Starving Artists

So, after lunch I headed over to Century 21 with Mireia and Dan. I needed to get a birthday gift for the aforementioned friend. Once again, I could not be stopped from looking for myself. It's an illness, really. You know, when I go shopping with a friend who is looking to buy something for another, I'm a task-master. Clearly, that's what I need. Someone to yell, "Put the shoes down, Megan!" The good news is, I did find a gift for my friend, as well as a cute little handbag for myself. Mireia laughed at me when I said this, but I really did need it.

Anyway, yesterday I had the opportunity to read an issue of Us Weekly from earlier in the month. They had a spread on Nicole Richie and Lindsey Lohan, both of whom have lost quite a bit of weight. Lindsey particularly looked like she could use a sandwich. I find it disturbing that Nicole, who is 5'2" weighs under 97 pounds now. FYI, for a female, ideal body weight is 100 pounds for 5 feet, and 5 pounds for each subsequent inch, making Nicole's ideal weight 110 pounds. And Lindsey claims that as you get older, you just naturally lose weight because you lose the baby fat. Uhhh, my personal experience has been that the older you get, the harder it is to lose weight. You don't magically turn 18 and see over 20 pounds fly off, sweetie, unless you stop eating.

It's annoying enough that rather than saying, "Gee whiz, Lindsey looks like she's lost a lot of weight. What's going on?" places like Awful Plastic Surgery suggest that she had her implants removed. Look, I don't know if she ever had implants, nor am I particularly concerned. But she's not looking healthy. This whole weight shit is so out of synch with reality. I myself am perfectly within my ideal range of weight. But even I occasionally find myself being hyper-critical of my appearance when a pair of pants won't fit. Did you know that over 85% of women develop cellulite after the age of 18? You'd never know that if you read Vogue. Last year, Vogue did a spread where they told you how to dress for all body types. Guess how big the "heavy" model was? A size 10-12. A size freaking 12 is Vogue's idea of a heavy woman. No wonder so many of us have body image issues.

Kate and I talked about this the other day. As she pointed out, she couldn't understand why someone like Lindsey Lohan, who had a curvy figure before, would want to lose so much weight, when the standard of beauty doesn't necessarily include women who are skeletal anymore. That may be true, but I don't think that's the case in Hollywood, where Tommy Mottola apparently told Lindsey, "You look great! You lost so much weight!" I think the "You can never be too thin" adage is alive and well out there.

It's true that anorexia has a lot more to do with control than about actually being thin, but it always starts somewhere - the paparazzi prints pics of LL by the pool in her bikini looking.... rounded. I don't know jack about LL's eating habits, or whether she just snorts a lot of coke, as the rumor mill claims. Regardless, I don't think 20-30 pounds thinner Lindsey is doing anyone any favors. I, for one, wouldn't mind a return to Botticelli's beauty standards.