Puh-leez, Angelina. I'm tired of the (unrealistic) baby weight reports.
In this week’s Us Magazine, we have yet ANOTHER story of success: a new mother of twins sheds all her baby weight after a mere 11 weeks. How did she do it, you ask? Oh, ya know, it’s just an illusion created by a “good dress.” Oh, and by receiving deliveries of assorted Asian fruit and vegetables, mussels, crabs and prawns. No exercise, though. Nope. Just good genes and the usual claim: breast feeding! Salma Hayek spoke out against this myth. As she said to Oprah, “The only way women lose weight this way is by not eating AND breast feeding…and this is bad for the baby.” Amen, sister.
The emphasis on unhealthy, often deadly, thinness is bad enough but to add that same pressure on pregnant women and new mothers moments after delivery is ludicrous! This signals an unhealthy and potentially dangerous trend by creating unrealistic expectations for ordinary women that don’t have the time of the means to devote their all of their energy to weight loss. Not to mention, even with the time and money, baby weight gain is not designed to fall off immediately. No matter who you are (Nicole, Angelina, Jessica, Katie).
Bump watch has taken over the tabloids in a furious and obsessive way over the last few years and includes the intense scrutiny and public commentary on how much weight pregnant celebrities gained and how much they lost soon after birth. Salma Hayek was absolutely chastised for not losing her pregnancy weight immediately after her daughter was born. which is one of the reasons she chose to publically address this craze on national television.
[…] induced body anxieties into what is an incredible and miraculous life experience. The tabloids ridiculous and utterly disturbing obsession with the celebrity baby-bump and the post-baby body has not helped […]
Pingback by I’m Pregnant But I Just Feel Fat. | elephant journal — February 8, 2011 @ 1:52 pm
[…] culturally induced body anxieties into what should be an incredible life experience. The tabloids ridiculous obsession with the baby-bump and the post-baby body has not helped pregnant women feel any better […]
Pingback by I’m Pregnant but I Just Feel Fat | Adios Barbie — March 9, 2012 @ 6:02 pm
I’m nine months after birth and still struggling.. I gained close to 50 lbs during pregnancy and I can’t stand to look at my fugure in the mirror.. I’ve always been quite skinny and fit. for some reason, I had this stupid belief that the weight will just come off after giving birth…and I thought that breastfeeding will speed things up since you burn so much calories – I was wrong! I lost a bunch of weight the first month but then I started gaining even more weight! Two months ago I decided that I hadn’t “Just had a baby” (as I was constantly telling myself) and got fed up looking 7 months pregnant (eventhough I had my baby 6 months ago). Eating healthy and working out had very little effect on my weight (I think that something changed in my body’s abbility to lose weight after giving birth, a slower metabolism perhaps). Anyways, it made me really depressed so I decided to jumpstart my weight loss with some crash diets which I know are very UNHEALTHY and normally I do not recommend them as a way to lose weight (but I was at a very low point). In just six weeks I lost 24 lbs! I’m now trying to follow a healthy eating plan and exercise more often but its going very slow. All I can say is don’t give up – it took 9 months for your body to get this way it just might take 9 months to get the weight off!
I wrote some tips for losing weight after birth that helped (and are still helping) me to lose weight on my blog – feel free to check those up…
Good luck to all moms trying to lose their baby fat
Comment by nina — January 12, 2013 @ 1:16 pm
I absolutely loved this blog! It has some great advice. Everyone can lose weight you just have to believe in yourself and know you can 🙂 another great website you can go to is betterbusinesslesshassle.com then put in your email it will send you to a doctors video. he has changed so many lives!
Comment by Wes — May 16, 2013 @ 10:38 am