Famous women don’t have the answer to how to lose weight

COMMENT

Chrissie Swan and Mindy Kaling are two celebrities who have recently lost weight, and I want to know how. 

I want to be the kind of person with no curiosity about other women’s weight but frustratingly I care. 

When a famous woman’s body changes, I want to know how and when they don’t tell me, I feel robbed. 

There’s the version of ourselves that we want to be, and then there’s the reality of how we are.

Although I can intellectually recognise that famous women don’t owe anyone explanations about their changing bodies, the nosy part of me that hasn’t escaped the firm grip of diet culture wants to know. 
 

The most ridiculous part is that knowing won’t change anything. 

We all like to believe that once a celebrity reveals their weight loss secret, we will just effortlessly mimic it and end up being mistaken for Lara Worthington at Harris Farm, but that isn’t even true. 

In fact someone telling you how they’ve lost weight is often completely useless information. 

Dietitian Alice Bleathman explained: “It will be different based on your dieting history, lifestyle, health and resources.” 

The message is loud and clear. 

What works for one person isn’t going to work for you automatically. Yet, we have a long history of demanding to know what famous women eat or don’t eat. 

We want them to reveal some fabulous secret, like that you can lose weight while eating only cake and steak, and we are bound to end up bitterly disappointed. 
 

Both Swan and Kaling haven’t been forthcoming on how they’ve lost weight. 

Kaling has vaguely referenced portion control, but Swan hasn’t commented at all; instead, she’s just shared that she’s fallen in love with walking. 

According to Bleathman, being tight-lipped is a responsible move by a celebrity. 

“Celebrities sharing their dieting tricks is often supporting diet culture and, more often than not, is very specific to them. It may also overlook many other intricacies in their life such as their financial capacities, exercise habits, and food availabilities, which often is out of reach for the general population,” she said. 

We need to learn to digest that a star sharing their weight loss methods isn’t likely relevant to us anyway. 

Swan and Kaling not getting into the nitty gritty of their weight loss stories isn’t either of them depriving us of knowing how to shed some kilos instead they’ve chosen to not pretend they have all the answers. 

They’ve left us hungry for more but they’ve also probably saved us from trying another fruitless weight loss method.