am all curves and flesh, not skin and bone. Boys, who would you rather snuggle up to?”
Looking as different as chalk and cheese, the swimwear clings to Miss Hunter’s voluptuous curves and reveals acres of cleavage while on clinically underweight Miss Berglund, it shows her protruding hips and ribs and appears to hang off her.
Barmaid Miss Hunter, 24 - who weighs 11 stone and is a healthy size 12 - was reduced to tears when she was castigated on the reality TV show for not taking a food and exercise regime seriously.
Judge Tandy Anderson, managing director of Select Model Management, criticised her for having “stocky” legs while supermodel Rachel Hunter, a fellow panellist, reprimanded her for saying she wanted to prove larger women could be successful models.
Swedish blonde Miss Berglund, 18, who made it to the final with her, was meanwhile praised for having a “sensational” body for modelling despite having a body mass index of 16.1.
It fell well below the minimum BMI of 18 for models taking part in Madrid Fashion Week in September, set after catwalk model Luisel Ramos dropped dead from self-starvation.
But mother-of-one Miss Hunter triumphed when viewers voted her to the top female slot in the contest - and claimed she owed her success to her favourite dish of hotpot and chips.
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Fourth anorexia death stuns Brazil
The struggle for food has long been a drama for millions of impoverished Brazilians.
But these days the nation is transfixed by another sort of starvation: anorexia among the successful and well off.
The deaths of four young women in the last two months from anorexia - a disorder characterised by an abnormal fear of becoming obese, an aversion to food and severe weight loss - have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers. The subject has become a morbid fascination for Brazilians and a theme of a popular soap opera. It’s also touched off a debate within the fashion industry that has long presented the rail-thin model as the paragon of female beauty.
The most recent victim was Beatriz Cristina Ferraz Lopes Bastos, 23, whose death on Sunday at a hospital in Jau, 300kms northeast of Sao Paulo, was reported by national television news programmes.
Local media reports said she was 1.57 metres tall and weighed just 35kgs.
“Another victim of anorexia,” the Globo newspaper said on its website, alongside a glamorous photo of the blonde-coiffed Bastos. An English teacher and a skilled piano player, Bastos was an amateur historian and wrote a literature column for a hometown website.
Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported that she described herself as “thin” on an internet discussion group and friends said they had to “fight with her to eat”. A former boyfriend, Leandro Murgo, told reporters Bastos was a chubby teenager and became fixated on losing weight.
Brazilians were shocked at the November 14 death of 21-year-old model Ana Carolina Reston, who died of generalised infection caused by anorexia nervosa. She was reportedly 1.72 metres tall and weighed about 40kgs.
Two days later, college student Carla Sobrado Casalle, 21, died in the southeastern city of Araraquara, also with symptoms linked to anorexia.
She was 1.74 metres tall and weighed 45kgs. A third anorexia victim died later in the month.
VÃa: Gulfnews.
How visitors arrive to NoThinspiration.com?
Marianne Berglund from ‘Make me a super model’ TV show
I’ve found at the official site of the show a lot of pics of this thinspiration. I think she’s extremely skinny. I don’t like her.
What do you think about Marianne Berglund?
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Cameron Diaz is worried about ultra skinny celebrities
Cameron Diaz has become the latest star to say she is worried about the influence of ultra-skinny celebrities.
Her comments echo those of Billie Piper and Kate Winslet, who both criticised the phenomenon last week.
The Hollywood actress, 34, tells ITV1 show Parkinson: “I think it’s terrifying. It’s tragic and sad.
“I think that it’s a sickness, something that’s going on in someone’s head where their perspective is off.
“We get ideals from images that we see and there certainly should be more responsibility put on those people who are putting those images out into the world.
“Let’s be a little bit more responsible to what’s realistic.â€
She adds: “I’m a skinny girl, so all my life all I have ever wanted to be is curvaceous and voluptuous, have everything falling out everywhere.
“Some people…their perception and their perspective is completely askew.â€
Last week, former Doctor Who star Piper said Victoria Beckham should not be a teenage role model because of her tiny frame.
The star, who suffered from anorexia, said she worried that younger people were looking up to skinny stars.
Former singer Piper, 24, said: “I think the whole size-zero debate is disgusting.
“Some models you see are tiny because that’s the way they were born, but then they’ll get the attention and that will start feeding a fire.
“My sister, who is 13, looks amazing but she’s already worried about her figure.
“She loves Posh and I say: ‘Come on Ellie. She’s tiny. What’s wrong with Shakira? She’s sexy, curvy,’ but she has no interest.â€
Winslet also joined the debate, describing the trend as “unbelievably disturbing“.
The 31-year-old said she refused to have any magazines showing skinny stars in her house because of the damaging effect it could have on her six-year-old daughter, Mia.
“It’s only a matter of time before she becomes aware of it and it frightens the life out of me,†she said.
Nicole Richie and Kate Bosworth are among the celebrities whose shrinking figures have been the subject of debate.
The controversy over underweight models has been raging since the death last month of Ana Carolina Reston, 21, a Brazilian model who suffered from anorexia (some pics here).
In August, Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos, 22, died of heart failure after not eating for several days.