Body Image

Next week New Idea will feature a half-naked George Calombaris on the cover. “I want to be a role model for all the short and stocky men out there,” he says. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman reveals all on the cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly about how to stay fabulous in your 40s.

“I’m doing it for all the insecure men out there,” he grunts between his 112th and 113th rep. “You too can look like this!” Of course, this is all happening in a parallel universe. Generally, men don’t feel the need to take off their clothes for the cover of a magazine. So why do some women?

This wasn’t what the suffragettes had in mind when they fought for women’s emancipation all those years ago. Emmeline Pankhurst, speaking at the Women’s Franchise League in 1889 didn’t say: “One day, women will be able to remove their clothes in public and be judged on how hard they work out at the gym. What a glorious day that will be!” Let’s start with Deborah Hutton’s cover shot.

Continue reading "If you really want to help the sisters, keep your gear on" »

Yesterday, Mission Australia released the results of their 10th National Survey of Young Australians. Among the most reported of their findings was evidence that more young girls than ever before have a problem with body image.

“All the well-meaning efforts to combat the problem have failed,” said Mission Australia spokesperson, Eleri Morgan-Thomas. “More work needs to be done.”

That should not come as a surprise to anybody. Good body image campaigns have failed because so very few people actually have it. Good body image is a myth.

Continue reading "Good body image is a big fat myth. Let’s change it." »

Today’s message to young women is: All girls are beautiful. But some are more beautiful than others. Oh, and frankly – you over there! – you don’t make the grade at all.  What the hell’s going on with those eyebrows? What is this? 2008?

In a world awash with far too many beautiful girls (for the purposes of this article for ‘beautiful’ read ‘fully coiffed, immaculately made-up, grain-fed, and catwalk-ready) today we also have the announcement of the 2011 Girlfriend Rimmel Model Search winner.  You can meet the finalists here.

UPDATE: The winner was 13-year-old Irish, Croatian and Pacific Islander and Sydneyite Chloe Glassie. And she has braces!

Continue reading "Why beautiful people should be made to suffer" »

Wearing a bikini turns me into a woman I don’t want to be: neurotic, angsty and hyper-pervy of every female in sight.

I’m a shocker at ‘compare and despair’, so all those holidays when I should be enjoying a good book or contemplating a surf are, instead, spent in a ridiculous silent dialogue with myself:

“Are they looking at my thighs? She’s game to go the white; What’s that Miranda Kerr lookalike doing in Bermagui? Sod off back to Mauritius! Who’d have thought four triangles of Lycra could turn me into such a cow?”

Continue reading "Bikini rules for any old bum" »

Dear body, I’m writing to say sorry. You’ve copped a right hammering over the years. Honestly, you could take yourself off to a home for battered bodies, on account of the physical and emotional abuse you’ve endured.

Sure, I’ve never cut you, starved you or shoved heroin into you. But there’s something pretty ugly about constantly comparing you and always finding you wanting. Slimmer, more sculpted, wider-eyed, smaller-nosed, longer-limbed, more honey-toned, less freckly, less spotted, less wrinkled, less… just less, freakin’ less of you. Especially you, thighs – you’ve ruined my life.

For a long time, I thought I was the only one haranguing you for your inadequacies. Turns out, we’re all at it.

Continue reading "Body, you’ve copped a lot of crap but please forgive me" »

There you have it!  After 40 years of feminists like Germaine Greer and the sisterhood telling men that it’s wrong to objectify womyn and that equality means treating them like blokes, a recent survey of Australian men proves that little, if anything, has changed.

A recent survey of men’s attitudes, carried out by Derek Jones from D&M Research, concludes that men, primarily, look for sex appeal in a relationship and that what they most look for in a women are good breasts and a nice backside.

According to Derek Jones, while political correctness is forcing men to act like new-age, sensitive guys, look below the surface and most men still prefer Megan Gale and Jennifer Hawkins.

Continue reading "The PC species is full of faeces" »

When you’re fourteen years old, chubbier than the rest of your friends and desperately unhappy about it, there’s nothing more precious than good self-esteem.

It gives you confidence, improves how you relate to others and boosts your overall sense of happiness. It makes you a better human.

Diets do not help build healthy self-esteem. Ergo, books about diets do not help engender healthy self-esteem. That’s probably why American author Paul Kramer has copped so much flak for his new but yet to be published book, Maggie Goes on A Diet.

Continue reading "Don’t judge this book by its cover" »

Repeat after me: Models do not cause eating disorders. Really, they don’t.

The news which hit the headlines this week that nearly 100 children between the ages of five and seven had been diagnosed with eating disorders in the UK in recent years immediately prompted some stock-standard finger pointing (“It was the models wot done it!”), but it’s time to dispel a few myths about eating disorders.

For years, the scrawny, malnourished-looking girls who haunt the runways of Paris, Milan and New York have been accused of shoving women the world over just that much closer to starving themselves or sticking their fingers down their throats.

Continue reading "Eating disorders: A more weighty issue than you think" »

Every woman hits a time in her life when she suddenly becomes invisible. I am at that age. 

Except yesterday. I was walking down the street, not looking like a mum for a change, and a young guy wearing too much aftershave stopped talking to his mate as he watched me approach and pass him by. 

It was sort of flattering: that I can still stop a conversation and even more flattering knowing that they weren’t drunk.

Continue reading "The benefits of being an invisible woman" »

“No fat chicks” is not just a Homer Simpson-esque T-shirt slogan. It’s also the bottom line of the fashion industry. And when I use the word “bottom” here, I’m not referring to a voluptuously padded Venus of Willendorf derriere but one of those pointy Paris Hilton numbers that look like they could deliver a nasty needle-stick injury.

Cast an eye over shots from the big 2011 couture shows and you’ll see scores of emaciated young women limping down the runways with flesh-less knees, stringy necks and rib cages that make ET the extraterrestrial look like a fatty boomsticks.

These human coat hangers are held up as exemplars of feminine beauty yet are eerily reminiscent of Sidney Nolan’s infamous photos of dead-but-alive-looking cow and horse carcasses from drought-stricken Queensland during the 1950s.

Continue reading "How to raise a defiant finger to fashion" »

Aussie runway model Andrej Pejic is one gorgeous specimen. With strikingly good looks and legs that go on forever, the Serbian-born beauty has caught the eye of every fashion designer on the planet. Looking fabulous in floor length gowns is no challenge for the 19-year-old supermodel but there’s just one thing that differentiates Pejic from other models on the catwalk - Andrej Pejic is a man.

Pejic’s knack for modelling both men’s and women’s clothing has sent the well-kept feathers of the fashion world flying. International designers have all clamoured to use his androgynous look while the glitterati flock to catch a glimpse of ‘the chick who is actually a dude’.

I love seeing Pejic looking incredible in mini-skirts and corseted bustiers. Heck, I would kill for his legs. What I don’t love however, is seeing him waltzing down the runway in clothes that are supposedly designed for women.

Continue reading "You’re a beautiful (wo)man but get off the catwalk" »

For nearly a decade, the question of what Osama bin Laden might look like ran a close second to where he might be located.

Do years of murderous terrorism escalate the hair greying process? Would he be with beard or without? And what are the dress regulations for 21st Century villainy? Semi-criminal or smart homicidal?

In the long years between the September 11 terrorist attacks and Operation Assassination, these were key questions faced by US authorities as they tried to keep the visuals on their wanted posters and card decks up to date.

Continue reading "Osama: a frail, pathetic poser" »

I’m a fat girl. On my wedding day I remember feeling that our special day would have been perfect, if only I was a couple of kilograms lighter.

I berate myself daily for the piece of chocolate I ate or the steps I didn’t climb. Guilt and shame are my constant companions.

The strange thing is, I’m not overweight. Never have been. But this small fact hasn’t stopped me feeling fat at every stage of my life.

Continue reading "Don’t pass your bad body issues onto your kids" »

Last week’s news of the death of anti-anorexia billboard model, Isabelle Caro, came one day after I gobbled Portia de Rossi’s graphic memoir about her battle with anorexia in almost one sitting. 

An Unbearable Lightness intrigued and terrified me.  De Rossi’s obsessive calorie counting, exhaustive exercise and waifish results seemed strangely juxtaposed with the delicious gluttony I’d experienced over Christmas - nine weeks after the birth of my third child – weighing my heaviest.

Female body image is a complex beast. It wrestles at some point with most of us - regardless of the skin we’re in. 

Continue reading "Not so much a killer body as a body that kills" »

Last week, for the first time in my eight years on Sunrise, I was specifically excluded by a guest from interviewing them because of my gender. Not that Hollywood star Portia De Rossi didn’t like me personally (which I could probably understand) but simply because I was a male.

It made me wonder just how far we’ve really progressed in terms of sexual equality and true inclusiveness. It also made me wonder what would have happened if a male had taken a similar stance and whether the response would have been just as muted.

I didn’t talk about it on Sunrise and we accepted the condition. But I tweeted my thoughts and received a huge response.

Continue reading "Portia was way off course with women only interviews" »

Occasional exposure to Beauty and the Geek has highlighted a few things to me. One is that there’s no level that some people won’t stoop to to get on television.

Two is that there is maybe no such thing as a ‘bottom floor’ in reality programming. Thirdly and most importantly, it’s time society took a look at how it’s defining a ‘fashion victim’.

I myself, believe it or not, can fall into the socially defined fashion victim category. While I may look thoughtfully scruffy, that’s mostly because my new wife has carefully trained me that way.

Continue reading "Trendsetters aren’t the only fashion victims" »

I’m not sure what we called “body image” as an issue before it was called “body image.”

It’s certainly not a new thing. When I was a teenager it was everywhere, we just didn’t have a name for it, so I don’t think we thought of it as an “issue”, just part of being an adolescent.

Now it’s not just an issue, it’s the biggest issue, according to the latest Mission Australia national Survey of Young Australians. Asked to rank a whole list of issues of personal concern, 31.1 per cent of the 50,240 people aged 11 to 24 years named body image a “major concern”. In the 20-24-year-old cohort the figure was 40.3 per cent.

Continue reading "Which comes first, a problem or its definition" »

Since when does dressing up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz involve flashing your underpants?

As an Australian living in the United States, attempting to embrace my cultural surroundings for the epic Halloween festivities – parades, parties and the like, I am rather appalled at the costume selection available for women.

It’s tough to find a dress-up option that doesn’t involve showing an inordinate amount of flesh whether it’s micro mini-skirts, midriffs or cleavage enhancing tops.

Continue reading "Putting the hoe into Halloween" »

With the average size of Australians increasing, there is continuous call for runways to incorporate “real” body types.

With plus sized models now being included in some fashion shows it seems that things are beginning to change.

However there still remains one group completely forgotten by the fashion industry and it’s time to give them a voice.

Continue reading "The short end of the fashion stick" »

The Melbourne Spring Fashion Festival is now in full swing.  In a few days it will coincide with the start of the National Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness week.

The fashion industry has always come under fire for its use of super-skinny models, raising issues about healthy body images.  In Australia, 45 per cent of women and 23 per cent of men in a healthy weight range believe they are overweight.  Being in a healthy weight range doesn’t make your image perception healthy.

But this argument isn’t new.  And overtime little has been done to correct these issues.  We have heard the calls to ban skinny models from the world’s fashion runways, but they are still walking down the catwalk.

Continue reading "Body image crusaders must avoid normalising obesity" »

Every single day for the past 3 years I have thought to myself, ‘I need to lose weight.’ That’s not an exaggeration. In fact I have thought it twice a day for the past 3 years.

For the record, I’m a size 12 woman, and I weigh, dare I say it, 66 kilograms. For the past 3 years I have trained with a personal trainer twice a week and played netball twice a week.

During the week I eat all the right things, on the weekend I might splurge and eat MacDonald’s and then feel extremely guilty afterwards. I’m fit, and I’m healthy. But my desire to lose weight is not to be healthy. I want to be thin. Really thin. And I don’t think I’m alone.

Continue reading "Dying to be thin" »

Warning: this has nothing to do with politics. We thought we’d see how the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader would scrub up under a digital makeover of the kind you might find in a high-fashion glossy magazine. They have each had a bit of a facelift, lip and hairline enhancements and skin tone improvements from a professional image retoucher. Here’s Abbott’s dramatic transformation:

Notice the ears got a little tuck? And here’s the Prime Minister:

Continue reading "Gillard and Abbott get a digital makeover" »

Jennifer Aniston, at 41 and in absolutely incredible shape, has just done a tame topless photo shoot to promote her new perfume.

What’s the headline on the story on the Daily Telegraph website? Is it “Hot 41-year-old millionaire gets her kit off!”?

No. It’s “JA so sexy but can’t keep a man.” No where in the story does it mention her love life. In fact, apart from the perfume, the other other thing it refers to is her plans to move into directing. What a loser!

I’ve indulged in it; I’ve taken the piss out of it; I’ve patronised the people on it; I’ve got angry about it. No, I’m not talking about the front bench of the Liberal Party; it’s pornography.

Let me say from the outset I consider myself a feminist and it’s through the prism of this theoretical perspective that I’m likely to view stuff that concerns women. But which feminism?

It’s been a long time since the dominant feminist view of porn toed the party line of radical pro-censorship campaigners like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon and their dictum that if you consume pornography you don’t have a right to your sexuality.

Continue reading "The theory and the reality of porn don’t always match" »

Saturation marketing might have alerted you to the fact the new Sex and the City movie is nearly on our shores, and I bet there’s a whole load of teenage girls either begging their mothers to take them to see it or planning on going with their friends anyway.

You might think they’d be better off skipping the sexually-charged antics of Samantha and co and instead heading to the latest installment in the chaste Twilight saga.

After all, Twilight is all about saving yourself for marriage, getting off on holding hands, and personal sacrifice. But as role models for young women go, I’d pick Carrie and her friends over Bella any day.

Continue reading "Why Sex and the City is better for girls than Twilight" »

Oooh la la. French women might not get fat, but they’re happy to hold up a very curvy woman as the apogee of style.

Pick up a copy of the current issue of French Elle and you’ll find American plus-size model Tara Lynn seductively pouting in a white jumpsuit on the front. Inside, 20 pages are prominently devoted to Lynn, who is a size 16, modelling things like blue chunky knitted capes while causally pretending to ride a bike - your standard fashion fare.

For some, this is just another example of what the New York Times has dubbed “the triumph of the size 12s “, that is, a backlash against the prevailing dictate of exclusively employing the skeletally thin girls previously favoured by designers and editors.

Continue reading "Turning thin fashion chic on its emaciated derriere" »

There is an increasing trend in advertising and marketing to focus on the sexualization of children. The Australian Association of National Advertisers has recently released a new code of conduct on this topic and as a father of six children and a grandfather to nine it seems the code is not before time.

Planned soon for Melbourne is a beauty pageant for children inspired by controversial US TV shows. Tiny tots will model swimwear and be judged on their smile and posture.

Psychologists are saying the concept wrongly judges young children by their looks and could lead to insecurity, eating disorders, anxiety and embarrassment.

Continue reading "A grandfather asks: Are we overindulging our daughters?" »

Tina Fey, you traitor, you ignored the clause in your smart/funny girl contract that says you weren’t supposed to get hot.

A bit glossier, with slightly whiter teeth and and a slightly smaller back side, that’s ok. But nowhere does it say you’re allowed to become a certified sex bomb. Vogue, yes, Esquire, a big no.

Don’t you know you’ve let all the other smart girls down? You’re as bad as Sophie Dahl, who went and turned from a plus-sized model into a straight up and down model-sized model. It’s just not done.

Continue reading "We don’t like it when our ducklings turn into swans" »

The fashion world was abuzz as word spread we were going to see rather buxom models in the Prada show (one of the most influential shows in the entire fashion spectrum) during Milan Fashion Week and really solidify the trend that bums were back, hips were big, curvy bodies were the next big thing.

So the fashion press waited with baited breath to see what dizzying beauties Miuccia Prada had flown in to prove to the world that she was all for promoting voluptuous women.

Who came down the catwalk? Victoria’s Secret models. You know, the ones with the ridiculously tiny thin bodies who also happened to be blessed with a B-cup (‘cause on a superslim body, a B-cup can look quite large. Most models have zero in the breast department.

Continue reading "The non-return of curvy models to the catwalk" »

I’m going to confess straight up to having little to zero interest in the underwear choices of Venus Williams.

Yet in recent days her flesh coloured shorts have become a story in sport in themselves and sent twitter abuzz with is she or isn’t she wearing underpants debates.

Perhaps this isn’t so shocking, Maria Sharapova’s green “frocklet” (I kid you not- apparently there is indeed such a thing), got its own press conference launch and then we saw precious column space designated to the diamond earring and necklace choices of Serena Williams, (which she liked “because it had lots of S’s in the design”, and we can all respect that).

Continue reading "Treating women’s sport like a trivial fashion contest" »

UPDATE 2pm: Mia Freedman, the chair of the committee put together by Kate Ellis to look at body image in the media, has just responded to Jackie Frank’s comments in her own blog Mamamia.com.au. As Freedman points out, the government doesn’t chose cover models, editors do.

Cue the Nobel peace prize for the editor of Marie Claire who has taken the decision to put a naked Jennifer Hawkins on this month’s cover, not to boost circulation, of course, but in the name of “positive body image.”

How brave of Jackie Frank to take a genetically-blessed 26-year-old former Miss Universe and pay her to get her kit off to make us all feel better about ourselves. Her historic move even came accessorised with a free lecture for Youth Minister Kate Ellis, who Frank says hasn’t done enough to address the crisis of confidence in Australia’s girls and young women.

Now Marie Claire can join the orgy of self-congratulation among Australia’s women’s mags which in the past couple of months have been bold enough to put Sarah Murdoch on the cover of Women’s Weekly without airbrushing her 3.5 wrinkles and encouraged Tiffany Wood to show off her curves in the buff in Maddison.

Continue reading "Don’t buy into mag land’s body image spin" »

Hannah Montana. The very name is enough to chill the heart of any parent desperate to dodge the scourge of our age – the commercial exploitation of young children.

Weak fool that I am, though, I gave in recently to my 10-year-old daughter’s pleas to watch the show.

“You get the best of both worlds,” crooned Miss Miley Cyrus as we tuned in to the Disney Channel. If only, I growled to myself.

Continue reading "Why I hate Hannah Montana" »

A mother of twins died in Buenos Aires on Sunday due to complications following buttock implant surgery. Two children no longer have their mother for the rest of their lives because of her desire for a firmer arse. Has the world gone mad?

Solange Magnano, 38, a former Miss Argentina reportedly died when liquid injected during her gluteoplasty procedure (arse surgery to you and me) caused her to have a pulmonary embolism. It was her second cosmetic enhancement since having breast implants after the birth of her children.

A spokesperson for Gustavo Rosso, Magnano’s husband, said during his statement that there have been only 15 recorded fatalities from the same procedure worldwide. I’m sorry, only 15 people dead because of the desire for a firmer butt?

Continue reading "Leaving it all behind for a firmer bum" »

What happened in the Liberal party room on Tuesday morning was above politics.  I’m hoping it was the start of a revolution, a signal that a large number of downtrodden, forgotten Australians are about to stand up and be heard. 

I’m talking about wing-nuts.  Tony Abbott is a wing-nut.  So am I.

Our ears are unique.  They come out of heads at a rather extreme angle.  If we’re not wearing budgie smugglers, our ears are the first thing that people look at when they look at us.

Continue reading "Abbott’s ascendancy a win for all people with big ears" »

Maybe it’s Tony Abbott’s own fault, and maybe he thinks it’s fantastic, but I’m a bit creeped out by the amount of attention being paid to the new Opposition Leader’s, um, assets.

Log on to any blog or social networking site in the past 36 hours and you’re likely to find as much in-depth analysis of Mr Abbott’s physical characteristics as his policy range. And I’m not talking about the size and shape of his ears.

While this might be a great boost to The Punch’s Question Time Live coverage - bring on the influx of stay-at-home-mums tuning into APAC at 2pm on sitting days - can you imagine what would happen if the same conversations were taking place about Julia Gillard?

Continue reading "Phwoar!!! Tony Abbott’s the full package. Wink wink." »

Kate Moss, who has made millions of dollars from being pretty skinny, has said: “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” You can read the news story here.

Cue outrage! How dare she actively encourage young women to starve themselves! She’s a role model! You can read the hundreds of condemning articles here.

Seriously? Do we really expect a woman who once devoted quite a bit of time to Pete Doherty to be a pin up for healthy living? Relying on the likes of Moss to guide our girls is dooming ourselves to perpetual disappointment. And putting too much store by what she says derails the body image debate.

Continue reading "We expect too much from our celebrities" »

Unless you were lucky enough to be of nightclubbing age in the 1970s it has never been cool to wear white leather shoes. Despite being akin to wearing a large sign that says “I’m a tool”, this hideous footwear has had something of a resurgence in trendy nightclubs thanks to metrosexuality.

But after a decade at the cutting edge of cool, metrosexuals have been given one clear signal they may have to go back to being ordinary blokes. Nightclub promoter Scott Mellor has chalked a line in the pavement outside a new club event in Melbourne that debuts on Friday. Beyond it, metrosexuals shall not pass.

Anthropologists might be tempted to attribute this to a socio-collectivist and culturo-genetic realisation that men are not capable of understanding manicures and shopping to the extent required to live a truly metrosexual life. But most would say metrosexuality was like platform shoes for blokes – a stupid idea in the first place – and besides, since David Beckham first dyed his tips blonde women have been clamouring that they prefer real men.

Continue reading "End of metrosexuals is a win for real equality" »

ALMOST 70 per cent of men say that a woman’s face is much more important than her breasts, legs or figure, a Punch survey of male attitudes on female body image has found.

And almost two-thirds of men believe that women spend far too much time worrying about their appearance, and should spend less time fretting about what men think - because you are all much hotter than you think you are.

The Punch has today assembled this special package of pieces about female body image through the eyes of blokes. Much of it is framed around our 100-man survey, but also includes columnist Joe Hildebrand talking about his love of fat chicks and former Zoo Weekly online editor Chris Deal’s essay on why men are as dumb as you probably suspect they are.

Continue reading "Guys talk about female body image" »

Are you gonna take me home tonight? 
Ah down beside that red firelight? 
Are you gonna let it all hang out? 
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round. - Queen, 1978

My name’s Joe Hildebrand and I like fat chicks.* My best friend Byron likes fat chicks. My other best friend Matt likes fat chicks. My other best friend Darrin is actually fat himself. Even Queen likes fat chicks, and they’re all gay.

Yet fat chicks seem to think that nobody likes them at all.

Continue reading "Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round" »

A little known fact I like to trot out at feminist rallies and family gatherings is that I use to work for the esteemed gentlemen’s periodical, Zoo Weekly magazine. Officially my title was Online Editor, but unofficially it was You Tube surfer and talker to the hottest chicks planet earth has ever produced.

Sadly my tenure at the Encyclopaedia Tit-tanica was brief, and a decision that to the male ego sounds like the frothy rantings of a mad man. In bloke-speak the phrase “I quit a job at Zoo Weekly” roughly translates to “I’m a frightful shirtlifter, pass the amyl and pump up the Right Said Fred”.

But after I’ve stopped trying to use my penis for a brain, not only is the fleshy mirage of life at a lad’s mag revealed, but so too are a few finer points of the deluded male mind.

Continue reading "Men: we really are as dumb as you think" »

These are the raw numbers for the female body image survey.

1. Which of these physical qualities do you value most highly in a woman?

A.) Pretty face 68
B.) Great breasts 8
C.) Nice legs 8
D.) Perfect fat-free figure 16

Continue reading "This girl looks normal: The 100 man body image survey" »

Hi.  My name is Ashlee.  I’m a 24 year old Australian woman. I have a relatively successful media career for my age, given the current economic climate. I currently live and work in Indonesia. I have always tried to give back to the communities in which I live through volunteering and I don’t have a criminal record. I do have a gym membership though. I’m doing OK. Oh, but I forgot to add, I am fat.

Actually, I should say obese, according to my BMI. 

And apparently this makes me some kind of social pariah who should be the target of intense public ridicule and scorn, no matter what food I may or may not put in my mouth, no matter how many times a week I work out. 

Continue reading "Why is the weight debate full of so much hate?" »

This is a digitally enhanced photo of Sydney woman Deborah Luckie. She’s 50 years old.

A picture of her as she appears in real life is down the page.

If you were to see a photo of Deborah in a magazine, the photo above is how she could, potentially, appear after digital retouching. After a week of hype over model Sarah Murdoch appearing “untouched” on a magazine cover and the launch of a national body image initiative, the treated photo was commissioned to illustrate how removed from reality faces and bodies in the media can be.

Continue reading "How old is this woman?" »

Sarah Murdoch and Mia Freedman are hot. Like really, really hot.

But I don’t reckon that fact takes away from their years of experience, their first hand insight and the value of their contributions on the subject of tackling negative body image.

That was exactly the reaction we’ve seen this week though, from some who argued that these women were too beautiful to have a valid role to play in the debate and were misplaced on the Government’s Body Image Advisory Group that reported this week.

Continue reading "Moving past the blame game on body image" »

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers. It’s all about fast cars and cussing each other. But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic, and that’s what makes my life so f***ing fantastic.

And I am a weapon of massive consumption and it’s not my fault, it’s how I’m programmed to function. I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror I’m on the right track, yeah I’m on to a winner. - Lily Allen.

The body image issues that plague so many women in our society are very real and are, in their essence, rooted in fear.

Continue reading "The fear making mothers invisible" »

People have always wanted to look better than they really are, and there have always been products around to facilitate this desire, like corsets, make-up, botox. I myself spend a ridiculous amount of time and money having my hair made ultra-blonde, my eyebrows plucked and tinted, my nails buffed and polished.

In this digital era people are aware of Photoshop and retouching. In any given social situation when someone finds out I’m a professional in the dark art of retouching the first question is invariably: “Can you retouch my (insert profile pic, wedding photo, family portrait etc here).

When they discover my area of expertise is the fashion and celebrity world, the next question is: “Who is the hardest person to retouch?” (No, I’m not telling.)

Continue reading "My life as an image retoucher" »

This is pop star Miley Cyrus’s little sister Noah at a Halloween party last weekend. It’s not the first time little Noah has been sent out on the red carpet in an outfit that is, ahem, a little old for her.

And not surprisingly it drew a pretty quick knee-jerk response from commentators right around the world. OUTRAGE! But is it really that bad?

The Punch decided to ask the people at the coal face of the battle against the growing sexualistion of children, mothers with young daughters, what an image like this did to their efforts to stop their little girls growing up too fast.

Don’t miss our body image special on The Punch tomorrow morning. You won’t believe your eyes.

Continue reading "What mothers say about a 9-year-old dressed like this" »

I teetered into my 40th birthday earlier this year.

Fabulous heels? Check. Spectacular dress? Check. Girls Night Out? Cocktails? Dancing? Check. Check. Check.

I’m nothing if not a walking cliché.

Continue reading "The New 40? I Want the Old One Back" »

How many column inches in women’s magazines are devoted to dieting every year? Enough to cross the Nullarbor? Circumnavigate the globe? Traverse the universe?

“Get your body beach ready. Now!” “Your best body. Fast.” “Your best-ever body in four weeks.” “Shrink one size in four weeks.” And my personal favourite: “Drop a dress size by Saturday!” Really?

I should issue a little disclaimer and own up to writing many vacuous and silly diet coverlines during my 15-plus years working in women’s magazines. Seven kilos in seven days? Only joking. But you get the drift.

Continue reading "Odds and magazines are stacked against diet success" »

Yesterday on The Punch, Tory argued that Karl Lagerfeld’s rather out there recent comments were right - “sort of”.

The gist of Karl nobody-wants-to-see-a-round-woman Lagerfeld’s contribution was that the fashion world was all about fantasy so it shouldn’t be criticised if it chooses to use only skinny models with protruding bones on their catwalks, or photos that are digitally altered to make a models’ waist the size of her neck. It’s all fantasy, silly. What’s the harm?

Tory’s semi-agreement seemed rather more based on personal preference and a dislike of a recent magazine’s choice of “plus size” models.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: Body image problems are far from fantasy" »

Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld was off the mark when he said only “fat mummies” object to skinny models on the catwalk, but his point about the growing pressure to put “real” women in magazines and fashion shows wasn’t so crazy.

Ladies if you want to look at a “real” woman, stand in front of the bathroom mirror, then ask yourself “do I belong on the pages of a fashion magazine?” I’d hazard a guess the answer is “No!”

That doesn’t mean you’re not gorgeous, beautiful, very sexy even. It just means that on the odd occasion we fork out $10 for a glossy, if we’re stuck looking at people just like us we’ve done our dough.

Continue reading "Karl Lagerfeld’s right, sort of" »

When my little cousin waltzes into my room and asks me for nail polish, it doesn’t really bother me. Perhaps her decision to forego my sexy reds and vixen blacks for the playschool razzle dazzle of my fluro pinks and purples fills me with a little confidence that her safe and happy childhood is very much intact.

Then there are the other times, when she waltzes in my room wearing blue eye shadow and shiny pink lip gloss, and asks me for help in adding more artificial crap to her face.

Those are the times I know we have a colouring-outside-the-lines situation – and not just because she misses the outline of her lips.

Continue reading "Lambs dressed up as mutton" »

So Fat-shionistas (their word, not mine) have come together for the launch of Full Figured Fashion Week in New York, and larger women all over Manhattan are excitedly gathering in anticipation of clothing that is actually on trend and made in big-girl-friendly sizes.

It seems too good to be true after the recent too-small-clothing debate, with UK Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman calling for designers to up their sample sizes.

Five years in the making, the event organizer Gwen De Voe is hoping to get the attention of fashion designers globally.

“The main objective is to show the consumers and buyers that there are other designers out there.”

She’s expecting 1500 people to attend including retail buyers and plus sized customers all looking for a solution to their what to wear dilemmas.

Continue reading "Fatshionistas are hip, but can they fit into the dress?" »