By KATE HUNTER
Remember Samantha Brick – the British woman who ignited an online bonfire when she wrote that women hate her because she’s beautiful?
That was a heap of fun, wasn’t it?
Well, Samantha’s playing with matches again, with an article in the Daily Mail in which she announces/admits/confesses she’s been on a diet every day of her adult life and so has every other woman with a skerrick of self respect. Brick says going without food has been worth it because she’s never been without a job or a boyfriend. Winning. If that, of course, is your goal. It’s certainly Samantha’s:
“I don’t believe overweight is ever attractive. Whether we like it or not, we live in an age and a part of the world where men and women regard thin as beautiful.
As an actress, this is something Joan Collins understands only too well, revealing last week that the secret to maintaining a perfect hourglass figure into your 70s is spending every day on a diet.
Joan, 79, said she controlled her weight during a long career so that she could stay in work – an entirely laudable attitude.
Like Joan, I have no intention of letting my body slide flabbily into middle age. I believe that any woman with a modicum of self-respect should watch her figure with the same vigour. Is it any coincidence that Joan is still attractive and in demand for work?”
When I read the full article I was horrified. What an appalling attitude! What an awful woman!
No disrespect to Joan Collins – I loved Dynasty as much as the next child of the eighties, but if her figure was being judged as more valuable than her talent, then that’s a sad blight on the industry and who would want any part of it?
I like to think of myself as the kind of person who doesn’t stress about her weight. I never consciously compared myself to models while I was growing up; and celebrities in magazines with their svelte post-baby bodies bothered me not a jot. They are them and I’m me, loved for who I am and what I can do. Blah blah blah.
But then I thought about it. Do I really not care?
If that’s the case, why did I take a chicken and celery salad to a girlfriend’s house last week when everyone else was having actual barbecued chicken – with skin, in fluffy white bread?
Why did I apologise for my shameful little lunchbox and say, almost before I’d said hello, “Oh my God, I’m so fat. I have only one pair of jeans in circulation.”
Why did my friend and I have that silly little exchange girls have, “Oh god, you’re not fat. I’m fat. The only thing I own that fits me is my sunglasses!” Ha ha ha. Sad.
Am I that different to Samantha Brick? I’ve never tried her patented ‘Polo Diet’ (eating a packet of Polo Mints – similar to Lifesavers – for breakfast and lunch), but I’m no stranger to cauliflower rice. If I detour through a McDonalds Drive Thru surreptitiously I’ll call it, laughingly, a ‘sneaky cheesy,’ when in fact it’s just a cheeseburger.
Eating a cheeseburger doesn’t make me a bad person – so why can’t I say I had one for lunch as easily as if I’d had a bowl of miso soup? Why do I make a joke about it? My cholesterol is fine. I have a waist. The doctor says, “No problems there,” when she takes my blood pressure. Am I the same as Samantha Brick – bothered by my weight and ashamed of what I eat, just less vocal about it?
Top Comments
I just wonder: how is Nat surviving on just 1200 calories a day while also exercising. Im 50kg sizes 6-8 and i need about 1700 without exercise just to maintain weight. I dont understand
Weight focused women are so BORING!!!!! I can't stand it , women who can't think if anything else bit their butts! My mother , my sister, my sis in law all they talk about is their weight, can't stand having coffee with them, get more interesting convo out if the gold fish! Boring boring boring