As if carrying a squirmy watermelon with sharp heels for nine months (ten really, if you’re counting by weeks) wasn’t hard enough, now pregnant women are held to the impossibly skinny standards of the media as well.
Any woman who has been pregnant in the last few years or so already knows exactly what I’m talking about. Suddenly pregnancy has become en vogue but it isn’t enough to have a healthy baby. You have to look like a stick bug with a basketball tucked under your shirt. Especially so you can fit into the belly baring, body conscious maternity fashions that are so popular now. Don’t get me wrong, I was no fan of the tent dress but there has got to be a happy medium between that and this:
(Although I must admit I laughed myself silly when I saw
this one.)
The Toll
The worst part though is after the baby is born. With my last child, people started asking me months before he was even born how fast I thought I was going to “lose the weight.” Just typing that phrase strikes terror into my heart. Isn’t it bad enough that we have to worry if everything will come out with ten fingers and ten toes and possibly your mother-in-law’s nose? Must we add “losing the weight” to the list?
Heidi Klum lost the weight from her 3rd baby in a record-breaking 4 weeks so she could strut her sexy stuff on the Victoria’s Secret catwalk. The same sexy stuff, I might add, that gestated, birthed and nursed an actual baby. I’ll never know how men manage to look at women in lingerie and yet still not connect the baby making apparatus with a living, breathing baby. Add to Heidi’s example the recent spate of celebs who lose their baby weight in ever-shorter amounts of time. (Do they ever lose the baby too? I mean if you are losing stuff that darn fast, those little guys are pretty easy to misplace. I’m just saying.) Keri Russel! Trista Rehn! Tori Spelling! Julia Roberts! The list goes on and on and on.
But it is not with men that I make my complaint. Every person who asked me about losing the weight was a woman. I even had one girlfriend tell me that she envied my extreme morning sickness at the beginning. “You’re so lucky! You get to lose all that weight. It probably keeps your overall weight gain down too. I wish I was a puker!”
Except that somehow it didn’t keep my overall weight down. That was why I could totally relate when I read about the newly pregnant Jennifer Lopez’s fear about her weight gain.
“Jennifer is delighted to finally be pregnant. However, she has already put on more than three stones and is only around four months gone. She is huge and freaking out,” said
a source.
Three stone is about 42 lbs. I gained 47 with my first pregnancy – well above the “recommended” 25-35.
So what’s a mom to do? “J. Lo, who is famous for her curvaceous backside, is taking extra precaution against the weight that may be left after she has given birth by waking up at four in the morning to work out.”
And if that doesn’t work? “Her face has become really puffy from retaining a lot of water. She plans to do a Victoria Beckham now and hibernate for the last few months. You won’t be seeing much of her in public from now on,” the source says.
So it’s come to this: a beautiful pregnant woman has to
go into hiding to have a healthy baby and a normal pregnancy. Not because people don’t want to think about how she got knocked up but because people will call her
fat.
What do you bet she emerges like 2 months after that kid is born in a bikini crowing about the miracle of Pilates and a high protein diet?
PS> I first read this story on
the Skinny Website. And I almost choked on my lunch when I read Rian’s closing line “It will be interesting to see how fast Jennifer loses the baby weight after giving birth. Will she be one of the ones who lose it so fast we barely see it at all, or will she be like Britney and not ever take off the extra few she gained? What do YOU all think?”
Is she kidding me?? Britney’s baby is barely one year old and already she is judged as “not ever” being able to take off the weight? I’m no fan of Ms. Spears but you gotta give a girl some time. And by being less critical of her, maybe, just maybe we can stop being so critical with each other and ourselves.
Does anyone stop to think that maybe these stars are underweight to begin with and so maybe they need to gain a lot to support the pregnancy? sheesh. People are ridiculous. However–now, I may be breaking ranks on this one–I kind of think J. Lo has no one to blame but herself. I mean, she has got to be one of the most powerful women in the world. Is she really so insecure as a singer and dancer and actress and person that she can’t gain weight? What if she pulled a Jennifer Love Hewitt and told everyone to buzz off? I don’t know. . . anyway, isn’t Britney pregnant again? That would explain the not losing the weight part. . .
Oh, I SO hear you on this! I went through both of my pregnancies while living in L.A. and pursuing an acting career. When I told people I was pregnant, I didn’t get “Congratulations/When are you due/is this your first?” or any of the other happy exclamations. No, I got people recoiling in horror, asking me how much weight I was “planning on gaining” (like I could actually PLAN such a thing?) and shrinking away as if the weight gain was somehow contagious, and I was carrying the plague.
This all makes me think of the bad old days, like in Victorian England, when a pregnant (or “increasing”) woman was forced out of polite society and into isolation after she began to show, because God forbid anyone see an actual pregnant woman!
Nah anon – I don’t think you are breaking ranks by saying she should stick up for herself. I wish she would. But I can understand too why she hasn’t – yet. I feel very emotionally fragile when I’m preggers. And – Britney’s pregnant again?? Cool, now she and Jamie Lynn can go through it together. Maybe Jamie can give her some tips;)
Azusmom – your “planning on gaining” comment made me laugh and scream all at the same time. Too true about people thinking fat (of any type) is contagious. But back in the “bad old days” pregnant women went into isolation because heaven forbid they have had the s-e-x. Today everyone is all about the S-E-X but they can’t seem to connect it to its logical consequence. So weird.
True! People like to think there aren’t consequences (speaking of Jamie Lynn). And lately we’ve started treating pregnancy like a disease that deforms the body, and the only solution if you want to have a normal life is to go under the knife. (Hey, that rhymes!)