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Is Tori Spelling Too Thin?
Posted on Apr 8th 2010 2:00PM by Ashley NegliaFiled Under: Celebs & Entertainment
That's Fit writer Ashley Neglia weighs in on the rumors about Tori Spelling's thin frame. The new season of Tori Spelling's reality show "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood" premiered this week, and I had the opportunity to sit in on an advanced screening of the show. At the end of the episode, Spelling and her husband, Dean McDermott, sat down to answer some questions about parenting, family and the on-again-off-again feud with Spelling's mother, to name a few. But that's not what interested me.
I had prepared myself to see Spelling in person. Rumors of anorexia and weighing a mere 98 pounds have been haunting her since last April. Although she shrugs off reports that she has an eating disorder by proclaiming herself as healthy, I still knew she'd be thin. I just didn't know how thin.
On the show, she looks svelte, but not emaciated. She's able to carry at least one of her children at a time without help and appears to be energetic. On the surface, I find her to be a sweet, yet driven woman and was hoping the old adage, "the camera adds 10 pounds," didn't apply. I was wrong.
When Spelling and her husband walked into the room, the first thing I noticed wasn't her bright smile or her super-straight hair. To be frank, I was alarmed by her size -- or lack thereof. Even wearing a loose-fitting jersey dress couldn't conceal her gaunt arms and decolletage, and as the interview progressed, I couldn't help but almost feel sorry for her. There was a platter of mini-burgers in the back of the room, and it took all of my strength not to sneak out of my chair and quietly slip one into her hand.
I've already been lambasted for referring to Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Kate Hudson as "emaciated" when I called out a "New York Times" blogger for describing them as "curvy" at the Golden Globes, and I have no interest in rehashing my previous statements. However, I will say that my recent run-in with Tori Spelling is not a fluke. I've had the opportunity to see enough celebrities in-person -- including Courteney Cox -- to know that the majority of these women do not look healthy, and I'm not alone.
"At this point, we've gotten so out of whack with understanding what's healthy and what we're supposed to look like that we're confusing illusion with reality," said Dr. Robyn Silverman, a leading child and adolescent development expert who specializes in body image. "Hollywood sets the standards, and what's paraded around is construed as ideal, " she added, which is what concerns me most about the reaction to my aforementioned post.
As I combed through the comments, I found that many of our readers believe that these celebrities are healthy -- one even used the term "robust" -- and lashed out at me for being "an angry fat woman" who picks on thin women to deal with my own weight issues.
Both of these readers surfaced two serious issues: Our society's demented view of an ideal body type and, in turn, the way women respond to it. For example, if you were to pass a non-celebrity on the street who had a BMI of 18.5, the low end of what is generally considered a healthy BMI, and what Silverman calls Hollywood's "ideal" -- you wouldn't dare call them curvy, or robust. Or any variation on the word. And the very idea that someone would defend these celebrities as such -- many of whom do have BMIs that teeter closely to unhealthy -- is dismaying, to say the least.
That's not to say that there aren't healthy, athletic women with very low BMIs, but the majority of ultra-thin women in Hollywood are not exactly marathon runners.
"Nobody can really thrive there," said Silverman, who added that as we continue to consider this version of ideal acceptable, we push ourselves and our self esteems lower. "It's hard to measure up that way." Which brings to light my second point.
Referring to me as "an angry fat woman" does nothing but perpetuate the assumption that taking issue with what society considers beautiful means that a person must be unhappy with himself or herself. At best, this type of comment places blame on one individual instead of addressing the larger issue at hand, and, at worst, feeds the eating disorders, depression and low self esteem that plague us today.
It's estimated that anywhere from five to 10 million women and girls and one million men and boys suffer from eating disorders in this country, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Not every one of these disorders can be blamed on our cultural definition of beauty, but it's certainly not helping. "Women and men internalize those images, and it creates a very distorted view of what's considered beautiful and attractive," said Sarah Maria, body image expert and author of "Love Your Body, Love Your Life."
I agree with Silverman when she says that people are "fed up" with fat versus thin, and I'll be the first to admit that we've made some strides when it comes to plus-size (or even regular-sized) women strutting the catwalk, appearing in magazines and playing major roles in film and television. However, until we can refer to healthy women that have various body shapes without the moniker "plus-size," this conversation isn't -- and shouldn't be -- over.
The Kardashian sisters have been praised for the curvy figures. Find out how Khloe stays in shape.
