Kate Upton is Fat, Apparently?
Posted by Amy Allen on Wednesday, August 1, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?
So apparently Kate Upton is fat. She?s also vulgar, lardy and ? according to Victoria?s Secret ? an ?obvious glamour girl.? Despite this, however, Upton is?carving out a multi-million pound modelling career for herself (which includes covering this year?s?Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition),?but according to her critics, this has to be a horrendous, undeserved mistake.
Well, according to ?thinspirational? website Skinny Gossip, it absolutely must be.?Skinny Gossip last week published an article that?described Upton as ?thick, vulgar, lazy, lardy, almost pornographic? and as having ?huge thighs, no waist, big fat floppy boobs, terrible body definition? and ?looking like a squishy brick.? Upton is likened to both a pig and a cow in the post and the title itself is ?Kate Upton is Well-Marbled.? Feeling inspired? Yeah, me neither.
The website Skinny Gossip is what?s classed as ?thinspiration.? Thinspiration is the use of ?motivational? imagery or text to inspire people to achieve or maintain thinness. While some of the material found on thinspiration sites is focussed on health and fitness, much of it seems quite harmful ? and the casual cruelty directed at Kate Upton is really at the mild end of the scale. Jezebel cites the following:
?[There are] hundreds of these [websites], full of pictures of coveted body parts, rarely with a face attached. In some cases? text is superimposed over the image ? think ?Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels? or ?Do not reward yourself with food, you?re not a dog?, but with a cutesy font that would be at home inside a child?s birthday card.?
Images featured on thinspiration sites include everything from thin runway models and celebrities to images of girls and women who are clearly unwell. Some sites also endorse behaviour typically associated with eating disorders, such as abusing laxatives or skipping meals -?Skinny Gossip?features a ?starving tip of the day.? Some sites claim to provide a safe, non-judgemental place for those suffering from eating disorders or to provide forums for those who like a slender look, but some definitely seem to slip over into what can only be seen as pro-eating disorder territory.
And this is where things get difficult. If eating disorders are mental health problems (which they are), then can a website be held responsible for encouraging the development of these disorders in a person? According to the anonymous blogger behind?Skinny Gossip, they can?t. She bristles at the suggestion that her website is pro-anorexia, stating that:
?Anorexia? is not striving for a certain look or to fit into a certain piece of clothing. It?s a mental health problem. Calling every skinny person ill doesn?t do sick people any favours.?
This is true. But the writer also states that her website is built around a community where a skinny look is preferred, ?but not at the cost of health?, and this is where I disagree. If Kate Upton responded to the venomous barbs posted about her on?Skinny Gossip by starving herself to the point of emaciation, would she then be chastised as pro-anorexia rather than lauded as thinspiration? I doubt it.
I personally think it?s important for those seeking to lose weight or improve their health to have motivation and support. But I also think there?s a line between motivation and support and sites like?Skinny Gossip?that to me have nothing to do with building a supportive community and are in fact based on animosity, cruelty and shaming. These sites slam bodies at both ends of the spectrum, along with the bodies of perfectly healthy people (like Upton), and they blur the lines between what is ? or is not ? an acceptable body weight and size.
And this, I think, is really problematic. Whilst writers on these sites are right to say that they can?t cause eating disorders, I don?t think it?s too much of a stretch to say that dishing out unveiled disgust for women?s bodies on the internet will encourage a cultural shift towards normalising disordered behaviour. At this rate, the next generation of girls (and boys) will think it normal to fixate on a certain body image, or to not eat, or to hugely criticise themselves and others. This is not a good thing.
Whilst there?s likely nothing that can be done to stop websites like?Skinny Gossip?peddling their strange brand of hate on the internet, I?d like to see people stop pretending that hateful body critiques aren?t inflicting physical, mental and emotional harm on people and where we instead really do focus on health and wellbeing. One can dream? Oh, and for the record, I think Kate Upton is absolutely gorgeous.
Photograph by Discutivo.
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Source: http://hotforwriting.com/2012/08/kate-upton-is-fat-apparently/
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