Reverse Airbrushing: Photoshop Jumps the Shark

Now this is an appropriate use of photoshop, children.

This will be the most head-spinning quote you will read all week (unless you read that story about the "new teen trend" of drinking vodka through their eyeballs - that one's got a couple of doozies that'll make you grab the nearest adolescent and shake them): "The editor of the top-selling health and fitness magazine in the U.S., Self, has admitted: 'We retouch to make the models look bigger and healthier.'" Keep in mind this is the same mag that skinnified Kelly Clarkson to the point of unrecognizability not long ago. Sure you knew that everyone from catalog models to Demi Moore to WWF wrestlers is photoshopped to have thinner waists, less hip and, in the case of the wrestlers, no nipples (seriously), but did you know about the increasingly common practice of reverse photoshopping?

Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, explains, "I spent the first ten years of my career making girls look thinner -and the last ten making them look larger." This isn't the first time reverse photoshopping has appeared in the news - Cameron Diaz got her "manly" lower ab definition smoothed out for Cosmo - but the controversy erupted all over again earlier this week when this:

was transformed into this:

British mag Healthy admitted to adding about 30 pounds to model Kamila because she showed up to the photo shoot looking "really ill and unwell." This scandal caused Leah Hardy, a former editor at Cosmopolitan, to write an article for the Daily Mail first explaining this bizarre practice (it has something to do with designer sample sizes being designed for boys needing to be modeled by women who look like boys but then photoshopped to approximate some features of a real woman so as to appeal to the real women who buy the magazines, with nary a mention of Victoria Beckham which must have taken immense restraint) and apologizing for her part in it.

I, for one, appreciate her apology. For one thing Cosmo got me into serious trouble with my parents growing up when I took a picture of my then 14-year-old sister holding my contraband Cosmo with the title "Your Orgasm" prominently displayed on the cover. It might have ended there had I not sent the picture to a few of our friends - and this being before Facebook, I actually printed it out and sent it (can you imagine?) - who then passed it to a few more friends who then... well, it got back to my parents. I don't remember how my sister felt about her instant - and unintentional - celebrity but my parents sure weren't amused. I had to write everyone involved letters of apology. Oh yes I did. Had it been ten years later my sister would have gone viral and I would have had to pay a professional to scrub her Google results. Who knew that Cosmo would be what makes me appreciate being old? But that is neither here nor there. It was this quote from Ms. Hardy that warmed my fashion mag-deadened heart:

"At the time, when we pored over the raw images, creating the appearance of smooth flesh over protruding ribs, softening the look of collarbones that stuck out like coat hangers, adding curves to flat bottoms and cleavage to pigeon chests, we felt we were doing the right thing. [...] But now, I wonder. Because for all our retouching, it was still clear to the reader that these women were very, very thin. But, hey, they still looked great! They had 22-inch waists (those were never made bigger), but they also had breasts and great skin. They had teeny tiny ankles and thin thighs, but they still had luscious hair and full cheeks.Thanks to retouching, our readers - and those of Vogue, and Self, and Healthy magazine – never saw the horrible, hungry downside of skinny. That these underweight girls didn't look glamorous in the flesh. Their skeletal bodies, dull, thinning hair, spots and dark circles under their eyes were magicked away by technology, leaving only the allure of coltish limbs and Bambi eyes. A vision of perfection that simply didn't exist. No wonder women yearn to be super-thin when they never see how ugly thin can be."

Did you ever think you'd live to see the day when a Cosmo editrix says, "How ugly thin can be"? Do you think we are finally realizing that there is such a thing as "too thin"? Does reverse airbrushing surprise you?

The Number One Most Effective Weight Loss Tip [Giveaway!]

"50 Ways To Burn More Calories" is the biggest, boldest headline on this month's Allure magazine (the one with a spacey Megan Fox on the cover where she says that she can't stand looking at herself and the thing she loves most is to be alone so she often spaces out to block out crowds - good thing she chose Hollywood as her lifelong career then!) The list of 50 tips mostly includes non-stunners like "get more sleep" "walk more" "watch less TV" and "eat whole foods." Salmon and brown rice, the cure-all for everything! Thankfully they also include some downright idiotic suggestions for your entertainment: "Wear stillettos - they work your calves!" (and give you bunions and shorted tendons!), "Pop a pill - glutamate supps burn an extra 20 calories!" (20 calories?! You probably burn that just by wrestling off the child-proof cap) and my personal fave "Avoid eating any kind of fat within two hours of a workout - or your body will burn the fat in your protein bar instead of the fat on your butt!" (This cannot possibly be true).

Strangely, the number one way to get thin didn't even get an honorable mention in Allure's Top 50. It doesn't get a lot of press but there is one way to get thin that has a proven and impressive track record in both real life and the research. It's not a pill or a powder. As much as MeMe Roth would like you to believe it's not willpower. Much to my dismay it's not exercise either. Want to know the number one way to a flat belly?

Get rich.

What, you were expecting something to do with calories in/calories out? It has been shown time and time again that income is the single strongest predictor of body weight. A Seattle study from two years ago showed that 22% of people making less that $15,000 a year are obese (defined as having a BMI over 29) compared with just 15% of those making $50,000 or more a year. If you crack six digits your chance of being obese drops to under 10%. A new Seattle study (being from Seattle I can attest to the plethora of research scientists out there!) extrapolates on why this might be. You may think that it's your dedication to local food or your passion for exercise or even your obsession with Nicole Richie that keeps you thin - and undoubtedly they do - but it takes money to do those kinds of healthy activities.

MSN reports that lower-end grocery stores have ten times the number of obese patrons as more expensive markets. In the already-svelte Seattle (the city has an obesity rate of just 2o%), 40% of Albertson's shoppers were obese compared with less than 4% of Whole Foods shoppers.

"It’s not a matter of availability, lead researcher Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington said. All of the stores in his study stocked a wide range of nutritious food, including plenty of fruits and vegetables.

Instead, he contends it’s because healthy, low-calorie foods cost more money and take more effort to prepare than processed, high-calorie foods. In a separate study two years ago, Drewnowski estimated that a calorie-dense diet cost $3.52 a day compared with $36.32 a day for a low-calorie diet."

$36.32 a DAY?! I eat a very healthy diet and my budget for my family is $3-5 per person per day. Sure there are ways to be healthy on a budget but learning those tricks often takes education and time... both of which require money.

Fortunately people are starting to catch on to the great poverty divide in the obesity wars. The government recently passed "the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, to spend $400 million starting next year to bring supermarkets to low-income areas." In addition, General Mills - who in the past has gotten a bad rap for sugary cereals but is also the purveyor of Green Giant frozen veggies - has started a get-healthy initiative called Eat Better America. You can sign up on their site to win $1500 plus a variety of other prizes. You can also follow them on Twitter and friend them on Facebook. To help you finance your healthy eats, General Mills would like to give one of you a $25 gift card. To enter, just leave me a comment below telling me your best eating healthy on a budget tip!

Anyone else read that Allure article and want to smack them for writing "Eat less sugar" as if it's actual news and then making it the top headline?" What kind of grocery store do you shop at? Does the rich = thin connection surprise you? How do you eat healthy on a budget?

The Flaw I Refuse to Apologize For

I love it - the artist even gave her a little orange-peel bum hole!

You might not know it due to the lack of red circles drawn around my thighs or arrows pointing at my butt but I have cellulite worthy of an US cover, In Touch at the very least. It's cottage cheese-y or orange peel-y or any other bumpy food analogy you might care to apply but you know what it's not? Embarrassing. At least to me. I wear a swimsuit with no sarong tied around my waist. I run in my Nike tempo track shorts. And when I step out of the shower, my eyes never linger disapprovingly over my misbehaving collagen. (It helps that it is behind me.)

Even worse than not being embarrassed about my cellulite, like any good woman should according to dozens of breathless shame-filled articles, I absolutely refuse to do anything about it. I've never bought a "firming" cream or special tights or supplements. I've never tried thermologie or endermologie or any other -ologie that involves heat and/or lasers aimed at my backside. I've never even used fake tanner to cover it up - which brings me to another "flaw" I refuse to apologize for: my pale (to the nth power) skin. I'm not knocking any of you who love your self-tanners but for me the idea of daily painting all my exposed skin an entirely different color than the one it comes in is the very definition of ludicrous. (Note to all high school SAT essay writers: "Ludacris" is a rapper and I can think of no occasion that would make it appropriate to invoke his name in your college entrance exam. Unless you are him. For the sake of my sanity, please learn to spell the word correctly.) It's bad enough I feel compelled to paint my face on Sundays and other dress-up occasions; most other days I don't bother as I'll just sweat it off during my workout, plus my baby likes to lick my face and what's the point in buying her organic baby food if I'm giving her a cocktail of known carcinogens and lead with every kiss?

I don't know why this is. Frankly I'm as baffled by my confidence in this area as you are. It's not like I'm known for my self-confidence, especially when it comes to my body. Cellulite has just never bothered me. I don't notice it on myself and, even better, I don't notice it on other people either. Although that's not for lack of afflicted specimens, apparently. According to an article on the dreaded red-circle disease in May's Fitness magazine (which contains a shout-out to our very own MizFit, holla!) over 90% of women - and 0% of men - have cellulite. (For those of you curious, the gender discrepancy is accounted for by the different way male and female bodies position their collagen. According to the article, men's collagen lines up diagonally while women's goes straight up and down, thereby making it easier for fat molecules to squish through.) The article then goes on to explain that cellulite is "incurable" but don't worry they have pages of advertisements disguised as reporting listing various creams you can try anyhow.

Can someone please explain to me how a condition that over 90% of women have - including Brittney Spears, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and a host of other gorgeous women - and is "incurable" is a flaw? Doesn't that just make it normal? It's like criticizing women for having elbows. And then trying to sell us an elbow-removal file.

How do you feel about your cellulite? Or are you in the genetically-blessed 10% without it? What's your "flaw" that you refuse to apologize for?

Offensive Ads Just Giving Women What They Want?

Here's one mild example. I was too horrified to post the worst offenders. Feel free to click through and check out others if you are so inclined. Be ready to wish for your retinas to detach.

One model in a ball gown stabbing another through the neck. A gang bang of a man perpetrated by other men clad in haute couture. A woman fishing a Jimmy Choo bag out of a pool... wherein lies a floating male corpse. If you've skimmed the ads in any fashion mag recently then you probably already know the ads I'm talking about. They're bizarre, fantastical and incredibly violent with an emphasis on sexual violence and strangely the product being sold - general luxury clothing and accessories - is secondary to the macabre storyline being played out. But that's not the scary part. According to new research from The Journal of Consumer Research, there's a reason for the recent proliferation of grotesque imagery in high fashion ads: we women like it.

Offensive advertising is nothing new. I've posted about the Dolce & Gabbana gang rape ad (apparently a theme with them), the creepy fitness ads in Men's Health, the hilariously bad diet ads, the homicidal video game ads and even Lady Gaga's glamorization of rape and murder in her videos, among others. The twist this time around is that it turns out we women prefer these ads to their more peaceful counterparts. The high fashion industry is all about eye balls and one way to get those is to rip them right out of your sockets (and serve them on a bloody platter to a model wearing nothing but expensive shoes).

The researchers found that in many cases, the key to constructing an engaging fashion ad was not to make it likeable or conventionally pretty, but to make it engaging.

"The merely pretty was too easily passed over; grotesque juxtapositions were required to stop and hold the fashion consumer flipping through Vogue," the authors write. "For the brands that choose to use grotesque imagery—roughly one-fourth, according to a content analysis—the promise is that greater engagement with ad imagery will lead to a more intense and enduring experience of the brand."

The study - which only examined a paltry 18 women - claims that women see the ads as "high art" or as a "type of fiction" leading them to study the ad postulating about the story being told as well as the artistic details like lighting, composition and so forth.

On one level I can see the authors' point. I have found myself flipping mindlessly through a fashion mag only to be jerked out of my reverie by a bizarre ad. And I hate to admit it but I do stare at it longer than I do at, say, those stupid perfume ads where everyone is wearing white on a beach and yet no one has muddy sand on them. This attention however does not translate into purchasing the high end product being advertised. At least not for me. The more appalled I am by the ad, the more negative associations I attach to the brand. Not that I ever buy luxury goods - I've never owned so much as a knock-off of a designer purse - but I can tell you that even if I had a million dollars I'd never buy anything Dolce & Gabbana as I now think of them as the gang rape brand, the official spokesbrand for Darfur if you will. (Rather, I'd buy you a monkey, haven't you always wanted a monkey? Or a K car? I hear they're a nice, reliable automobile.)

I don't think I'm alone in this. I'm going to call shenanigans on this study: just because women may look at an ad longer - and 18 women said they liked macabre ads - doesn't mean most women like them. And if the point of advertising is to sell something then I'd have to see proof that these ads move merch before I'll believe my fellow sisters really do like it rough.

What's your take? Do you find these ads offensive or intriguing? Does it make the brand being advertised more memorable to you in a good way? Is there a "line" that shouldn't be crossed or do "lines" not apply to art ads? Have you ever bought a luxury item? (Just curious on the last one!)

Michelle Obama Ruins Easter

You've got to hand it to Michelle Obama - by proclaiming her goal to "end childhood obesity in one generation" as her platform as First Lady she certainly isn't taking the safe route. I'm not mocking previous First Ladies but saying kids need to read books is pretty tame compared to telling people their kids are fat and are going to die young. And this last weekend she showed that she meant what she said when she revamped the traditional White House Easter celebration. Seeing as I didn't even know the White House celebrated Easter much less has an annual "egg roll", I'm not sure what the traditional festivities entailed although I'm assuming there was candy aplenty.

Not this year! All Peeps, Cadbury Eggs and other confections were chucked in favor of goody bags filled with... "pre-screened fruit." (And no I have no idea what exactly "pre-screened" means in this context either.) In addition, Olympic athletes were staked out at "exercise stations" arranged in a circuit. The (non)icing on the (nonexistent) cake was the hand sanitizing stations. This story gave me a good belly laugh. Michelle Obama healthified Easter!

That is SO something I would do. Man, I love her.

And it sounds like she had equally disastrous results as I usually do, judging from all the media commentary. The same media, I might add, that moan piteously about the epidemic of childhood obesity in this country.

To read the rest of the story and see how Good Housekeeping photoshopped all the sass out of our darling First Lady (and to see how I worked Jessica Simpson into the same article!), check out my post today over on the Huffington Post.

What do you think about Ms. Obama's healthy Easter initiative? Did she go too far to make her point or does Shaun White trump Jelly Bellies? Do you make any healthy concessions at your house when it comes to holidays or is it a beloved day of debauchery?

Confessions of a Cardioholic [My Life as a Cautionary Tale, Part 625]

This image was titled "What Not to do in an Earthquake." Good advice.

What do I live for if not to be the poster girl for What Not To Do? In March, I was Fitness Magazine's freakshow of the month in an article by Jessica Girdwain titled "Confessions of a Cardioholic." You'd think after being on ABC's 20/20, Fox's Morning Show with Mike & Juliette and in publications to numerous to count talking about my various permutations of eating disorders that I'd be used to the public scrutiny. I'm not.

(Tangent: A friend new to the area told my husband that he had heard I was some sort of local celebrity causing me to exclaim, "People do know the difference between notoriety and celebrity, right??")

The reason that I keep doing these interviews - despite being horribly misquoted on at least two occasions (my fave was the writer who entirely fabricated an interview with me from start to finish, saying that I "always hugged the back wall of fitness classes or used the last elliptical because [I] was too afraid of people staring at [my] huge butt." First, I am always annoyingly front and center in any fitness activity and second, for all my insecurities, my butt really isn't one of them. It's cute and perky and despite being minorly dimpled I love it. Truly, I have enough crazy for 10 articles, you don't need to go making stuff up!) - is because I am hoping to help other women not make the same mistakes I did. Or, if they already have, know they aren't alone. Lots of other people have done just that for me and it has made a huge difference in my life! It's not a desperate bid for attention (and, for the record, I have never ever been paid to do an interview so it's not a money thing) - I just want to keep the good mojo going.

And I do think I'm helping some people. At least, after every media appearance, I always - without fail - get quite a few e-mails/phone calls/comments telling me how I helped them or a family member. I'm still getting e-mails from that 20/20 segment and it's been two years since I filmed it! No joke: Someone even wrote their graduate dissertation on it. (To all of you who have taken the time to write or otherwise contact me, I want to thank you with all my heart - you have no idea how much it means to me.)

But I still feel weird when I actually see the interviews on screen (confession: I watched my 20/20 interview exactly once and still cringe any time someone mentions it) or on paper. They always parse it so that all my lovable nuttiness gets smooshed together in one big block of crazy. I swear I'm not that insane in real life. Or maybe I'm deluded? Anyhow, with no further ado, I present to you the scanned version of my Fitness mag interview (click pictures to enlarge):



Now that you've read it, you will inevitably ask - people usually do - "But you're better now, right?" I am. I'm better than I used to be. But I'm not cured. I think I'll always trend towards the disordered side of things; I'm compulsive and perfectionistic by nature. That doesn't mean I won't stop working on it but don't expect me to be perfect either. Exercise addiction is as insidious a disorder as any eating disorder. If you, or someone you know, (yeah, I just broke out the after-school special trope!), suffers from exercise addiction or exercise bulimia or compulsive over-exercise or cardioholism or whatever you want to call it, here are some additional resources:

From me:
The cost of excessive cardio
How to recognize exercise addiction
Bad things happen when you exercise too much
How over exercising made me gain weight and fat
Confessions of a compulsive over exerciser
Building in rests to your workout
Confessions of a pregnant compulsive exerciser, Part I
Compulsive over-exercise in pregnancy, Part II

From others:
Heather Eats Almond Butter recently blogged about breaking her addiction to cardio

Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple is a former elite triathlete who had a cardio addiction epiphany and now educates the masses about the physical toll of too much exercise.

Quix at Adjusted Reality recently wrote about how running a lot led to weight gain and overall frustration.

NY magazine has an article about the effects of prolonged exercise.

What about you - have you ever been addicted to exercise in an unhealthy way? How did you conquer it? What's your view on cardio: cardio queen, everything in moderation or hate it?

The Health Habit I Need to Break: Comparing

Riiiiggghhht.

I'm embarrassed to even admit that I do this but my neuroses want to know if they have company in your neuroses.

I read a lot of magazines. It's a sickness really. But my real weakness is that every time I see one of those weight-loss success stories (I lost 90 lbs in 3 weeks!), I go straight for the numbers. Chicken breast...blah, blah,blah... exercise...blah, blah, blah... alien abduction... blah... height: 5'11". AHA! I need to find their height, see, because they always post weight or pounds lost at the top next to the "after" shot and taken together I can do a quickie mental calculation and figure out the poor woman's BMI. Not that that is a measure of health. Not that it should even mean anything to me. Except that it does.

I look at them and think, "Okay, that's where they are happy, where they are healthy and where society finally tells them they are good." And then I wonder, "Is that what I look like?" It doesn't matter how different than me they are - older, smarter, stronger, shorter, alien, whatever - I must compare before I can read any further into the article. And yet I know I'm not alone in this. Whole websites, like the Illustrated BMI, have sprung up for the express purpose of showing what different weights and heights look like together.

It's awful, I know. A while back, Leslie of (the now sadly defunct) The Weighting Game posted about the phenomenon of "body checking" - the practice of checking things on one's body that one is particularly insecure about to the point it borders on OCD. I think this is my twisted permutation of that. I believe my insatiable desire to compare my body to others' is because I really have no concept of what I look like. In my mind, I'm always "fat." No matter what I actually weigh, I'm still "fat." And so I look to others, not to judge their bodies (invariably I find everyone in these before-and-after stories beautiful and inspiring) but rather to reassure myself about my own looks. If they're ok then maybe I am too.

Anyone else a serial comparer?? How do I stop?

Worst. Photoshop. Ever.

Ab Crunches: Fitness Staple or Overblown Hype?

You could always go the Mariah Carey route (hint: it involves an airbrush, several colors of spray tan, and a drastic underestimation of the observational abilities of the general public.)

Sit-ups: they're the one exercise everyone has tried. Mostly because you can't help it. Even as a baby it was one of the first things you learned - right after how to spit-up. You want to get out of bed in the morning? You sit up.

But these days sit-ups have gone from blase to being a raging topic of debate in the fitness world. They're either the yellow brick road to brick-hard abs or they're evil incarnate and not only are pointless ("you have to lose the fat first!!") but may even be counterproductive by building - and I'm using the technical phrase here - pokey outey muscles. Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow are reportedly in the former camp, regularly clocking hundreds of abs, sans roller, a day. Britney Spears once bragged of doing 1,000 sit-ups a day to stay in Toxic snake-dancing form. In the other camp you have Angie Harmon who boasts of never intentionally sitting up unless she has an actual reason to do so, such as getting out of bed for a bikini shoot. Right along with her is Abtastic Spice Geri Haliwell who says her Bond girl stomach comes from eschewing abs and sticking with dog walking and yoga. I've yet to hear anyone, celeb or otherwise, say "Sit-ups? Meh. I do a few here and there. They're all right."

Regardless of which side of the ab spectrum you fall, there is a serious side effect to sit-ups that you should know about. (If I worked for Self or Vogue right now I'd be all "The Disastrous Exercise You ARE Doing That May Be RUINING YOUR HEALTH! Search madly for our non-existent table of contents to find this article before the grocery checker gets to your order or you WILL DIE!" Ahem.) Two friends, who shall remain nameless for reasons soon to become apparent, both came down with the same, um, medical condition. And they both got it from doing sit-ups.

Problems of the Butt
The official term is "posterior ulcer." I call it blistered badonkadonk. Basically it happens when you do sit-ups in such a way as to rub all the skin off your tail bone. As painful as a carpet burn and as embarrassing as a bed sore, these ulcers can take months to fully heal. Knock on formica, I've never had this issue but it is hard to ignore when two super-fit girls in my life both did this to themselves in the same week.

I giggled. A lot. But it really isn't funny (stop laughing!). These ladies both now have problems with anything that requires just basic sitting, even with out the -upping. In addition to experiencing serious ridicule from their friends and loved ones, they've had to put up with tons of invasive questions from me. True story: had a 20-minute convo on the treadmill about one friend's blister. Nothings says "run on the free hand sanitizer" like oozing fluid talk on the tready!

So What To Do?
Both friends would like to maintain their lovely flat tummies and so were asking my advice as to what kinds of ab work they could do that didn't involve leveraging off their broken butts. While I came up with hanging leg raises, the Roman chair and various Pilates moves, Women's Health Magazine did me one better:

Called "the craziest ab move ever invented," the Wicked Wiper is supposed to be the best ab exercise out there. In fact, it's so crazy your average fitness model can't do it! If you read that last paragraph on the picture (click to enlarge) you'll find:

Full disclosure: As for the ripped gal in our photos? Not even she could do it! We used photoshop magic to erase the dude holding her up.

I gotta say I was wondering how she was managing to smile while doing such a stunt. How's that for truth in advertising?

So there you go - if you break your butt, you've always got the Wicked Wiper to keep you in shape. Or you could just ask Angie Harmon's mom to please birth you.

How do you feel about ab work? Do you love to crunch, crunch, crunch? Or are you one who runs away if a Swiss ball even rolls in your general direction? Do you subscribe to a particular type of ab theory (Pilates? Yoga? Tupler? Mariah Carey??)?

Written By Charlotte Hilton Andersen for http://thegreatfitnessexperiment.blogspot.com only! Not to be re-published without permission.

My Life is a Cautionary Tale

Item the first: I am miserably sick. I did not one, but two workouts today. (Note: Not deathly sick. And I don't think I'm contagious - it's a sinus-y thing where my ears pop every time I swallow and my head spins thereby making me chronically off balance. I'm sure I was a treat to watch doing P90X yoga and Hip Hop Hustle.)

Item the second: I am in this month's Fitness Magazine in an article about how I conquered (AHEM) my exercise dependency. (Note: the article wasn't up on their site last I checked and they forbade me from scanning it in and posting it here. I'll let you know when it goes live though.)

I will now leave you to contemplate my idiocy while I crawl back to bed.

PS. You know what I crave when I'm sick? A TALL COLD MUG OF MILK. Universe, 1. Charlotte, 0.

Newsflash: Madonna Isn't Ageless. Also, People Aren't Perfect

In the immortal words of, well, someone I can't remember, "It's hard out there for a girl!" So you'd think we'd all be a bit nicer to each other, right? And we are - unless that girl is rich, famous and beautiful. Then it's a socially sanctioned free for all.

Celebrity body snarking has long been the bread and butter of the weekly rags, not to mention all the websites devoted to Brittney's waistline and Uma's cellulite. I'm not saying I'm above it all - I've already 'fessed up to an evil fascination with Miley Cyrus' muffin top - but I am saying it's starting to come full circle. It used to be that celebs had powers we mere mortals could never hope to attain and they used them to aggrandize themselves even more. Super powers such as Photoshop, Botox, and lipodissolve assured that the playing field would always be tilted in the favor of those who could afford them. But recently these super powers have been unmasked for the trickery they are. In the immortal words of someone I can remember but wish I didn't, "The stars: they ARE just like us!"

And being "like us" means that despite what they and their PR machines would have us believe, they are not immune to the effects of aging. First it was the Faith Hill debacle where she got a bit of a tummy tuck and some wrinkles and eye bags erased via computer. Then it was the recent Demi Moore for W photoshoot where her hip was chopped (or wasn't - who cares?) and the perfume ad where the tweeted before pictures proved that her skin really wasn't waxen and monotone like it appeared in print (no, really?!). And now we have Madonna, queen of the ageless sylphs.


This week several pre-production pictures were leaked (or "leaked") of the grand dame of pop music looking, er, her age. That one should look older as one increases in years ought to be a given but Madonna has been able to control every aspect of her image for so long that they surprised a lot of people. Newsflash: Madonna has gotten older. And she looks it.

For me I think the shock came from the incongruity of a woman of mature age dressed like an extra from the Halloween scene of Mean Girls - a movie about high schoolers, in case you have forgotten. (It also included a sober Lindsey Lohan, in case you have forgotten that too.) The pictures from a Louis Vuitton ad campaign that ran last year joined others of a similar nature already leaked from her Hard Candy album.


But while it is always fun - and reassuring - to see celebs without the veil of computer enhancement, much of the glee seems to be directed at the fact that the Material Girl is starting to look a little threadbare. Jezebel writer Irin says, "mocking what these women actually look like is not the point." I'm not sure how I feel about a school of thought that makes Madonna and I both victims of the same crime against women and yet this kind of reporting seems to be taking a serious toll even on those whom you'd think would be immune to it. While Madonna hasn't said anything, other women are speaking out. Lily Allen recently claimed to have Body Dysmorphic Disorder saying she thinks she she looks "'considerably more overweight' than she is." and "compared herself to Michelle McManus, who won [Britain's] Pop Idol in 2003 and then claimed she was dropped by her record label because of her weight. Anne Hathaway confessed in an interview this month with In Style, "I think I’ve got really weird features. I have very large features on a very small head. But, you know, I’m not going to beat myself up. It’s my face. I’m not very pretty."

This obsession with flaws creates a vicious cycle that tears up everyone it its path: We hate on celebrities which makes them hate on themselves which in turn makes us hate ourselves. Because we feel bad about ourselves, we take satisfaction on making fun of celebrities and it all starts over again. Frankly, I don't know if I want to live in a world where Madonna is an old hag, Lily Allen is fat and Anne Hathaway is ugly.

What do you think? Is it fair to complain about celebs being airbrushed and then make fun of them when they aren't? And yet, anyone else find it nearly impossible to look away?

Trend Watch: Soft Porn Fitness

"If you've got it, flaunt it!" so the saying goes and fitness people certainly subscribe to this mantra. Seen a health or fitness mag lately? Unless it is Experience Life, I'd bet you a trailer of tuna steaks with whole wheat couscous and arugula ('cause everyone has those on hand right?) that the cover model is in some state of undress. The bikini-clad-standing-thigh-deep-in-generic-water pose is so popular that I don't think Shape has done a cover in the last 5 years without it!

Fitness TV shows, DVDs and podcasts are no better with female trainers sporting tiny booty shorts and sports bras. All the better to show off your hard-won physique right? Why else do we work out if not to get a body worth publicly baring? Ahem. Heck, even CrossFit's been porni-fied. And if you've ever tried CrossFit you will understand how very weird that is.

But is the trend going past flat abs and cut biceps towards something more... porno?

Reader Katie recently wrote me about a fitness site she feels very conflicted about:

The website is www.bodyrock.tv . [...] This website has really started to transform the way I approach workouts. They are short, intense workouts--from as little as 9 minutes to 45 minutes-tops. It's all bodyweight based and just requires a floor mat and the ability to do pull-ups someplace. The woman on the site is very fit and is not shy about sharing that these workouts are ALL she does and that a lot of her battle is also in the kitchen.

It all sounds great. Until you look at the site. I'm embarrassed to look at the site around other people because of the way her videos are shot, and the photos taken to show the individual movements. I feel like I'm looking at a soft-porn fitness site! When I've showed people where I've been getting several of my workouts from, they react with this same mixture of raised eyebrows, but then respect for her solid routines (and body). On the one hand, she sends such a positive message about being physically fit, nourishing your body with healthy food, and to a degree to not be ashamed to show off your hard work. On the other hand, she totally exploits her body and this razzes my feminist sensibilities. Therefore, the message gets a little muddled between the obvious display of silicone and play toward sex appeal and lack of modesty. This site combines so many of my vices---fitness, sex appeal, my love/hate relationship with this site's goals, and finding the real reason I work out--how much is for my own fitness and how much for outward appearance?

Here's a screen shot of one of the videos Katie is referring to: (to see the whole video, click the picture to go to her site. Her videos aren't enabled for external embedding - sorry!)

And here's a shot of Zuzana from her home page demonstrating a lunge:
I have to admit that while I am very used to seeing how sexified most fitness women are, this site seemed a little extreme. It wasn't the clothing per se but more the poses, expressions and mannerisms - ones our society normally associates with porn rather than fitness. Hawt TV trainers may dress like the sexy gym teacher or co-ed cheerleader every man dreams about but - here's the difference - they don't usually act like it. Zuzana calls our bluff and refuses to allow us to pretend that we're not looking at her boobs.

Celebrities on magazine covers and mad-hot Czech women on the Internet are one thing but what about real life? I remember the last time a girl showed up at my gym with night-club makeup, teased hair and sporting cleavage on both ends. People, both men and women, made negative comments about her look and the attitude they assumed she had. Jealousy rearing its ugly head? Or indignation about the breach of the implied moral code? Both?

On one hand, sex sells. Duh. Who wouldn't want to look like Zuzana? I do! And I tried a couple of her workouts - they're solid. (I also wrote down that apple cake recipe because even though I was rolling my eyes at her Daisy Duke getup the cake still sounded really really good.) But on the other hand, is it necessary to go all Jenna Jameson to pimp your fitness routine? Fitness is often a weird place where, like acting and modeling, your body is your product. Is there a line between showing off what you worked so hard to create and being sexy? Is there a point where overt sexiness in fitness ads actually turns you off the product?

And be honest - how much of your motivation to workout is for your health and how much is based on how you want to look?

PS> Anyone else really irritated by the banner on her homepage advertising her auction for her workout pants because her size 4s are now too big and she needs money to buy smaller ones? We get it: you are tiny and adorable.

New Research: Women Eat Less Around Men

Him: Do you have any idea how many calories are in that thing?!

Me: [out loud] Um...
Me: [silently] Yes you idiot. I know how many calories are in everything. I've internalized the nutritional information of so many things that it's practically written on my DNA. In fact, it's impossible for me to even be in the same room as a menu without my mental calculator going into overdrive.

Him: Please tell me you're not actually going to eat that.

Me: [out loud] Um...
Me: [silently] Despite knowing what a dietary disaster it is, I did indeed order this chocolate malt with the full intention of eating it.

Him: At least scrape the whipped cream off the top!

Me: [out loud] But I like whipped cream...
Me: [silently] I just finished a sweat-soaked 3.5 hour workout! And this is the first thing I've eaten all day! If you can't eat a milk shake after all that, when can you?

Him: Here, have a bite of my salmon and broccoli instead.

Me: [out loud] I'm not hungry any more.
Me: [B-movie horror scream]

Shape magazine this month has an interesting little factoid: women eat 486 less calories when they eat in the company of a man. Of course Shape has to make a dubious diet tip out of that: To keep a handle on those holiday calories, make sure you sit by men to eat! While that may be good dating advice, I'm not sure if it is good advice in general. Are they saying that to impress a man, one must suppress their natural appetite and eat like a bird? Or are they saying that being around other women makes us overeat? Either way, that is rather a lot of calories to be trimming off for the gents, ladies.

And yet, I have to wonder if this is true. In the above example I gave in to the guilt fest and ended up eating only three measly bites leaving the waiter and the rest of our party to wonder why on earth I would pay for a five-dollar dessert only to watch it turn into a science project on the various states of matter. But aside from that one instance (and yes even I find my passivity galling), in my experience it is much harder to eat around girls. Most men don't seem to give the first thought to what's on my plate and some even seem to applaud a girl who will really eat. Girls, on the other hand, can be awfully judge-y. Even if they're not appraising your value based on your cream puffs (ahem), most of them are watching what they eat and therefore resent your brazen enjoyment of the dessert buffet. Of course if you don't eat then it sparks a whole other kind of discussion in the ladies room. And that's not even talking about the girls who will actively sabotage you with food.

Granted, these conclusions are based on stereotypes but while there are men who would make me curtail my eating in their presence (see above), I am more likely to be conscious and therefore limit what I eat in front of women. All of which makes me intently curious as to how it is for you.

Given my love for asking strangers intrusive personal questions and my love for online polls, the following should not surprise you:

poll by twiigs.com

(If you get this post through e-mail or a feed reader, please click through to see the poll.)

A Scale of a Different Sort (Giveaway!)

This is the recommended serving size of cuteness

Anyone read those hoity toity (tween Charlotte may have watched Newsies a lot. Like 12 times in the theater a lot.) cooking magazines like Fine Cooking and Gourmet? My simple Betty Crocker heart secretly adores flipping through all those delicious pages with their 200 ingredient recipes, food-porn pics and advertisements for exotic utensils like "mandolin" and "zester" and "chef's quality squishy mat that feels just like a stress ball for your toes!". But I have one problem with those mags (that's a lie - we all know I have lots of problems with cooking but we'll leave my food issues aside for now): all the ingredients are measured in weird things like grams and ounces. The only thing in my kitchen that measures ounces is my Vitamix and I don't think that's the kind of ounces they mean when they say "2 ounces of 85% bittersweet cacao." (You know a recipe is serious when it calls for "cacao" instead of chocolate. How do you even say that? I'm imagining ka-KOW. You know, like chocolate for Batman. If it's not, kindly don't disillusion me. I like mispronouncing words in public. It's half of why I'm so fun at parties!)

So, when I received EatSmart's kitchen scale in the mail* my first thought was "Suh-weet! (adult Charlotte may have watched Napolean Dynamite a lot.) Now I can make all those gourmet recipes and host the dinner party of my dreams!" At which point everyone who knows me falls to the floor laughing. As if the lack of proper measuring implements is the only thing holding me back from making rosemary-lemon shortbread tarts. I don't even own matching dishes, remember? Actually my real first thought was this:

No, that's not a 10.2 lb chuck roast - that's my little bologna loaf! Can you believe how big she's gotten in 3 weeks?! Squeeee!

Not only can you measure fancy-shmancy food but also babies with tiny little ears like apricots, so delicious that I can't help but nibble on them! The other upside? The scale only goes up to 11 pounds so I won't be tempted to weigh myself on it. (Who am I kidding? I'm already weighing myself. Just not on a food scale. Egads.)

For those of you without a gourmet or slightly cannibalistic bent (those cheeks are so yummy!), a food scale has another obvious use: portion control. Sure you already know that a 3 oz. serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards but if you play with those ridiculously huge Sesame Street Uno cards like we do then your, er my, perception of portion sizes might be a wee bit off. Nothing says reality check on the pasta bowl like accuracy to the second decimal point. Not to mention this scale measures in ounces, grams, kilograms and pounds.

Want one for yourself? Just leave a comment telling me how you would use this scale. Would you finally get to cook European recipes and relive that one sweet summer in France? Or would you use it to keep that holiday snacking in check? Or, like me, would you sneak around the house weighing random objects just for the fun of it?

The winner will be announced Friday Dec. 4th. You get to choose your own color but shipping is limited to the U.S. For another chance to win this, check out Heather Eats Almond Butter!

*According to the new blog rules I must disclose that EatSmart sent me one free scale to review and is providing one scale at no cost to a winner on my blog. I was not paid for this post. Not that you asked but I do not get paid to blog, period. Also, I can't believe I have to write my on fine-print legal crap.

Demi Moore: Did W Mag Photoshop Her or Not?

The laughter over the Ralph Lauren model debacle hadn't even died down when it appeared earlier this week that the fashion industry had repeated its affront to anatomical correctness again but this time on the new cover of W magazine featuring Demi Moore.


The blogosphere immediately cried foul as people pointed out the mysterious chunk missing out of her left thigh (our right, looking at the picture). The lines just don't seem to match up in any way that allow for the proper placement of bones and the fabric seems unnaturally suspended in midair. It seemed like another case of sloppy photoshop and blind editors.

But then today Demi released this pic on Twitter saying, "Here is the original image people my hips were not touched don't let these people bullsh*t you! [sic]"


As you can see the "original" photo looks like the one that made it on the cover. Suddenly everyone is confused. A professional fashion photographer claims that there is no way the image is legit and yet Demi remains adamant that it's really her. Is it a magic eye trick? It makes me wonder if perhaps it really is photoshopped and Demi really believes it is her. Could it be possible that celebs get so used to seeing themselves photoshopped, airbrushed and otherwise technologically gussied up that they too believe the imagery?

What's your vote? Does this one go in the Photoshop of Horrors Hall of Fame? Or is there a way to stand to make your hip do that? My vote is it's all a ploy to distract people from her vacant slack-jawed expression. Or the fact that she's wearing a really expensive loin cloth.

Combatting "Sitting Disease": November's Great Fitness Experiment

Never say you can't get in some exercise at the office!

It is with great pleasure that I announce the comeback of the Great Fitness Experiment in practice rather than just in name only: For the month of November I am launching a new GFE. Lest you think I'm crazy and have forgotten the occupied state of my womb (4 days until my official due date!), I will tell you that I took that into account in picking this GFE. Which means, of course, that if a 9-months pregnant chick can do it, you certainly can too! It is based around one small fitness tweak that can have huge results. What is it? Standing.

That's right, I'm doing an Experiment about standing. Before you laugh yourself silly, consider the research, courtesy of Women's Health Magazine:
- Sitting down causes your body to shut down fat burning enzymes, reducing fat burnage by up to 50%.
- For every two hours spent camped out on your butt, your risk of diabetes increases 7%
- For every one hour on your backside, incidence of metabolic syndrome increases 26%
- Sitting for extended periods of time has also been linked to increased risk of heart disease and depression.
- Sitting for a long time is murder on your posture and can lead to all kinds of injuries due to weakened, imbalanced and inflexible muscles.

But, you say, I exercise! Every day, even! Unfortunately in our wired society, 30-60 minutes a day in the gym may not be enough to counteract the effect of playing potted plant for 8-10 hours a day, a number which sounds high until you actually count up all the time you spend sitting in front of the computer, the TV, at the table, in the car and on the floor because getting up when you can't bend at the waist is too much trouble (although that last one may just be me). Unless you have a very active job - like waitressing, construction work or hooking - then you probably spend way more time off your feet than on them.

In a recent study, Genevieve Healy, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Cancer Prevention Research Centre of the University of Queensland in Australia and her colleagues found:

"Regardless of how much moderate to vigorous exercise participants did, those who took more breaks from sitting throughout the day had slimmer waists, lower BMIs (body mass indexes), and healthier blood fat and blood sugar levels than those who sat the most. In an extensive study of 17,000 people, Canadian researchers drew an even more succinct conclusion: The longer you spend sitting each day, the more likely you are to die an early death—no matter how fit you are."

Come on, the researchers just broke out their trump card: sitting makes you dead! Ahem. Hyperbole aside, the fix for "sitting disease" and apparently all other modern travails is pretty simple. You have to up your incidental activity. The researchers call it NEAT for non-exercise activity thermogenesis because after conferences with booth girls, researchers love nothing more than a cute acronym. What that means for the rest of us is we have to find ways to move more.

The article suggests starting by making a commitment to stand up every half hour. I would add that maybe while you are on your feet, do a couple of jumping jacks or burpees. Not enough to get you all pit-stained before the big meeting but still plenty of fodder for your office mates to discuss behind your (well-toned) back. While I am not lucky enough to have physically present coworkers other than little people who already think everything I do is nuts, think of the fun you office people could have! You could swing at invisible bugs! You could make a sacrifice to the Purel gods in hopes of not catching swine flu! You could do a rain dance! Or a tap dance! Or the Single Ladies Dance (bonus points if you can get your coworkers to join in like on Glee)!! The options are endless really.

Okay fine, if you want more practical options the researchers add you can walk around whilst talking on the phone, suggest an outdoor jaunt when someone asks to talk to you, and the old sub-a-stability-ball-for-your-computer chair trick. (However, as someone whose job is done on a computer, I will tell you that the stability ball did not work well for me. It made my posture even worse and gave me terrible back pains.) Other ideas I thought of include standing up and walking to the kitchen or water cooler to get a drink of water, developing a trademark fidget or tic, using a stationary bike or treadmill while watching TV and - my personal dream - bumping up your computer desk to standing height and then buying one of those tall chairs so that you have the option of standing and surfing.

How's this for a multitasking device? It's a treadmill computer desk AND stability ball chair.

The Experiment
For the month of November, I am simply going to stand more. That's it! To remind myself to stand up every 30 minutes, I've installed TimeLeft, a free customizable desktop timer (it even plays mp3s in case dings bother you). In addition, I'm going to make 5 conscious choices to move more every day. (And yes, rocking the baby counts!) Pretty simple! Who's in with me? What are your ideas for simple ways to add more incidental movement to your life? And just out of curiosity, has that stability ball trick worked for anybody??

PS> If anyone has any suggestions on how to go into labor those would be much appreciated too!

Curing the Obesity Epidemic One Beatdown at a Time

In a shocking display of honesty or hubris (both?), the immensely likable Robert Verdi recently said, "A lot of women say 'I should've been alive when Ruben was because I'm Rubenesque.' So times have changed. There are different cultural norms and values and beauty identities, and the fact that thin is in — who cares? It's why I stopped eating. I think food is for fat people and poor people. Rich people don't eat. They get dressed up and go shopping." [Emphasis mine.]

Dear Robert,
I adored you on Trading Spaces. And The Fashion Police was a guilty pleasure of mine for quite a while. I've heard (though not seen as I have a policy of never watching the movie version of a book I have enjoyed) that you were utterly charming on The Devil Wears Prada. If there was ever a man I would want to give me a much-needed makeover, it would be you! You are the rare makeover artist who can transform a person - or their personal space - without making them feel bad about themselves. That's a gift, sir. But even all of that love for your spunky knits and weird headware cannot make me overlook this.

Because this is a serious problem. See: Food is for people people. All people. This attitude that eating represents a loss of self control and is only for the déclassé is abhorrent. With one fell swoop you hurt poor people, fat people, eating disordered people, normal-weight-but-afraid-of-becoming fat people and pretty much everyone else within the sound of your voice that isn't part of the pill-n-party LA culture. As a woman of normal - sometimes even "low" - weight, I must tell you that your statement makes me sick to my stomach. Not from revulsion. From fear. I live in constant terror that were I to gain weight, I would no longer be deserving of love. It's was a primary factor in my eating disorder and remains a great source of income for my therapist. (That's me, stimulating our economy one mental health professional at a time!)

You may think you are just stating the facts ma'am but the problem is that we have created a culture where people would rather die than be fat. Why? Because it has become acceptable, praiseworthy even, to abuse, belittle and humiliate people for their weight. Take the recent case of Marsha Coupe, a British woman who was beaten to a bloody pulp by another woman for the crime of taking up two seats on a train. There are so many horrible things about this incident: First, that the attacker was another woman; Second, that the train was practically empty; Third, that the motive for the attack was clearly and specifically targeted to the victim's weight as evidenced by the attacker screaming, "You big fat pig" before kicking Coupe in the face.

Coupe explains, "The government and the press have created an atmosphere where people think they have a legitimate right to go up to an overweight person and tell them how to live their lives. To them we are all the anonymous pictures of fat people they see in the papers and are the cause of all society's ills, as well as a drain on the NHS. We deserve what we get. We're not people with feelings."

So back to you Robert - your statement that fat people are not deserving of one of the most basic human rights, food, is exactly how we get to thinking that overweight people deserve whatever abuse people see fit to heap upon them because in the end it's "for their own good." If only we all had the self control to just blithely give up food like you! Psychologist Ros Taylor takes on this sadly prevalent attitude saying, "There is true aggression towards overweight people and it comes down to fear and a complete lack of understanding of the issue. People think 'I can control what I put in my mouth so why can't they'. But we're not all the same, we don't all start from the same point."

I'd like to think you were just being glib and silly, in the way that you so often got people to laugh at the silly and unflattering clothing they were hanging on to. Except that your statement and the attack on Marsha Coupe are two sides of the same soul-destroying coin. This time people are getting hurt, really hurt and it's not entertainment anymore. So I say with love: Please shut up.

Sincerely,
Charlotte

Coast Guard Recruits Anorexic Women in New Ad Campaign

Coast Guard Born Ready "Female"

(If you get this via e-mail or a feed reader, please click thru to see the video.)

First watch the above video; it's only about 30 seconds. It's an ad spot from the US Coast Guard sent to me by Reader A. She writes:

I saw a commercial last night for the Coast Guard that blew my mind, and I'd love your opinion on it/other people's opinions on it. Basically, the premise of the commercial is that this girl wasn't born to sit at a desk, she was born to push herself, challenge herself, be a stronger person, etc. They show her running out of the office and cross country - through town, across fields and bridges and woods and finally across rocks until she stops just at the water. The whole idea is she is so strong, etc. Except the girl they use in the commercial, running long-distance and protecting her country, makes a lot of the celebutantes you see constantly accused of being anorexic look healthy. Honestly, one of the first things that popped into my head was the scene from the "THIN" documentary where one of the girls (in an eating disorder IP center) says she joined the Air Force to lose weight. The funny thing is they did the EXACT same commercial with a guy, and he looks fit. Not too big or too small, plenty muscular. (And I mean it's the same commercial - same dialogue, same running out of the office and same running trail.) I still can't quite wrap my head around the irony of a size -2 skeleton advertising hey-let's-join-the-coast-

guard-and-be-physically-fit, especially while the guy version IS fit. Are they trying to appeal more to girls - trying to promote it as a way to lose weight if you join, like the girl in the documentary? Are they just buying into the "ideal" body? Could they just not find any healthy-weight models? I'm not sure what I think about it, but I'd love some other opinions.

A's questions intrigued me on several levels. I have to admit that the first time I watched the ad, I was not particularly struck my the actresses' thinness although A is right - she is definitely very very thin. There are two brief moments right after she runs through the river where you can clearly see her chest bones through the V in her top. I think this is because I am used to everyone from fitness magazines to TV shows to gym advertisements using women closer to fashion models than fitness models to sell their wares. I mean, remember this ad campaign from Men's Health? The models are certainly not what I envision the epitome of healthy woman to look like (not to mention she might possibly be missing her legs?):


The second thing that was interesting to me about A's question is that quite often the military uses weight loss and increased fitness as a selling point in getting people to join up. These days it's definitely all about talking up the self-improvement aspects and downplaying that whole "you might die" part. In which case it makes sense to show thin, fit people in the ads - aspire higher right? Except that the actress in this particular spot may possibly be thin to the point of unhealth. And I'm willing to bet, knowing many military folk myself, that were she to do any sort of boot camp she would probably bulk up a little bit. In addition to the exercise, the chow halls are not exactly renown for their healthful food options - especially if you are stationed overseas. (Active military personnel feel free to correct me on this!) All of which makes this feel like a bait-and-switch.

The last thing that interested me in A's question was the concept that "health" looks different on a man than a woman. With men, it seems like muscular definition is the first criteria for judging a man's fitness. Weight probably doesn't even show up in the top 5. Yet for women, weight is the number 1 factor people use in deciding whether or not a girl is physically fit - even though research has shown this to be an unreliable marker.

So what do you guys think of this ad? Does it make you want to join the coast guard? Anyone else not even notice the skinniness of the actress at first? How do you judge someone's - or your own - health?