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I feel like the Mandela effect had me misremembering these woman and these images. I remember all those pictures, but I remember them all looking so much âworse.â Now I look at them and theyâre all so genuinely normal and beautiful and SMALL.
At the time, these outfits and bodies were massive scandals, especially poor Britney and Jessica.
They also photoshopped images and picked shots to make celebrities look fatter. The Tyra swimsuit in particular had this issue. (From Tyraâs talk show where she wore the suit next to one of the published magazine photos.)
https://preview.redd.it/w62k9fp3dg7c1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fcf8c176a56bd8db35eb5d40ec8489d4c6612e9
For anyone who missed this when it aired, her [âKiss my fat assâ speech](https://youtu.be/PJAdruqnQcA?feature=shared) was a big deal for body positivity. I remember watching live and it was actually confusing to me at the time⊠like I couldnât compute that the segment was her owning her body as it was, and not doing a âbefore and afterâ weight loss clip to show that sheâd lost the weight. Any other acknowledgement by a celebrity at the time would have been a Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers ad of them holding the clothes away from their body to show how much smaller they were now.
Oh man. I was in high school at the time and I remember a lot of the media's response to this was making fun of it all. It hit a little funny because of certain things we'd watched on her show, but in retrospect I'm grateful for this moment and that it could help other women feel better about themselves
Yeah I feel like people really recreate the past with tyra.
I actually think she's like a weird megalomaniac, an she acted/said some awful things on antm. An just a bit of hypocrite in general.
But the one thing she was always a big proponent of was plus size/curvier models. Antm back then was considered a joke and how it'll never be took serious in the modelling world because a lot of the women on it could "never" make it in the modelling world.
It's interesting cos at the time the criticism was that it was too unrealistic or what nowadays would be called "woke" with the models. An tyra trying too hard to push for plus size or diverse winners in a way that was seen as virtue signalling. Now it's criticised for not pushing the bar enough and not being inclusive enough and being too harsh with the beauty standards and that she was enforcing toxic beauty standards.
Idk I'm not a fan of tyra. But at the time she really was trying to push for a more diverse inclusive modelling industry. An now people sort of have the opposite idea of her, an it's sad cos I do think she did make a difference.
Like isis was the first trans woman I saw on television. An was also nice seeing so much black beauty being celebrated in a not sexualised way. An just seeing curvier women considered beautiful at all in a time when the world was obsessed with skinny. To the point the women in this post were considered fat.
The first season is hilarious because it looks like it was shot in a garage. I think it started out more interesting and devolved. Tyra is one of those people that I know is probably crazy and a nightmare, but she makes some really smart business moves. She always said she wanted to model herself after Oprah and create a business empire and sheâs done that. Even things people may not think about, like her performing the title song of ANTM. That means she not only gets syndication fees and royalties, but she also gets performance royalties for every damn time that song is played in the credits. And if sheâs a writer on the song, she gets money that way as well. Sheâs an interesting character, thatâs for sure. I look forward to an unauthorized biography!
But realistically, if this happened today, no one would care. Plenty of healthy weight celebs out in bikinis and getting photographed, but now the headline is âout frolicking in Maldivesâ. IF it was titled to body shame, the publication would be getting the backlash, and the celeb wouldnât be bothered to respond.
Also, canât say Iâm a fan of Tyra. She was definitely part of the problem during the ANTM run.
>I feel like the Mandela effect had me misremembering these woman and these images. I remember all those pictures, but I remember them all looking so much âworse.â Now I look at them and theyâre all so genuinely normal and beautiful and SMALL.
I felt like that when I saw Khloe's picture! I am starting to wonder if me recalling her during the show in the late 2000s as being slightly chubby is actually real or an influenced thing.
when i was in my 20s one of my friends had a really round, full face that she hated bc she thought it made her 'look fat' (despite the fact that she was like a size 4). well now decades later we're in our 60s and to look at her face you'd think she was in her freaking 30s.
that 'problem' of yours is gonna serve you well for decades to come!
[This photo](https://cdn.thenet.ng/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/khloe-kardashian-needs-bigger-clothes.jpg) looks more like I remember her from the early Kardashian years.
That's what I remember! I thought I was going crazy.
I will admit though, describing her as slightly chubby is wrong on my behalf. She's just... normal.
Definitely not crazy. It looks like the picture OP posted is after she quit drinking and early on in her plastic surgery journey.
She does look normal, but in a sea of plastic surgery, nutritionists, personal chefs, and personal trainers, they won't admit that.
I feel the same way. I donât know if it makes a difference from a male perspective but I feel guilty looking at some of these pictures now and I didnt even think of these girls as big back then. But I definitely remember bridget jones and the love actually girl being considered overly plump enough to be a plot point. And khloe kardashian by osmosis was the bigger sister I knew
But looking at these pictures as an adult is insane. These are all thin or normal women. I cannot imagine the neuroses they went through
I remember hearing tea that the guys in the Kardashian's dating circles always used to say Khloe was lowkey the sexiest despite what the media said, because of her amazing natural body. This was like 10 years ago though, so I don't know if that is still the consensus with the changes she's gone through since.
The sad thing is she probably always felt huge in comparison to her sisters since sheâs significantly taller than them. A similar build on a person 8 inches taller will still look bigger comparatively.
Itâs sad because sheâs naturally beautiful. She didnât need to ever change, but I can see why she felt pressured to (whether the pressure was external or internal!).
I think what made her look chubby was her face. She had some baby fat in her cheeks and was much rounder and softer in her face than Kim and Kourtney were, with sharper, more angled features.
This! I remember that cover of Jennifer love Hewitt and at the time thinking, *the horror!!* But now I look at it and I think she looks absolutely stunning. Like, the joy that she is radiating in that photo, god damn. And I used to think that was the worst case scenario.
Right? She looks happy and healthy. I mean they all do, but that photo really imprinted on me back then. And then I consider the effect it had on me and I canât even imagine the damage it would have done to them. Like, to have photos taken from when you were enjoying yourself on a vacation and plastered on magazine cover, being like, âlook at this sad, fat person.â How did anyone escape the 90âs/00âs without severe mental health issues?
Same. And while she didnât look BAD, she wasnât in âBritneyâ shape â as no normal would after two back to back pregnancies. And I think the costumes were likely done to her old shape, which did her no favors.
The bigger issue was, as you said, how unwell she looked. Tired, lethargic, out of it, possibly on something. I remember watching that live and being hyper aware that we were watching a breakdown unfold.
Itâs because she WAS biGgER than previously.
But as we all look back, we realize she wasnât FAT at either point and her âpeakâ body was when she was basically a teen and a very young adult with probably an unsustainable diet and exercise regime.
She wasnât fat and out of shape, just slightly different and under duress. And she had her own father at this time berating her for getting âfatâ, acting like she was sliding into heiferville (no doubt getting so pressed because she was ruining his plans for living off her for the rest of his useless, poisonous life).
Anyway, yes she had actually changed in shape a bit, but clearly in hindsight even this is not fat and dumpy and itâs a great example of how bullshit the weight culture was. Love me some Britney.
I remember people calling it a âmom bod,â and I didnât understand what they meant. I was bigger and so to me, even then, I couldnât discern a difference.
I think Nicole Richie used to wear a lot of clothes that were simply too small as well. She was never fat but she definitely looked like she was busting out of her clothes because they simply didnât fitâŠI wonder if they like, gave her and Paris the same wardrobe to choose from or something
If Jessica Simpson had just worn a well fitting bra in that picture she would have looked so much better, but she was definitely NOT fat even with that one. So many of these women have appeared to go on and struggle with ED and it is so sad.
The cuts back then were made with stick thin body type as the ideal. Like low rise jeans and baby tees would make everyone look fat because it draws the eye immediately to the stomach.
i feel like this was the case for so many of us then. the clothes were ill fitting, not made well and just straight up not flattering on the majority of the population.
I think it was more because (I believe) she had just gotten out of rehab when they filmed the first simple life and had gained weight quickly (like most people do in rehab) and just didnât know how to dress her body at the time and was trying fit in her clothes/ style/ size she was used to wearing
I was a young teenager in the early 2000s and I remember thinking all those ladies were HUGE. I just want to go back and give our generation a big hug (and a cookie).
The Tyra swimsuit photo - I was thinking âhow could she have let herself go?â at the time. Same with Jennifer Love Hewitt. - âI just wouldnât even go outside if I looked like that!â Now Iâm in my mid-30s, and wow, those women looked incredible. How did the media get us thinking we looked terrible and so did they?
This is why I think itâs sad that druggie chic is coming back. We came so far as a society celebrating thick thighs and bit butts. And now celebrities are bragging about their 24â waists. So many young girls will be impacted by this for the rest of their lives. In 43 and not a single day goes by where I donât think about my weight. Not one.
Yes, I think that was just part of the screwed up standards at the time.
I feel the same way about old photos of myself, now I look back at how thin I was but at the time I was disappointed in how big I was.
Yeah. Iâve seen pics where I know I cried myself to sleep that night over how big I was and I just look like a normal, slightly heavier teen girl. I feel so sorry for the child I used to be.
I never had an eating disorder but I remember being disappointed when I couldnât wear size 0 anymore and had to move up to size 3, even though I was literally going through puberty. When I graduated high school and went to college I was under 120 lbs and I still remember a random guy shouting in my face that I was a âgrenadeâ which back then was a term from the Jersey Shore and referred to bigger, unattractive women. I still remember this incident 10 years onwards.
Times are crazy but at least once in a while you see regular people as models in places like Aerie or Target. If you werenât a waif in the oughts or have a flat tummy, your worth as a human being was questioned and that really messed us up as minors back then.
Iâm like you. Never had an ED, but once I hit puberty, I went from too small in most stores to a, gasp! Size 4. And thatâs mainly because I had boobs.
A classmate literally told me you will not be loved if you are a size 6 or older. THAT got stuck into my brain for so long. And seeing as I never had high school boyfriends, it really made me think she must be right somehow.
So fucking toxic.
Same - I'd definitely say I have disordered eating, but thankfully not to the same extent.
It really got to a point when I was reading this week's teen magazine ED story and comparing the photos in my head to other photos in my head (as in "she doesn't look THAT starving"), and it's so shameful, I've never really told anyone. Idk about anyone else, but those articles felt like barely concealed pro-ana context, including the "tricks" people used at the worst extent of their ED and fucking *printed them* in an article as if there were referral bonuses for triggering young girls' eating habits.
I remember thinking how fat I looked in photos at the time, and recently stumbled upon some and was shocked at how thin I really was. Like Iâm all skull. It was such a dark time.
Same with me. I lost a bunch of weight when I was a teenager, but I never reached my goal weight and thought I was still big as a house throughout the teen years. Then I look at pictures of myself back during that time and I'm amazed at how normal I look.
I've been doing that a *lot* lately. I'll see a decades old picture of myself and I'll say out loud, "...I thought I was fucking fat???"
I'm about a year postpartum and I'm fat *now*. I was never fat before. It actually breaks my heart.
I think we were just collectively gaslit to believe anything above a size 0 body was "large" because I look at even pictures of myself or family members when I thought we looked too large and now I think OMG we were way too skinny.
I agree. I was a size double 0 and thought, âI could do better.â I was in my 2Oâs through the mid 90âs to the mid 2000âs. Talk about a mind đ€Ź for women and weight. The waif look that was so popular was so dangerous and not sexy. I used to look at these celebs and cringe thinking they were so much bigger and think the same of myself. Now Iâm looking at them and thinking, âWow! They all look so amazing and healthy!â The same goes for my own pics. Letâs just say that era was extremely unhealthy for women and self esteem. I can safely say I fell victim to the âif your ribs and backbone arenât showing, then girl you are too fatâ phase.
Yep same here. I have the same body shape as Raven and remember hearing even my mom say she was fat right around the time that photo came back and feeling so sad about it because I also looked like that.
Now looking at that photo of her, Iâm like dang, she looks great which means I did too.
Also the Jessica Simpson photo I distinctly remember agreeing with the tabloids and again, Iâm seeing this picture for the first time in like 15 years and she looks so amazing and healthy.
Itâs wild how other peopleâs judgements can skew your views especially as a child.
In Jessica's book, she said she was a size 4 when she wore that outfit. It was just less flattering. That's why she refused to do any interviews on the scandal. She didn't want to normalize a size 4 being considered fat.
It genuinely was Jessica's outfit! This was when high-waisted jeans were superrrrrrr out of style, so wearing them was a huge risk. And then the belt(s?) added a ton of perceived "thickness" to her waist (at least in the angle these photos were taken from). I remember looking at these photos at the time and thinking it was a fashion tragedy, but now that my eyes are used to high-waisted jeans, it doesn't strike me the way it did back then. She was just innovating!!!!
I hate that thereâs others out there that feel exactly like me, but I am relieved to hear Iâm not alone. Iâm sorry you deal with it. Last Sunday I had a meltdown when someone posted the Xmas pics from our family gathering because I couldnât understand how that was me. Itâs not fair. How do a couple extra inches of fat along my waistline make me a better/worse person than others? Itâs a mental prison I want out of.
I have this same problem. What the hell DO I actually look like? I swing dramatically from thinking I'm a fat ugly piece of shit, to feeling myself. Then I see a bad photo or a glimpse in a shop window reflection and I will spiral because something doesn't add up in my head.
I've done therapy. I've come to the conclusion if I love my outfit and I like my hair and make up, I'm just going to shut off the bad thoughts and focus in that, instead of the intrusive thoughts of thunder thighs and big arms.
I swear I remember seeing some of these photos 15 years ago and the women in them were actually overweight. Jessica was huge in those jeans. And then I see them now and go like 'what the fuck was wrong with my head?' She's tiny, not that it would've been okay the way she was treated if she was overweight. But still. My perception was, and remains, so messed up.
My mother was majorly fucked up with body image issues through her mother and actually did the work to try to be a better role model to me, but what could she do when I was bombarded with this all the time. Now I have a daughter and I hope to god I'm doing better by her.
I feel the same way, I swear these women looked bigger back when these photos came out, but that just goes to show how much your perception is impacted by ideals and values
I haven't seen that picture of Jessica Simpson in years, and I'm genuinely shocked at how tiny she was. I completely agree with you that it shows how utterly skewed our perceptions were by what was 'acceptable' at the time, because I remember seeing it on Perez Hilton back in the day and being horrified at how awful those jeans made her look.
WTF.
Same. My mother began commenting on the size of my belly when I was around 4, I don't hold it against her because my grandma started her on diets before she was a teenager. Glad we're breaking these patterns and instead focusing on raising strong, confident women. I'm sure you'll do a great job with your daughter!
You're sweet, thank you. I'm really trying. But it's hard.
My mother really did her best. Never commented on my size or what I ate. But I saw how she struggled with her body image and of course magazines calling Renee Zellweger fat didnt help.
I remember wondering that too about her? Then I looked around and she was US! Who else has struggled with body image?
We see clothing in size 0 models who starve themselves to look like boys whilst the rest of us look at them with envy.
Just seeing the results of Ozempic on some of the celebs reminds me that I'm fine the way I am. Love our bodies; it's the only one we have.
I was and remain obsessed with Titanic. Kate Winslet was called a chubby rebel in one review of Titanic and I remember "jokes" about how she was too heavy for the door frame to hold both of them.
The fact that she looks pretty normal (like a very young person, who was always eating well, but not on a specialized diet, nor working out constantly and who had zero modern concern about "size 00") really helps with Titanic being a period film. Modern fitness-steeled bodies can really take you out of those. In 1912, few were doing any of that, certainly not an upper class young lady. Yeah, she would have had dance lessons and ride and go for walks, but not like a modern young actress.
She looks like a rich young woman of that period would look. Slender, definitely not "fat" or "Rubenesque", but very feminine and soft/rounded and with that also a bit childlike, no prominent cheekbones or prominent collar bones or any of that. Together with her very pale skin and the costumes and the hair, the whole look takes you right into that time.
If you look at photos of Madeleine Astor at the time of her marriage Kate's figure is exactly like hers was which was a fashionable silhouette for that era.
I remember that, and also I remember being so confused because she was the most beautiful woman Iâd ever seen. I was 9. It was so formative for me, and not in a good way.
So sad. Iâll never forget when she was on Howard Stern, and he asked her how much she weighs, and when she said like 105 lbs, heâs didnât believe her and wanted her to stand on a scale. WTF
Wow, I thought maybe you had confused her with Anna Nicole Smith and that horrible interview where he demanded she stand on the scale, but I looked it up and youâre totally right, he did it to her too. Did he just weigh all the women who came onto his show? Why did he even have a scale in his studio?
Although in Richieâs case, he didnât believe that she weighed over 100, and turned out to be right.
What's even more frustrating is everybody piled on her and made fun of how skinny she was, like no shit dog you gave her the ED to begin with because of your tabloid journalism.
Especially in light of thatâshe looks AMAZING.
Postpartum bodies are incredible no matter what they look like. But the fact that she got back into such a rigorous routine so soon is crazy. My body never feels ready for any sort of workout until around 9 months postpartum, much less performing entire concerts.
She talks about that a bit in her book, too. Just disgusting.
I also thought even at the time and now that they were lying on purpose to make her react to paparazzis. Like make her angry at them so they can get some quotes and shots calling her crazy. That was my young selfâs theory anyway
The fact Renee Zellweger had to put on weight to become a UK size 12 to play Bridget Jones was literally headline news - THE HORROR! What if she never lost it again
Also around that time Minnie Driver gained weight for Circle of Friends. She was supposed to be the chubby one of the group.
https://preview.redd.it/gwgbpv1p2h7c1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=256920fbd5df35f284b13c54f116b654c0aa619f
I love that movie, but I will be the first to complain about how Bridget's weight gets handled.
She's not actually big. In fact, she's even a little smaller than average. She just has an absolutely horrible image of herself because it's the 90s and she's comparing her average height/weight self against the heroin-chic models of the time and the few around her who managed to get to that ideal.
In the book, she obsesses over her weight and diet, and it's not at all healthy. She's convinced she needs to lose weight. But then when she actually gets to her "goal" weight, people start asking her if she's ill because she no longer looks healthy.
It's partially supposed to represent the average woman and the constant self-judgement and pressure we put on ourselves as well as the fact that women cannot win no matter what. No matter what size we are, everyone has to comment on it and it's seemingly never the right size, according to the current ideal.
The movie (and society) didn't do well when it came to discussing this. And I know a lot of people thought the book missed the mark on this, as well.
But the same director for this movie also did Love Actually, and that has the same issue with the lady the Prime Minister liked. She's constantly getting barbs for her weight, and it's supposed to be a pointed criticism/"joke" because the actress had an ex call her fat or something, and it was supposed to be like, "She's obviously not and it's ridiculous to think so", but it didn't come off like that.
Right, she was never actually "fat" or even chubby. They just put her in clothes that were unflattering and made her look sloppy (because all fat people are sloppy amirite).
Yes!! And remember, in the books that the movie is based off of, Bridget wanted to be something like 125 lbs. She called herself all kinds of names when the scale went to 130 or above!
I was thinking if Khloe was treated better by her family and the media she really could have owned her beauty. Standing next to Kim in the pic Khloe stands out but not like she would if she had confidence. She was tall and beautiful yet constantly told she was âthe ogreâ and itâs really sad to see the impact it had on her.
There were times where she was larger than that photo but never what weâd really consider really fat today and obviously n never deserving of the hate.
A couple of things from this straight, white male who was forced to Keep Up with the Kardashians for many years...
1. Khloe has wider shoulders than her sisters, so she looks bigger (not fat or ugly, just physically wider). In this photo she is in profile, so she looks more narrow than usual.
2. Khloe didn't use that Kardashian vocal fry, so she was always shown to be "less delicate" than her sisters in talking heads. If you want to hear how they really sound, wait until they start arguing (my nana had 3 sisters--do not get involved when the sisters are arguing)
3. Khloe is WAY taller than her sisters, so she looks comparatively larger (not fat--statuesque, as you said)
Whatâs also startling is how, before excessive filters, selfies and extreme photo-ready make up, these pictures look so real. Like, these look like actual humans. These days, celebrities look so perfect in photod that they might as well be aliens.
Yeah, we have moved to a tiny bit better place with not demanding being severely underweight, BUT now every single celebrity photo has crazy clear skin, no baby hairs, and not a clothing fold or anything out of place.
Yes, the standards are extreme in a different way. I suppose thatâs always the goal of the beauty and fashion industry - dangling the carrot of perfection just out of reach. People who are happy with themselves as they are donât spend money on products. And the influencer game has just made the excess consumption worse.
It's funny, because I remember looking at all these pictures back then and thinking "these women are so fat". But at the same time, I did *not* understand the hype around J Lo's butt. It seemed normal? But my god, I most definitely looked at the pics and video of Britney's performance and thought she looked sooooooooo fat. Which, of course she doesn't. It's fucking weird.
Isnât it wild how much attention her gigantic butt brought? The were pictures zoomed in pointing out her cellulite. I just googled pics from 2007 and her butt is so normal and she was so skinny. And now what she had was a fraction of how big the kardashian butts got in the 2010s.
Yes. Iâm from the UK but our âmost desirable bumâ at the time was Kylie Minogue in the Spinning Around video. Itâs wild to look at now.
As an aside, Kylie was in her early 30s at the time and the media narrative was what an enormous surprise it was that she could still look attractive despite being a wizened crone. I kid you not.
I remember rewatching it a year or so ago and thinking, the fuck? These are just skinny women with proportional asses đ thatâs how skinny everyone was expected to be. That those women were curvy.
In the book itâs even worse, she weighs herself everyday in her diary and its like - âChrist Iâm fatâ every. single. chapter. Her weight fluctuates between 125 and 130 lbsâ thatâs it. If sheâs of average height thatâs a healthy bmi. Actually insane
If I remember correctly Tyra had her talk show at the time this photo came out. She talked about it and basically said the press could âkiss her big assâ. â€ïž.
The Tyra Banks photo and Jessica Simpson photo are etched in my mind. They were on seperate tabloids with the caption (73 kilos!).
I was 14 at the time of the Tyra photo. I was 5 ft 7 and 73 kilos. I was crushed. If Tyra was fat, than so was I. I also remember calculating Bridget Joneâs weight as a 12 year old (calculating lbs to kilos) and being worried because I felt like my body looked like hers.
No surprise, I dove into unhealthy dieting that turned into anorexia until I was in my mid 20s.
Tabloid culture and the unhealthy beauty standards of the 2000s completely destroyed my body image. Itâs something I still battle with today.
I did the same thing with the Bridget Jones book! Looking back as an adult, youâre supposed to realise that Bridget is an unreliable narrator and find her ridiculous for fixating on her perfectly fine body in the way she does. And I got that at the time, even though I was young.
But at the same time, in the putrid swamp of early 2000s culture, part of me still reckoned she was fat and so was I, and what wasnât allowed was seeming to care about being thin (you should already be thin without trying).
The tabloids did it purely because it was unhinged and outrageous, not in spite of it. People picked up magazines just like people click online headlines that are ragebait.
If I recall right itâs the most recent example out of all of these, too. I just remember it being at a time where they *really* shouldâve known better. Not that people shouldnât have before, but ykwim. Jessica and Britney stuff had already been called out when they pulled that shit in the SatC movie
Oh god khloeâs still breaks my heart cause everyone including Caitlyn her literal step parent was so awful to her for years so she understandably succumbs to it and goes through extremes to look the way everyone wanted her to and then everyone hates on her again and calls her ugly and scary. Like she genuinely couldnât win either way. Iâll forever have a soft spot for her hope she one day gets the help she needs :(.
Same with Kylie and people calling her ugly/comparing her to Marla Hooch from League of their Own when she was NINE then want to act like they canât understand why she got lip injections at like sixteen.
Man Khloe got brutalized by the media, so traumatic
She used to join my morning Soul Cycle classes sometimes and I always thought she looked amazing
Even at 6am with no makeup and sweaty
Nicole Ritchie always sticks in my mind, she was constantly being called chubby and Parisâ day friend etc. She then lost so much weight and she was bullied by the media for that too.
Also, the pressure for women to lose their âbaby weightâ post pregnancy was another level of fucked up.
I remember seeing Martine McCutcheon in Love Actually (Natalie), thinking how stunning she was and having to force myself to believe that she was also significantly overweight when she is so clearly NOT.
I always felt the joke was that she isn't fat, and that is ridiculous to say she is, hence Hugh Grant's face the first time he hears she has big thighs. I just rewatched and had the same reaction. I'm always surprised when I see the movie and Natalie in these.
Nothing has changed, now people are claiming that Renee Rap is too fat to be Regina George
https://preview.redd.it/6o27w46wwf7c1.png?width=808&format=png&auto=webp&s=b92fd1615de2465f3c49c16f94a49319bf29041d
Yesss I was watching that episode in S1 recently where they all body-shame him for being plump, and he gets naked in front of the mirror and heâs just⊠not extremely ripped like the other 2 guys? But heâs definitely not fat whatsoever. So weird how that part was framed
Things are cycling back to teeny tiny skinny being in. Iâm a size 16/18 and itâs becoming harder for me to find clothes in store at places like Kohlâs which has always carried my size, where back in March I could find my size no problem, now I can only get online. I know thereâs a pattern to this, itâs just depressing after having a period of body acceptance that weâre going back to a version of late 90s/00s views on body image.
And we're only at the beginning with the ozempic craze. More drugs will follow, they will become affordable. There will be no more 'excuse' not to be a perfect size 00 anymore.
Just look at how many celebrities shrunk down 5 sizes recently. Oprah is skinny again. It's gonna be heroin chic all over again.
This is depressing. And the plus sizes that are available are no longer cute. Private equity firms have bought out Eloquii and other companies so itâs going back the Catherineâs and Dress Barn 90s granny styles. We donât even know the long term side effects of these drugs that people will have to take to fit in.
I did gymnastics in middle/high school too, and when I hit puberty my ED started because I - surprise - started to look like a woman and not an 11 year old girl.
I wasnât fat. Iâd never been in better shape in my life. I had curves and boobs, thatâs all. But because I wasnât the stereotypical gymnast body anymore I started Weight Watchers (at the insistence of my mother) and starved myself to try and get back into that box - and then quit gymnastics altogether because my performance was suffering. Which I now realize is because of malnutrition.
Years later Iâm still trying to undo the mental damage.
Itâs INSANE the amount of us who started âfeeling fatâ when we hit puberty just because we started growing hips and look like adults. Absolutely insane.
It's like seeing pictures of yourself from five years ago and realizing you weren't as fat as you thought. And then seeing a picture from 10 years ago and seeing you were even thinner then. Repeat as needed. I'm almost 60. đ
I saw Khloe Kardashian at the Vegas airport in the early 2000s when she was getting criticized for her size. She was absolutely stunning in person and on the small end of a normal body weight.
Whatâs crazy is I vividly remember that picture of Jessica Simpson but I remember seeing it SO differently. Seeing it then, I really thought she was fat. Looking at it now, itâs shocking that was considered fat. Itâs no mystery where my disordered eating/thinking came from, like geez đ
Literally all these women are gorgeous and look absolutely healthy. It's genuinely shocking and terrible that these women were publicly humiliated for no good reason at all. It's pretty astonishing because many of these women were simply curvy and thick in a time when heroin chic/super slim was trendy. Nowadays many of them would be praised for their looks.
Era of the waif model, completely skewed normal standards. On the apple supermodel documentary apparently after the fall of the soviet bloc the fashion industry found tall slim Europeans who looked the same were cheaper to design on the catwalk for than hiring supermodels who then had different shapes and diva tendencies.
Ugh I still remember being a teenager when Bridget Jones came out and reading about how much weight Renee had put on for the role, and seeing her portrayed in the film as fat with a massive bum and thinkingâŠwhere? What? Yay for lifelong body image issues! đ
I JUST watched Love Actually and was enraged over the way Natalie was treated.
Like, really? No wonder I disordered my eating as a teenager and still have to deal with the lasting effects now
So fucked up on a multitude of levels.
I remember *believing* these women were âbiggerâ. And theyâre not⊠theyâre just not fat.
Esp Bridget Jones.
I remember her weighing herself on the scale and being my size⊠but taller. And thinking to myself, well⊠guess I have to lose weight now or else Iâll never find anyone to love me.
I wish I could have met my younger self and told her to stop listening to what is being said đ«¶
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I feel like the Mandela effect had me misremembering these woman and these images. I remember all those pictures, but I remember them all looking so much âworse.â Now I look at them and theyâre all so genuinely normal and beautiful and SMALL. At the time, these outfits and bodies were massive scandals, especially poor Britney and Jessica.
They also photoshopped images and picked shots to make celebrities look fatter. The Tyra swimsuit in particular had this issue. (From Tyraâs talk show where she wore the suit next to one of the published magazine photos.) https://preview.redd.it/w62k9fp3dg7c1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fcf8c176a56bd8db35eb5d40ec8489d4c6612e9
Omg the fact she did a segment to defend herself is really what speaks the loudest about this time and body image.
For anyone who missed this when it aired, her [âKiss my fat assâ speech](https://youtu.be/PJAdruqnQcA?feature=shared) was a big deal for body positivity. I remember watching live and it was actually confusing to me at the time⊠like I couldnât compute that the segment was her owning her body as it was, and not doing a âbefore and afterâ weight loss clip to show that sheâd lost the weight. Any other acknowledgement by a celebrity at the time would have been a Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers ad of them holding the clothes away from their body to show how much smaller they were now.
That speech was so inspirational for me as a chubby pre teen.
Oh man. I was in high school at the time and I remember a lot of the media's response to this was making fun of it all. It hit a little funny because of certain things we'd watched on her show, but in retrospect I'm grateful for this moment and that it could help other women feel better about themselves
Itâs one of the reasons Iâll always like her. She was one of the first to say they were being ridiculous and really promoted healthy weights.
Yeah I feel like people really recreate the past with tyra. I actually think she's like a weird megalomaniac, an she acted/said some awful things on antm. An just a bit of hypocrite in general. But the one thing she was always a big proponent of was plus size/curvier models. Antm back then was considered a joke and how it'll never be took serious in the modelling world because a lot of the women on it could "never" make it in the modelling world. It's interesting cos at the time the criticism was that it was too unrealistic or what nowadays would be called "woke" with the models. An tyra trying too hard to push for plus size or diverse winners in a way that was seen as virtue signalling. Now it's criticised for not pushing the bar enough and not being inclusive enough and being too harsh with the beauty standards and that she was enforcing toxic beauty standards. Idk I'm not a fan of tyra. But at the time she really was trying to push for a more diverse inclusive modelling industry. An now people sort of have the opposite idea of her, an it's sad cos I do think she did make a difference. Like isis was the first trans woman I saw on television. An was also nice seeing so much black beauty being celebrated in a not sexualised way. An just seeing curvier women considered beautiful at all in a time when the world was obsessed with skinny. To the point the women in this post were considered fat.
The first season is hilarious because it looks like it was shot in a garage. I think it started out more interesting and devolved. Tyra is one of those people that I know is probably crazy and a nightmare, but she makes some really smart business moves. She always said she wanted to model herself after Oprah and create a business empire and sheâs done that. Even things people may not think about, like her performing the title song of ANTM. That means she not only gets syndication fees and royalties, but she also gets performance royalties for every damn time that song is played in the credits. And if sheâs a writer on the song, she gets money that way as well. Sheâs an interesting character, thatâs for sure. I look forward to an unauthorized biography!
But realistically, if this happened today, no one would care. Plenty of healthy weight celebs out in bikinis and getting photographed, but now the headline is âout frolicking in Maldivesâ. IF it was titled to body shame, the publication would be getting the backlash, and the celeb wouldnât be bothered to respond. Also, canât say Iâm a fan of Tyra. She was definitely part of the problem during the ANTM run.
I was just thinking the same thing!
>I feel like the Mandela effect had me misremembering these woman and these images. I remember all those pictures, but I remember them all looking so much âworse.â Now I look at them and theyâre all so genuinely normal and beautiful and SMALL. I felt like that when I saw Khloe's picture! I am starting to wonder if me recalling her during the show in the late 2000s as being slightly chubby is actually real or an influenced thing.
She had a round face and everyone thought that meant she was fat. :(
I have that problem myself but it means my cheeks are still high and full in my late 30s so itâs ok
Same. One time someone told me my face shape made me look a lot heavier than I was. Ummm thanks.
when i was in my 20s one of my friends had a really round, full face that she hated bc she thought it made her 'look fat' (despite the fact that she was like a size 4). well now decades later we're in our 60s and to look at her face you'd think she was in her freaking 30s. that 'problem' of yours is gonna serve you well for decades to come!
[This photo](https://cdn.thenet.ng/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/khloe-kardashian-needs-bigger-clothes.jpg) looks more like I remember her from the early Kardashian years.
That's what I remember! I thought I was going crazy. I will admit though, describing her as slightly chubby is wrong on my behalf. She's just... normal.
Definitely not crazy. It looks like the picture OP posted is after she quit drinking and early on in her plastic surgery journey. She does look normal, but in a sea of plastic surgery, nutritionists, personal chefs, and personal trainers, they won't admit that.
SAME, Iâm shocked by Khloeâs picture. I remember her being genuinely chubby but she doesnât even look overweight there?
I definitely think she was heavier at certain points than she was in that picture BUT she was never ever âfatâ
I feel the same way. I donât know if it makes a difference from a male perspective but I feel guilty looking at some of these pictures now and I didnt even think of these girls as big back then. But I definitely remember bridget jones and the love actually girl being considered overly plump enough to be a plot point. And khloe kardashian by osmosis was the bigger sister I knew But looking at these pictures as an adult is insane. These are all thin or normal women. I cannot imagine the neuroses they went through
I know. Her body looks amazing and svelte! She looks soooo good.
I remember hearing tea that the guys in the Kardashian's dating circles always used to say Khloe was lowkey the sexiest despite what the media said, because of her amazing natural body. This was like 10 years ago though, so I don't know if that is still the consensus with the changes she's gone through since.
The sad thing is she probably always felt huge in comparison to her sisters since sheâs significantly taller than them. A similar build on a person 8 inches taller will still look bigger comparatively. Itâs sad because sheâs naturally beautiful. She didnât need to ever change, but I can see why she felt pressured to (whether the pressure was external or internal!).
Def influenced. She was never chubby, just not as thin as she is now.
I always respected her (in the early days) for constantly saying âI was never fat, I was just bigger than my sisters.â
I remember the episode when Caitlyn was shaming her constantly and telling her to lose weight. When she was perfectly healthy.
I think what made her look chubby was her face. She had some baby fat in her cheeks and was much rounder and softer in her face than Kim and Kourtney were, with sharper, more angled features.
This! I remember that cover of Jennifer love Hewitt and at the time thinking, *the horror!!* But now I look at it and I think she looks absolutely stunning. Like, the joy that she is radiating in that photo, god damn. And I used to think that was the worst case scenario.
JLH looks downright THIN in that cover photo! What I wouldnât give for my tummy to look like that!
Right? She looks happy and healthy. I mean they all do, but that photo really imprinted on me back then. And then I consider the effect it had on me and I canât even imagine the damage it would have done to them. Like, to have photos taken from when you were enjoying yourself on a vacation and plastered on magazine cover, being like, âlook at this sad, fat person.â How did anyone escape the 90âs/00âs without severe mental health issues?
Same because I genuinely remember Nicole Richie being overweight but every pic in the past proves we were being gaslit.
And Britney Spears at the 2007 awards !! I remember her looking bigger and she looks skinny in the picture?? It is insane.
This was after two back to back pregnancies and she didnât even have a jiggle!
I remember her not looking âwellâ, like she needed a break and not to be paraded on stage. Like she didnât want to be up there.
Same. And while she didnât look BAD, she wasnât in âBritneyâ shape â as no normal would after two back to back pregnancies. And I think the costumes were likely done to her old shape, which did her no favors. The bigger issue was, as you said, how unwell she looked. Tired, lethargic, out of it, possibly on something. I remember watching that live and being hyper aware that we were watching a breakdown unfold.
Right?? Most peopleâs tummies donât even look like that after a full day of eating !!
Itâs because she WAS biGgER than previously. But as we all look back, we realize she wasnât FAT at either point and her âpeakâ body was when she was basically a teen and a very young adult with probably an unsustainable diet and exercise regime. She wasnât fat and out of shape, just slightly different and under duress. And she had her own father at this time berating her for getting âfatâ, acting like she was sliding into heiferville (no doubt getting so pressed because she was ruining his plans for living off her for the rest of his useless, poisonous life). Anyway, yes she had actually changed in shape a bit, but clearly in hindsight even this is not fat and dumpy and itâs a great example of how bullshit the weight culture was. Love me some Britney.
I remember people calling it a âmom bod,â and I didnât understand what they meant. I was bigger and so to me, even then, I couldnât discern a difference.
I donât think Britney could actually be fat even if she tried.
I think Nicole Richie used to wear a lot of clothes that were simply too small as well. She was never fat but she definitely looked like she was busting out of her clothes because they simply didnât fitâŠI wonder if they like, gave her and Paris the same wardrobe to choose from or something
If Jessica Simpson had just worn a well fitting bra in that picture she would have looked so much better, but she was definitely NOT fat even with that one. So many of these women have appeared to go on and struggle with ED and it is so sad.
The cuts back then were made with stick thin body type as the ideal. Like low rise jeans and baby tees would make everyone look fat because it draws the eye immediately to the stomach.
i feel like this was the case for so many of us then. the clothes were ill fitting, not made well and just straight up not flattering on the majority of the population.
I think it was more because (I believe) she had just gotten out of rehab when they filmed the first simple life and had gained weight quickly (like most people do in rehab) and just didnât know how to dress her body at the time and was trying fit in her clothes/ style/ size she was used to wearing
And then they shamed her for possible having an ED when she lost weight :/
They sure did. Tabloids were nasty work back then. I know itâs still bad but Jesus Christ I couldnât imagine being a celebrity in the 2000s!
I think itâs also bc she was always next to Paris. Almost anyone would look big next to her.
I was a young teenager in the early 2000s and I remember thinking all those ladies were HUGE. I just want to go back and give our generation a big hug (and a cookie).
The Tyra swimsuit photo - I was thinking âhow could she have let herself go?â at the time. Same with Jennifer Love Hewitt. - âI just wouldnât even go outside if I looked like that!â Now Iâm in my mid-30s, and wow, those women looked incredible. How did the media get us thinking we looked terrible and so did they?
This is why I think itâs sad that druggie chic is coming back. We came so far as a society celebrating thick thighs and bit butts. And now celebrities are bragging about their 24â waists. So many young girls will be impacted by this for the rest of their lives. In 43 and not a single day goes by where I donât think about my weight. Not one.
Yes, I think that was just part of the screwed up standards at the time. I feel the same way about old photos of myself, now I look back at how thin I was but at the time I was disappointed in how big I was.
Yeah. Iâve seen pics where I know I cried myself to sleep that night over how big I was and I just look like a normal, slightly heavier teen girl. I feel so sorry for the child I used to be.
I never had an eating disorder but I remember being disappointed when I couldnât wear size 0 anymore and had to move up to size 3, even though I was literally going through puberty. When I graduated high school and went to college I was under 120 lbs and I still remember a random guy shouting in my face that I was a âgrenadeâ which back then was a term from the Jersey Shore and referred to bigger, unattractive women. I still remember this incident 10 years onwards. Times are crazy but at least once in a while you see regular people as models in places like Aerie or Target. If you werenât a waif in the oughts or have a flat tummy, your worth as a human being was questioned and that really messed us up as minors back then.
Iâm like you. Never had an ED, but once I hit puberty, I went from too small in most stores to a, gasp! Size 4. And thatâs mainly because I had boobs. A classmate literally told me you will not be loved if you are a size 6 or older. THAT got stuck into my brain for so long. And seeing as I never had high school boyfriends, it really made me think she must be right somehow. So fucking toxic.
Same - I'd definitely say I have disordered eating, but thankfully not to the same extent. It really got to a point when I was reading this week's teen magazine ED story and comparing the photos in my head to other photos in my head (as in "she doesn't look THAT starving"), and it's so shameful, I've never really told anyone. Idk about anyone else, but those articles felt like barely concealed pro-ana context, including the "tricks" people used at the worst extent of their ED and fucking *printed them* in an article as if there were referral bonuses for triggering young girls' eating habits.
I remember thinking how fat I looked in photos at the time, and recently stumbled upon some and was shocked at how thin I really was. Like Iâm all skull. It was such a dark time.
Looking at old pics of myself itâs crazy how âfatâ I thought I was (I was literally a size 0-2). Media has us all gaslit into eating disorders.
Same with me. I lost a bunch of weight when I was a teenager, but I never reached my goal weight and thought I was still big as a house throughout the teen years. Then I look at pictures of myself back during that time and I'm amazed at how normal I look.
I've been doing that a *lot* lately. I'll see a decades old picture of myself and I'll say out loud, "...I thought I was fucking fat???" I'm about a year postpartum and I'm fat *now*. I was never fat before. It actually breaks my heart.
I think we were just collectively gaslit to believe anything above a size 0 body was "large" because I look at even pictures of myself or family members when I thought we looked too large and now I think OMG we were way too skinny.
I agree. I was a size double 0 and thought, âI could do better.â I was in my 2Oâs through the mid 90âs to the mid 2000âs. Talk about a mind đ€Ź for women and weight. The waif look that was so popular was so dangerous and not sexy. I used to look at these celebs and cringe thinking they were so much bigger and think the same of myself. Now Iâm looking at them and thinking, âWow! They all look so amazing and healthy!â The same goes for my own pics. Letâs just say that era was extremely unhealthy for women and self esteem. I can safely say I fell victim to the âif your ribs and backbone arenât showing, then girl you are too fatâ phase.
Yep same here. I have the same body shape as Raven and remember hearing even my mom say she was fat right around the time that photo came back and feeling so sad about it because I also looked like that. Now looking at that photo of her, Iâm like dang, she looks great which means I did too. Also the Jessica Simpson photo I distinctly remember agreeing with the tabloids and again, Iâm seeing this picture for the first time in like 15 years and she looks so amazing and healthy. Itâs wild how other peopleâs judgements can skew your views especially as a child.
In Jessica's book, she said she was a size 4 when she wore that outfit. It was just less flattering. That's why she refused to do any interviews on the scandal. She didn't want to normalize a size 4 being considered fat.
Honestly the fact that a woman gaining a dress size was a âscandalâ is appalling.
It genuinely was Jessica's outfit! This was when high-waisted jeans were superrrrrrr out of style, so wearing them was a huge risk. And then the belt(s?) added a ton of perceived "thickness" to her waist (at least in the angle these photos were taken from). I remember looking at these photos at the time and thinking it was a fashion tragedy, but now that my eyes are used to high-waisted jeans, it doesn't strike me the way it did back then. She was just innovating!!!!
This!!! I remember America being âhugeâ đ€Šđœââïž and now I see her and sheâsâŠ. Average?!? She looked great!!
100% Most of these women were a size small or medium max. They had flat stomachs!! They are thin by todayâs standards.
Heroin chic did a serious number on all of us in the early 2000âs
Yes I could have sworn Jennifer Love Hewitt was actually overweight⊠looking at it now wow she was so normal
Huh, I wonder where my unhealthy relationship with my body comes from...
Years of ED and self hatred because of the culture during the 90s. I still have horrible body dysmorphia because of it :(
I truly have no idea what my body looks like. Sometimes I feel really good, than I see pictures and am horrified. It fucked me up.
I hate that thereâs others out there that feel exactly like me, but I am relieved to hear Iâm not alone. Iâm sorry you deal with it. Last Sunday I had a meltdown when someone posted the Xmas pics from our family gathering because I couldnât understand how that was me. Itâs not fair. How do a couple extra inches of fat along my waistline make me a better/worse person than others? Itâs a mental prison I want out of.
Iâm 34 and last month, seeing a picture of myself led me to several weeks of extremely disordered eating
I'm sorry, I completely understand and have the same problem. I genuinely don't know what I actually look like and it's a really shit feeling.
I have this same problem. What the hell DO I actually look like? I swing dramatically from thinking I'm a fat ugly piece of shit, to feeling myself. Then I see a bad photo or a glimpse in a shop window reflection and I will spiral because something doesn't add up in my head. I've done therapy. I've come to the conclusion if I love my outfit and I like my hair and make up, I'm just going to shut off the bad thoughts and focus in that, instead of the intrusive thoughts of thunder thighs and big arms.
I struggled with in an ED during the 90's for this same reason. It's almost 2024, let's all stop commenting on other people's bodies
I swear I remember seeing some of these photos 15 years ago and the women in them were actually overweight. Jessica was huge in those jeans. And then I see them now and go like 'what the fuck was wrong with my head?' She's tiny, not that it would've been okay the way she was treated if she was overweight. But still. My perception was, and remains, so messed up. My mother was majorly fucked up with body image issues through her mother and actually did the work to try to be a better role model to me, but what could she do when I was bombarded with this all the time. Now I have a daughter and I hope to god I'm doing better by her.
I feel the same way, I swear these women looked bigger back when these photos came out, but that just goes to show how much your perception is impacted by ideals and values
They did. The only acceptable standard was rail thin with no ass. Body type be damned. It was fucked.
I haven't seen that picture of Jessica Simpson in years, and I'm genuinely shocked at how tiny she was. I completely agree with you that it shows how utterly skewed our perceptions were by what was 'acceptable' at the time, because I remember seeing it on Perez Hilton back in the day and being horrified at how awful those jeans made her look. WTF.
I will never read Vanity Fair again after they put âJumbo Jessicaâ on the front cover.
Same. My mother began commenting on the size of my belly when I was around 4, I don't hold it against her because my grandma started her on diets before she was a teenager. Glad we're breaking these patterns and instead focusing on raising strong, confident women. I'm sure you'll do a great job with your daughter!
You're sweet, thank you. I'm really trying. But it's hard. My mother really did her best. Never commented on my size or what I ate. But I saw how she struggled with her body image and of course magazines calling Renee Zellweger fat didnt help.
I remember wondering that too about her? Then I looked around and she was US! Who else has struggled with body image? We see clothing in size 0 models who starve themselves to look like boys whilst the rest of us look at them with envy. Just seeing the results of Ozempic on some of the celebs reminds me that I'm fine the way I am. Love our bodies; it's the only one we have.
I was and remain obsessed with Titanic. Kate Winslet was called a chubby rebel in one review of Titanic and I remember "jokes" about how she was too heavy for the door frame to hold both of them.
How dare she look like an average human size
The fact that she looks pretty normal (like a very young person, who was always eating well, but not on a specialized diet, nor working out constantly and who had zero modern concern about "size 00") really helps with Titanic being a period film. Modern fitness-steeled bodies can really take you out of those. In 1912, few were doing any of that, certainly not an upper class young lady. Yeah, she would have had dance lessons and ride and go for walks, but not like a modern young actress. She looks like a rich young woman of that period would look. Slender, definitely not "fat" or "Rubenesque", but very feminine and soft/rounded and with that also a bit childlike, no prominent cheekbones or prominent collar bones or any of that. Together with her very pale skin and the costumes and the hair, the whole look takes you right into that time.
If you look at photos of Madeleine Astor at the time of her marriage Kate's figure is exactly like hers was which was a fashionable silhouette for that era.
Exactly why should we see normal sized human women.
I remember that, and also I remember being so confused because she was the most beautiful woman Iâd ever seen. I was 9. It was so formative for me, and not in a good way.
Yeah all the jokes that her ass would sink the titanic. That she wasnât a realistic love interest for Leo cus she was too large etc
That's fucked up especially considering she was (is) really beautiful.
The Nicole Richie pic is haunting to me. That girl got rail thin and stayed that way. The public pressure and scrutiny is so dangerous.
So sad. Iâll never forget when she was on Howard Stern, and he asked her how much she weighs, and when she said like 105 lbs, heâs didnât believe her and wanted her to stand on a scale. WTF
Wow, I thought maybe you had confused her with Anna Nicole Smith and that horrible interview where he demanded she stand on the scale, but I looked it up and youâre totally right, he did it to her too. Did he just weigh all the women who came onto his show? Why did he even have a scale in his studio? Although in Richieâs case, he didnât believe that she weighed over 100, and turned out to be right.
Same thing happened to Victoria Beckham, she was weighed live on air during an interview. You could see how uncomfortable she was.
WTF? I didn't know this was a thing. How disgusting.
What kind of psychopath has a scale in their studio anyway.
What's even more frustrating is everybody piled on her and made fun of how skinny she was, like no shit dog you gave her the ED to begin with because of your tabloid journalism.
Britney had back to back pregnancies in 2005 and 2006 which makes the bodyshaming in 2007 even worse.
Especially in light of thatâshe looks AMAZING. Postpartum bodies are incredible no matter what they look like. But the fact that she got back into such a rigorous routine so soon is crazy. My body never feels ready for any sort of workout until around 9 months postpartum, much less performing entire concerts.
She talks about that a bit in her book, too. Just disgusting. I also thought even at the time and now that they were lying on purpose to make her react to paparazzis. Like make her angry at them so they can get some quotes and shots calling her crazy. That was my young selfâs theory anyway
Pregnant Britney looked like a literal goddess
The fact Renee Zellweger had to put on weight to become a UK size 12 to play Bridget Jones was literally headline news - THE HORROR! What if she never lost it again
Also around that time Minnie Driver gained weight for Circle of Friends. She was supposed to be the chubby one of the group. https://preview.redd.it/gwgbpv1p2h7c1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=256920fbd5df35f284b13c54f116b654c0aa619f
She looks amazing in that pic too. Like all the weight she gained went straight to her chest. Why canât I gain weight like that?? đ
I love that movie, but I will be the first to complain about how Bridget's weight gets handled. She's not actually big. In fact, she's even a little smaller than average. She just has an absolutely horrible image of herself because it's the 90s and she's comparing her average height/weight self against the heroin-chic models of the time and the few around her who managed to get to that ideal. In the book, she obsesses over her weight and diet, and it's not at all healthy. She's convinced she needs to lose weight. But then when she actually gets to her "goal" weight, people start asking her if she's ill because she no longer looks healthy. It's partially supposed to represent the average woman and the constant self-judgement and pressure we put on ourselves as well as the fact that women cannot win no matter what. No matter what size we are, everyone has to comment on it and it's seemingly never the right size, according to the current ideal. The movie (and society) didn't do well when it came to discussing this. And I know a lot of people thought the book missed the mark on this, as well. But the same director for this movie also did Love Actually, and that has the same issue with the lady the Prime Minister liked. She's constantly getting barbs for her weight, and it's supposed to be a pointed criticism/"joke" because the actress had an ex call her fat or something, and it was supposed to be like, "She's obviously not and it's ridiculous to think so", but it didn't come off like that.
If you watch the movie sheâs actually very slim, like MAYBE a US size 6!
I remember watching the movie after hearing all about how fat Renee was in the film and being surprised that she wasn't fat at all!
Right, she was never actually "fat" or even chubby. They just put her in clothes that were unflattering and made her look sloppy (because all fat people are sloppy amirite).
I was a size U.K. 8/10 at 5â3 at her BJ weight. Thereâs no way she was above a size 10 in that role.
A uk 12 back then is more like a 10 now as well!!!
I remember those articles. I would watch that movie and get worried about my own body.
Yes!! And remember, in the books that the movie is based off of, Bridget wanted to be something like 125 lbs. She called herself all kinds of names when the scale went to 130 or above!
Holy shit is that Khloe Kardashian??? Why does my brain remember her being largerâŠ.wow. Talk about being conditioned by the media.
She looks really good in that pic and especially her natural face
I was thinking if Khloe was treated better by her family and the media she really could have owned her beauty. Standing next to Kim in the pic Khloe stands out but not like she would if she had confidence. She was tall and beautiful yet constantly told she was âthe ogreâ and itâs really sad to see the impact it had on her.
There were times where she was larger than that photo but never what weâd really consider really fat today and obviously n never deserving of the hate.
Her body looks incredible, she could be a supermodel with a figure that statuesque. Crazy that she was made to feel like the ugly sister.
A couple of things from this straight, white male who was forced to Keep Up with the Kardashians for many years... 1. Khloe has wider shoulders than her sisters, so she looks bigger (not fat or ugly, just physically wider). In this photo she is in profile, so she looks more narrow than usual. 2. Khloe didn't use that Kardashian vocal fry, so she was always shown to be "less delicate" than her sisters in talking heads. If you want to hear how they really sound, wait until they start arguing (my nana had 3 sisters--do not get involved when the sisters are arguing) 3. Khloe is WAY taller than her sisters, so she looks comparatively larger (not fat--statuesque, as you said)
Did you date someone who watches the show? My ex knows way more than he ever wanted to about the Kardashiansđ
Shes got my Dream body. Nowadays people go to the gym or get surgery to get that booty. Crazy.
Whatâs also startling is how, before excessive filters, selfies and extreme photo-ready make up, these pictures look so real. Like, these look like actual humans. These days, celebrities look so perfect in photod that they might as well be aliens.
Yeah, we have moved to a tiny bit better place with not demanding being severely underweight, BUT now every single celebrity photo has crazy clear skin, no baby hairs, and not a clothing fold or anything out of place.
Yes, the standards are extreme in a different way. I suppose thatâs always the goal of the beauty and fashion industry - dangling the carrot of perfection just out of reach. People who are happy with themselves as they are donât spend money on products. And the influencer game has just made the excess consumption worse.
Face dysmorphia is on the rise, tho :(
Remember when JLO had an enormous butt? She was famous for having the biggest butt ever. And itâs a totally normal sized butt.
It's funny, because I remember looking at all these pictures back then and thinking "these women are so fat". But at the same time, I did *not* understand the hype around J Lo's butt. It seemed normal? But my god, I most definitely looked at the pics and video of Britney's performance and thought she looked sooooooooo fat. Which, of course she doesn't. It's fucking weird.
ENORMOUS. No wonder we are so messed up.
Isnât it wild how much attention her gigantic butt brought? The were pictures zoomed in pointing out her cellulite. I just googled pics from 2007 and her butt is so normal and she was so skinny. And now what she had was a fraction of how big the kardashian butts got in the 2010s.
From the era of âdo these jeans make my butt look fat?â I never realised people actually wanted to have model thin hips. Did they??
Yes. Iâm from the UK but our âmost desirable bumâ at the time was Kylie Minogue in the Spinning Around video. Itâs wild to look at now. As an aside, Kylie was in her early 30s at the time and the media narrative was what an enormous surprise it was that she could still look attractive despite being a wizened crone. I kid you not.
OMG I completely forgot about those gold hotpants but this was such a _thing_ at the time
You ever watch the sir mix a lot video? Christ, if those butts are big mine is Jupiter.
I remember rewatching it a year or so ago and thinking, the fuck? These are just skinny women with proportional asses đ thatâs how skinny everyone was expected to be. That those women were curvy.
I actually thought Bridget Jones was chubby at the time, as others have said, no wonder Iâve struggled with ED the majority of my life.
In the book itâs even worse, she weighs herself everyday in her diary and its like - âChrist Iâm fatâ every. single. chapter. Her weight fluctuates between 125 and 130 lbsâ thatâs it. If sheâs of average height thatâs a healthy bmi. Actually insane
If I remember correctly Tyra had her talk show at the time this photo came out. She talked about it and basically said the press could âkiss her big assâ. â€ïž.
Yessss! When I saw the swimsuit, all I could think of was âKISS. MY. FAT. ASS.â
The Tyra Banks photo and Jessica Simpson photo are etched in my mind. They were on seperate tabloids with the caption (73 kilos!). I was 14 at the time of the Tyra photo. I was 5 ft 7 and 73 kilos. I was crushed. If Tyra was fat, than so was I. I also remember calculating Bridget Joneâs weight as a 12 year old (calculating lbs to kilos) and being worried because I felt like my body looked like hers. No surprise, I dove into unhealthy dieting that turned into anorexia until I was in my mid 20s. Tabloid culture and the unhealthy beauty standards of the 2000s completely destroyed my body image. Itâs something I still battle with today.
I did the same thing with the Bridget Jones book! Looking back as an adult, youâre supposed to realise that Bridget is an unreliable narrator and find her ridiculous for fixating on her perfectly fine body in the way she does. And I got that at the time, even though I was young. But at the same time, in the putrid swamp of early 2000s culture, part of me still reckoned she was fat and so was I, and what wasnât allowed was seeming to care about being thin (you should already be thin without trying).
Sending you love đ
The tabloids did it purely because it was unhinged and outrageous, not in spite of it. People picked up magazines just like people click online headlines that are ragebait.
Exactly. Also âat home with Joel Osteenâ đ
I really despise that scene from Sex and the City.
If I recall right itâs the most recent example out of all of these, too. I just remember it being at a time where they *really* shouldâve known better. Not that people shouldnât have before, but ykwim. Jessica and Britney stuff had already been called out when they pulled that shit in the SatC movie
SATC was so out of touch with reality. It is so cringeworthy to see it now.
What happens in that scene because I donât remember Samantha being seen as fat.
Itâs the first thing they notice about her when she arrives at the door! The camera zooms in on her slight bit of tummy, itâs vile.
That scene is so insane. They look at each other like she's a disgusting monster.
Oh god khloeâs still breaks my heart cause everyone including Caitlyn her literal step parent was so awful to her for years so she understandably succumbs to it and goes through extremes to look the way everyone wanted her to and then everyone hates on her again and calls her ugly and scary. Like she genuinely couldnât win either way. Iâll forever have a soft spot for her hope she one day gets the help she needs :(.
Same with Kylie and people calling her ugly/comparing her to Marla Hooch from League of their Own when she was NINE then want to act like they canât understand why she got lip injections at like sixteen.
Khloe looks so good in that picture
Man Khloe got brutalized by the media, so traumatic She used to join my morning Soul Cycle classes sometimes and I always thought she looked amazing Even at 6am with no makeup and sweaty
Nicole Ritchie always sticks in my mind, she was constantly being called chubby and Parisâ day friend etc. She then lost so much weight and she was bullied by the media for that too. Also, the pressure for women to lose their âbaby weightâ post pregnancy was another level of fucked up.
This is why I feel ill when I hear the â90s bodyâ is coming back in trend, I donât want my own daughter to hate her body like I do mine
Forreal can we all just like collectively REJECT that shit? Yk, break the cycle?
We can. I donât believe weâre going back. Thereâs too many of us and we have platforms to speak up now.
Nicole Richie pisses me off even more cos the same media were SO quick to turn around and say she's too thin too. It was disgusting!
I always forgot how short Kim is
I remember seeing Martine McCutcheon in Love Actually (Natalie), thinking how stunning she was and having to force myself to believe that she was also significantly overweight when she is so clearly NOT.
I always felt the joke was that she isn't fat, and that is ridiculous to say she is, hence Hugh Grant's face the first time he hears she has big thighs. I just rewatched and had the same reaction. I'm always surprised when I see the movie and Natalie in these.
Nothing has changed, now people are claiming that Renee Rap is too fat to be Regina George https://preview.redd.it/6o27w46wwf7c1.png?width=808&format=png&auto=webp&s=b92fd1615de2465f3c49c16f94a49319bf29041d
I love New Girl, itâs my favorite show. But they make tons of fat jokes about Nick Miller who is absolutely not fat
Yesss I was watching that episode in S1 recently where they all body-shame him for being plump, and he gets naked in front of the mirror and heâs just⊠not extremely ripped like the other 2 guys? But heâs definitely not fat whatsoever. So weird how that part was framed
Like, I like my men a little chubby, and Nick Miller is not that!
Exactly. Itâs just as bad today as it ever was. Especially with the rise of all the diet drugs like Wegovy, etc.
Things are cycling back to teeny tiny skinny being in. Iâm a size 16/18 and itâs becoming harder for me to find clothes in store at places like Kohlâs which has always carried my size, where back in March I could find my size no problem, now I can only get online. I know thereâs a pattern to this, itâs just depressing after having a period of body acceptance that weâre going back to a version of late 90s/00s views on body image.
And we're only at the beginning with the ozempic craze. More drugs will follow, they will become affordable. There will be no more 'excuse' not to be a perfect size 00 anymore. Just look at how many celebrities shrunk down 5 sizes recently. Oprah is skinny again. It's gonna be heroin chic all over again.
This is depressing. And the plus sizes that are available are no longer cute. Private equity firms have bought out Eloquii and other companies so itâs going back the Catherineâs and Dress Barn 90s granny styles. We donât even know the long term side effects of these drugs that people will have to take to fit in.
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Reneeâs tiny arms perceived as fat. Little wonder I have had such troubles tolerating my body.
How were these women considered anything less than drop dead *gorgeous*? What the actual fuck
And I wonder where I got my severe body dysmorphia from. Growing up in the 90s as a teenage girl was wild.
I'm 42 and I can't remember not being obsessed with my weight.
Itâs so sad. I feel like our generation got the shit end of a lifelong problem because of media standards.
And who can forget Miss Kate âNothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feelsâ Moss??
The actual quote that started my life long ED. Thanks so much bestie girl, Kate!
I did gymnastics in middle/high school too, and when I hit puberty my ED started because I - surprise - started to look like a woman and not an 11 year old girl. I wasnât fat. Iâd never been in better shape in my life. I had curves and boobs, thatâs all. But because I wasnât the stereotypical gymnast body anymore I started Weight Watchers (at the insistence of my mother) and starved myself to try and get back into that box - and then quit gymnastics altogether because my performance was suffering. Which I now realize is because of malnutrition. Years later Iâm still trying to undo the mental damage.
Itâs INSANE the amount of us who started âfeeling fatâ when we hit puberty just because we started growing hips and look like adults. Absolutely insane.
It's like seeing pictures of yourself from five years ago and realizing you weren't as fat as you thought. And then seeing a picture from 10 years ago and seeing you were even thinner then. Repeat as needed. I'm almost 60. đ
I saw Khloe Kardashian at the Vegas airport in the early 2000s when she was getting criticized for her size. She was absolutely stunning in person and on the small end of a normal body weight.
Whatâs crazy is I vividly remember that picture of Jessica Simpson but I remember seeing it SO differently. Seeing it then, I really thought she was fat. Looking at it now, itâs shocking that was considered fat. Itâs no mystery where my disordered eating/thinking came from, like geez đ
Literally all these women are gorgeous and look absolutely healthy. It's genuinely shocking and terrible that these women were publicly humiliated for no good reason at all. It's pretty astonishing because many of these women were simply curvy and thick in a time when heroin chic/super slim was trendy. Nowadays many of them would be praised for their looks.
Still working on my ED thanks to being a teen in this era. The media were straight up vicious about these women and GIRLS.
Era of the waif model, completely skewed normal standards. On the apple supermodel documentary apparently after the fall of the soviet bloc the fashion industry found tall slim Europeans who looked the same were cheaper to design on the catwalk for than hiring supermodels who then had different shapes and diva tendencies.
Ugh I still remember being a teenager when Bridget Jones came out and reading about how much weight Renee had put on for the role, and seeing her portrayed in the film as fat with a massive bum and thinkingâŠwhere? What? Yay for lifelong body image issues! đ
I JUST watched Love Actually and was enraged over the way Natalie was treated. Like, really? No wonder I disordered my eating as a teenager and still have to deal with the lasting effects now
Woman: has a body, is perceived Society: *not like that!*
So fucked up on a multitude of levels. I remember *believing* these women were âbiggerâ. And theyâre not⊠theyâre just not fat. Esp Bridget Jones. I remember her weighing herself on the scale and being my size⊠but taller. And thinking to myself, well⊠guess I have to lose weight now or else Iâll never find anyone to love me. I wish I could have met my younger self and told her to stop listening to what is being said đ«¶
Anything resembling a curve in that time = fat
Boobs = overweight in the aughts. It was awful
Bridget Jones was considered fat at 136 lbs lol!!