Celebrities and Body Image

The world is a screwed up place.

People expect celebrities to be perfect examples of what the human race should look like. Thin, but not too thin. Buff, but not too buff. I'm not a celebrity stalker. I don't watch shows like TMZ or read tabloids, but, like most people, I hear quite a bit about the lives of celebrities; I see their images everywhere. When I'm standing in line at the check out there are magazines there with just a tid-bit of information there about what's going on the world of famous people on their covers. You see pictures of celebs that are "too fat!" or "too thin!" and it makes me wonder, who are you to judge these people? Why should I care if someone I don't even know is a little pudgy?

A while back I liked Sally Hansen on Facebook (I really like their nail polish). I hadn't really paid any attention to their posts until they posted up a picture of Ashley Tisdale and I got a glance on the comments.

A ton of the comments were crap about how she's too skinny. I love how people will judge other people about being too fat and then, once they lose the weight, berate them for being too skinny. A few people went as far as to say "she looks like she needs a cheeseburger." Seriously? In this photo she looks the same size, if not bigger, than I am. There aren't ribs or any other bones visible. She isn't a stick figure. The way I see it, people are simply jealous. 

I was about to say "hypothetically", but we'll just go with any random celebrity. A picture is taken of them at a not so flattering angle. The whole world then starts to point out how they're too fat and should lose weight because they're setting a bad example for children. That celebrity then starts to feel super self-conscious and the only way to feel better about themselves is to start losing weight. People keep claiming they're too fat until there is hardly anything left of them. Then comes the "Oh! Now she's too skinny! What a bad example for our children! We don't want them to think they have to be that thin!". 

And that seems to be the trend lately. Sure, there are a few celebs who really could "use a cheeseburger," but most of the time when I see people bagging on celebs is because they're normal sized. I'm not talking about the distorted "normal" that most people talk about now (that's for another blog post), I'm talking people who are actually in shape and taking care of their bodies. Nowadays if a celebrity is at all skinny, people seem to think they're too skinny. 

These comments make me so angry. People are so obsessed with body image, and a lot of the time so unhappy with their own, that they take it out on people they don't even know. Before you judge someone for looking a certain way, look at yourself and the way you take care of your own body.