Let’s Make 2015 The Year We Stop Obsessing About Celebrities’ Post-Baby Bodies
I hereby decree that 2015 shall be the year we STFU about celebrity moms “bouncing back” after giving birth. No more. I am officially done with this bullshit narrative, and you should be do. Not only do we deserve better, but we owe it to these celebrities to push for a smarter and more honest storyline about becoming a mother. Sure, many of these celebs buy into it and become part of the problem, selling stories of their post-baby diets and work out sessions to magazines. But they deserve a pass on this one. (Yes, even Kim Kardashian.) The post-baby body machine is a churning monster, and I don’t fault them for getting devoured by it. But now it’s time for all of us to demand a change.
First of all – it’s just not true. These stories sell an aspirational post-baby existence that doesn’t exist in real life. Somehow, in Hollywood, moms are magically able to breastfeed their entire bodies back into looking like Gisele Bundchen. They eat chicken and spinach and do pilates and bam! – what baby? Maybe that works for some people, but it’s not the full story. There’s dieting and trainers and lots of behind the scenes BS that goes into their weight loss. Tori Spelling even admitted that while she told people she lost weight after giving birth by swimming, she really did it by not eating. “I like to call it the Just Keep Your F***ing Mouth Shut and Eat Air diet,” she said in her book Spelling It Like It Is. (OMG that title.)
“My publicist had given me clear instructions about what to say about my weight loss,” she said about an interview she did with Us Magazine. “Women didn’t want to know that I had lost weight through dieting, not exercising… So I said that I swam [even though] I can’t do much more than a doggy paddle.”
These stories are designed to make us all feel like garbage, and deflect from so many other important moments that should be taking up all our focus. New moms should be learning how to care for and nurture themselves, not worrying about how to get back into “fighting shape.”
Second – there is more to motherhood than your appearance and losing weight. Like, a LOT more. There’s breastfeeding and formula feeding and poop and diapers and sleep and no sleep and self-care and depression and hormones and recovering from a c-section and emotional highs and lows and support and pumping and bleeding nipples and connecting with other moms and learning a shit-ton about yourself and maxi pads bigger than a king size mattress. And yet rarely do we ever hear about any other elements of motherhood or childbirth other than “fashion! bodies! exercise! skinny!” Sure, celebrities live incredibly charmed lives. But they are still human, and still deal with the grittier parts of being a mom. Kim Kardashian may have a hundred night nurses and dresses her kid in Givenchy fur coats, but you better believe she still had to experience that painful First Poop After Childbirth like the rest of us.
This obsession with celebrity post-baby bodies is helping no one expect the magazines who make money off these vapid, idiotic stories. All moms – the readers and the famous ones being written about – deserve better.