So fat, she needed liposuction.

That’s how world champion Australian surfer Layne Beachley felt. So she had lipo at age 24, when she was at the top of her game. Isn’t it sad how much energy we expend on hating how our bodies look instead of loving what our bodies can DO?
An opinion piece by sports writer Jessica Halloran notes:

As more money flows into women’s sport, the pressure to look and
fit a brand, or image, is heavier than ever. “If you don’t fit that
image then you’re not worthy of support,” Beachley noted. “It’s a
really unreasonable ethic to have.”

These days, if they want money and attention, we require
sportswomen to be athletically brilliant, thin and sexy. The
hotter, the better. Hello, Stephanie Rice. Even Time
magazine described her as “a world-class swimmer and world-class
swimsuit model”.

We know Rice is good in the pool, and we also want to know who
she’s dating, and what she’s wearing. She features in underwear
advertising campaigns, jumping up and down in her knickers and
bra.

We want these women to be thin, but not too muscly. In
Who magazine’s recent glamour issue, Rice laments her broad
shoulders: “I can’t wear a lot of options that are bigger up top
because it makes me look too big.”

Sadly, Rice’s supposed dalliance with Michael Phelps and
break-up with Eamon Sullivan and naughty Facebook photos courted as
many headlines, if not more than, her four gold medals.

“Sex sells, it always has, but now we are focusing on it even
more,” Beachley told the Herald. “All of the sudden
Stephanie is more important, because she is hot and she can swim .
. . It’s a really unsustainable time in terms of image and
aesthetics as opposed to what lies beneath that.

Halloran also has a few choice words for Vogue Editor, Kirstie Clements:

So whose fault is all this? The media’s? Mostly. The enormous
expectations placed on young women, especially via women’s
magazines, are disgraceful and dangerous.

The Minister for Youth and Sport, Kate Ellis, has a brave plan
for a code of conduct requiring magazines to feature normal-sized
models and disclose the use of digitally enhanced photos. One of
Ellis’s detractor is Vogue’s editor, Kirstie Clements. “It’s
about beautiful young girls creating beautiful fantasies; it always
has been, it always will be,” she said, and thinks the code is
unlikely to work.

Clements’s beautiful fantasy is ugly and irresponsible. She will
continue to do women a disservice by continuing to decorate
Vogue pages with unrealistic models. We will continue to
flick through those pages and have our body image bruised, and size
10 women will continue to feel they should aspire to size six.