lizzie-millerLizzie Miller (yeah I have no idea who she is either), recently appeared in Glamour magazine in an unairbrushed photo showing a bit of belly flab.

Possibly because an unairbrushed photo is so rare these days, or the fact that so is printed belly flab nonetheless the magazine was inundated with messages of support.

I couldn’t help but notice the messages of support seemed to be from presumably overweight females thanking Glamour magazine for making them feel better about themselves.

With 60% of the Australian adult population being overweight in 2000, do we really want to encourage people to think that being fat is now somehow natural or acceptable?

67% of males and 52% of females being overweight made the numbers that rounded off the aforementioned study. At almost 70%, it’s not just the females who aren’t pulling their weight. And if the numbers sound high to you, step outside and have a good look around.

Everywhere you look pavement breakers are walking around strutting their stuff.

“I love this picture. I was starting to despair of ever seeing real women in magazines and it made me reassess how I look at myself. I have a similar tummy, which I hate – but look at her, she’s beautiful.”

lizzie-miller2


The above was just one of the comments in support of the Miller photo. Now don’t get me wrong, apart from a bit of thunder thighs going on I don’t think Miller is a doughnut queen.

Sure the belly could do with a bit of work but if you look at the more balanced photo to the right you can see that the shot they published deliberately paints Millers stomach in it’s worst looking light.

The danger as I see it is that magazines will start to realise the market for making overweight women feel good about themselves and milk this insecurity for all it’s worth.

Not that I read magazines and am all of a sudden going to be disappointed, I mean I’m sure Zoo, FHM et al. will still give me something airbrushingly impossible to look at while I wait in line at 7-11, but I do worry about the effects of soothing this insecurity.

I’m not about to advocate full scale fatty bashing but I do think we’re going too far in the opposite direction. It’s true that models don’t have to be wafer thin but does anybody really think putting fat people into magazines is any healthier?

Average to me is inbetween the wafer and the lard and should be represented as such.

Myer recently launched a fashion season and featured plus size “models” alongside their flagship clothes rack Jennifer Hawkins. I’m not too knowledgeable on women’s clothing sizes but if the photo in the article is anything to go by, a size 16 is definitely tipping the scales.

Myer director of apparel Judy Coomber said it was the first time plus-size models had been included in the twice-yearly round of parades that traditionally start the retailer’s new season.

She said plus-size brands were an increasingly important part of Myer’s offerings.

“This business is a growing business for us and it’s really important to us in terms of our complete offering to all of our customers,” she said.


I appreciate the fact that with an overweight population the fat clothes industry must be booming but does anyone seriously think they’re in fashion being a size 16? No matter how nice you’re face is I’m still just going to see a walking twinkie wearing some clothes.

From magazines to catwalks this fat culture is slowly creeping into our society. And then what? In ten years from now will a size 16 be considered unrealistic as throngs of size 20 women complain that it’s un-natural and not representative of the average body?

We don’t go to movies to watch average actors, watch sport to see average atheletes compete or go to restraunts to eat food cooked by average cooks – so why the change in modelling?

And in a glamour magazine? Women shouldn’t even be reading glamour magazines let alone judging the content in them.

If you need proof of this just go to a bridesmaid fitting session and watch the cattiness unfurl as best friends argue over why the chosen dresses suit everyone else but themselves. Or visit a shoe shop and witness the jealousy that ensues when one woman sees another try on a shoe they could never themselves pull off.

No, unable to separate themselves from the content, women make terrible critics of glamour. If they had their way we’d all be shopping at plus size stores reading magazines featuring models so large they’d have to be printed in widescreen.

Miller isn’t fat but instead rests somewhere in that grey area of borderline territory. Personally it’s a little too close to that line for comfort. Without the disgust and disadvantage shown to fatties by society what incentive do they have to improve their bodies.

Surely 60% of the population don’t just suffer from the mythical big bone gene.

We shouldn’t be ready to celebrate fat people so readily yet, in doing so I think we admit to ourselves as a society that weight management is truly a lost cause. That my podgy friends is one battle I’m not ready to give up on just yet.



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