Last week’s furore over Fern Britton having lost weight through the illicit fitting of a gastric band was surprising. But no more surprising than the regular assessments by a variety of magazines about female bodies and whether they pass muster in a swimming costume, diaphanous dress, or cellulite revealing short skirt. And that is my point.
First of all, having spent time with Fern last week, I can confirm that she looks fantastic, fitter and healthier. She is still a wonderfully curvy and womanly shape, and at around a UK size 16, not in danger of wasting away.
So I am with Barbara Ellen, one of my favourite writers in the Guardian yesterday….’Leave Fern alone you hypocritical fattists’
“So what should Fern Britton have done rather than keep shtoom about her five-stone weight loss being due to a gastric band operation?
Maybe she could have had the fat lipo-ed out live on This Morning and then presented to the public in jars.”
Ellen is not giving an inch to those who say Fern should have told the truth about her weight loss so that other women could know the real deal.
That’s because the bigger picture, is that as women, our appearance is always under scrutiny, to the exclusion of who we are and what we are about. And again I’m with her.
But what is it about celebrity bodies (women’s of course) that makes us feel we have a right to know their every dietary manoeuvre?
And what is it about us as magazine consumers that means editors are falling over themselves to get the dietary dirt: shock horror tales of weight loss, expansion, binging and purging on to their covers to make sales?
As one magazine editor observed when I quizzed her, “’Kylie…very happy,’ doesn’t sell anywhere near the volume that Kylie…drastic weight gain,’ does.”
The thing is women in the spotlight are so scrutinised by the media, and consumed by us, that it seems we think any woman’s body is somehow public property and this is the point made by the above writer.
It’s possible that some feel let down that Fern is no longer big, and others are threatened by the fact that she is smaller. The fact is, women’s bodies are magical things that come in all shapes and sizes, and as women our uniqueness is that we are so much more than the confines of our physical frames.
We all know this of course, but the poverty of women’s journalism lately, is that the writers on so many magazines disagree.
Let me know what you think on this one. I’d love to hear from you.
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2 responses so far
1 Laura Johnson // Jul 1, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I think Fern looks fantastic, however, I do think she should have been honest about her band. I had a gastric band done last August (2007) and have lost just under 5 stone. I have never hidden how I have lost the weight because my conscience would not allow me to lie!! When someone says to you “wow! what weight you’ve lost, you look fab – how did you do it??” to tell them “diet and excercise is a blatent lie. I think that’s what people are more disappointed with in Fern, not the fact she has had it but the fact that she has not been 100% honest as to how she lost her weight. Don’t get me wrong, having been through it too, it’s no easy way out, she looks brill, she should be proud of what she has done, and not be ashamed or embarrased. Laura Johnson, Inverness
2 Coreen Jans // Nov 2, 2010 at 8:43 pm
I buy two fashion magazines a year – Simply You spring/summer and winter/autumn. It gives you classics, trends, accessories and colour combinations. I am over 50 and love fashion. I will not buy into women’s magazines that actively trash celebs for weight loss, or anything else. Personally I find it hypercritical rubbish and I’m just not interested. Various media, especially women’s magazines, do so much damage to the, sometimes, vulnerable egos of women unnecessarily. Why should anyone tell you how they have lost weight, or gained it. The boost should be “Wow, don’t they look great” not enviable “How did they get to look like that?” Good on Fern for doing what she wanted to do without asking her ‘publics’ permission – where are we going with this! Modern women seem to have lost the ‘art’ of enjoying fashion and colour, whatever the size. Why would anyone clap their hands for reading about somebody elses intimate struggles – beats me.
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