They are the butt of countless jibes and satirical pop culture references, but there's no doubt that a lot of celebrities, especially the females one, find their dieting practices fueled by the same driven personality traits that enable them to rise to the top of their craft.
It's common to blame the glitz of the lifestyle and the superficial and sexist attitudes of the general public who consume the mass media images. However, such glib and politically correct assessments too easily gloss over the fact that everything in the lives of successful actors, musicians and other media personalities is colored by the driven personalities that allow them to succeed.
There should be no surprise then to realize that if they turn that same focus and determination to weight loss, they can get a little obsessive. The great Christina Ricci displays her usual inimical style in ironically capturing just this dynamic in remarks to the Guardian newspaper in 2004, explaining how her initial experience with eating disorder began while watching trash television. "At the time that I was starting to diet and stuff, I saw this TV movie, and I thought, 'Ooh - anorexia. I could probably do that.'"
Ginger Spice, Geri Halliwell, in a different way and tone, likewise helped dispel the PC myth machine when she acknowledged that the cause of eating disorders, even among celebrities, can be the simple challenges of coping with the roller coaster like ups and downs of everyday life. Celebrity status surely has unique pressures, but is their careers so much more stressful than many jobs and professions? Whatever the stresses of celebrity life, they do not dictate the coping strategy adopted.
This media and celebrity bashing silliness became painfully apparent in the backlash against the ironic tweet of the always engaging Lady Gaga, from 2012. Typical of the victimizing machine of the self-appointed morals police, Lady Gaga was attacked for publicly acknowledging that she was resisting the temptation to eat a cheese burger. Really, you can't make this up. Young girls, it would seem, are just trembling bowls of pliable jelly, ever at risk of succumbing to the corrupting influence of celebrity self-deprivation. Even Lady Gaga, it would seem, as irony would have it, despite already having come out and publicly urged her young fans to work on developing better, healthier body image, had to be persecuted. She couldn't acknowledge resisting this cheese burger craving without the self-appointed nannies making a federal case out it. (And, anyway, how the heck is a cheese burger a healthy meal choice? Is that really what they want their daughter's eating?)
If a celebrity already on record as alerting her young fans to the dangers of eating disorders cannot joke about her own freely chosen dietary deprivations what exactly is going on here? It seems that there is a large, invested concern to deny such celebrities freedom to take responsibility for their own choices. Somehow they have to be treated as victims, presumably so that any admirer of such celebrities can also be easily convinced she too is a victim. But who benefits from this?
The lesson in all of this, naturally, is not that celebrities are uniquely confronted with the trials of eating disorders. It is true though that such disorders are a product of the motivation and will power of the person making the food choices. It would be silly and a straw man to pretend that the view contrary to the busy body victimization crusade denied the role of environmental conditions in creating very real pressures. That though in no way changes the reality that in the end the bulimic or anorectic are making their choices. To claim anything else is to resort to two-bit mysticism.
And for those who think this assessment is unfair, who would dismiss it as a form of blaming the victim, perhaps you have the whole thing backwards. If the explanation for celebrities with eating disorders really was the mass media and the Hollywood glamour machine, there could be no other solution than to leave Hollywood or working in the media. Yet, there are plenty of success stories in which celebrities were victorious in combating their eating disorders, without needing to retire from their careers. They may have needed a break from the stress of work, but stress reduction is going to be an ingredient in any recovery plan. Rather, what this reveals is that just as the cause of the eating disorders lies in the celebrity, so too lay the solution. This shouldn't be offensive or threatening, it should be a note of encouragement. The news for all those who suffer eating disorders is one of hope: regardless of the difficulties in your own life, you have a secret weapon. That same strength and determination that holds you to the your current strict regime, the very engine of your eating disorder, is likewise there in you, the very same strength and determination, to draw from, when you decide you want to change your life.
Is that not encouraging, exciting, even exhilarating? Stop letting others cast you as the victim of your life. It's your life; you're the star and the writer. How you live your life is up to you. Reject simplistic excuses about mass media pressures and social expectations. You have the power to take responsibility for your life. Be the celebrity star of your own story.
It's common to blame the glitz of the lifestyle and the superficial and sexist attitudes of the general public who consume the mass media images. However, such glib and politically correct assessments too easily gloss over the fact that everything in the lives of successful actors, musicians and other media personalities is colored by the driven personalities that allow them to succeed.
There should be no surprise then to realize that if they turn that same focus and determination to weight loss, they can get a little obsessive. The great Christina Ricci displays her usual inimical style in ironically capturing just this dynamic in remarks to the Guardian newspaper in 2004, explaining how her initial experience with eating disorder began while watching trash television. "At the time that I was starting to diet and stuff, I saw this TV movie, and I thought, 'Ooh - anorexia. I could probably do that.'"
Ginger Spice, Geri Halliwell, in a different way and tone, likewise helped dispel the PC myth machine when she acknowledged that the cause of eating disorders, even among celebrities, can be the simple challenges of coping with the roller coaster like ups and downs of everyday life. Celebrity status surely has unique pressures, but is their careers so much more stressful than many jobs and professions? Whatever the stresses of celebrity life, they do not dictate the coping strategy adopted.
This media and celebrity bashing silliness became painfully apparent in the backlash against the ironic tweet of the always engaging Lady Gaga, from 2012. Typical of the victimizing machine of the self-appointed morals police, Lady Gaga was attacked for publicly acknowledging that she was resisting the temptation to eat a cheese burger. Really, you can't make this up. Young girls, it would seem, are just trembling bowls of pliable jelly, ever at risk of succumbing to the corrupting influence of celebrity self-deprivation. Even Lady Gaga, it would seem, as irony would have it, despite already having come out and publicly urged her young fans to work on developing better, healthier body image, had to be persecuted. She couldn't acknowledge resisting this cheese burger craving without the self-appointed nannies making a federal case out it. (And, anyway, how the heck is a cheese burger a healthy meal choice? Is that really what they want their daughter's eating?)
If a celebrity already on record as alerting her young fans to the dangers of eating disorders cannot joke about her own freely chosen dietary deprivations what exactly is going on here? It seems that there is a large, invested concern to deny such celebrities freedom to take responsibility for their own choices. Somehow they have to be treated as victims, presumably so that any admirer of such celebrities can also be easily convinced she too is a victim. But who benefits from this?
The lesson in all of this, naturally, is not that celebrities are uniquely confronted with the trials of eating disorders. It is true though that such disorders are a product of the motivation and will power of the person making the food choices. It would be silly and a straw man to pretend that the view contrary to the busy body victimization crusade denied the role of environmental conditions in creating very real pressures. That though in no way changes the reality that in the end the bulimic or anorectic are making their choices. To claim anything else is to resort to two-bit mysticism.
And for those who think this assessment is unfair, who would dismiss it as a form of blaming the victim, perhaps you have the whole thing backwards. If the explanation for celebrities with eating disorders really was the mass media and the Hollywood glamour machine, there could be no other solution than to leave Hollywood or working in the media. Yet, there are plenty of success stories in which celebrities were victorious in combating their eating disorders, without needing to retire from their careers. They may have needed a break from the stress of work, but stress reduction is going to be an ingredient in any recovery plan. Rather, what this reveals is that just as the cause of the eating disorders lies in the celebrity, so too lay the solution. This shouldn't be offensive or threatening, it should be a note of encouragement. The news for all those who suffer eating disorders is one of hope: regardless of the difficulties in your own life, you have a secret weapon. That same strength and determination that holds you to the your current strict regime, the very engine of your eating disorder, is likewise there in you, the very same strength and determination, to draw from, when you decide you want to change your life.
Is that not encouraging, exciting, even exhilarating? Stop letting others cast you as the victim of your life. It's your life; you're the star and the writer. How you live your life is up to you. Reject simplistic excuses about mass media pressures and social expectations. You have the power to take responsibility for your life. Be the celebrity star of your own story.
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