Ok, I have to admit, I don't watch television during the day unless DH is home (he's the TV addict). So, he had today off and was watching TV, and one of the commercials was Wynonna, talking about how she's taking Alli, and doing it for her kids, and how she wouldn't recommend anything that isn't safe (and says how Alli is FDA-approved).
Now, I'm not much on country music, but I have seen Wynonna when she was thinner, and I've seen her when she wasn't thin. Either way, she's a talented woman, and I think she's gorgeous at whatever size she happens to be. For her to be taking Alli (with its "wonderful" side effects) just makes me so sad for her, and for all the women who will follow her example because she's a star. That kind of pressure to be thin has to cost so much in self-esteem.......it makes me wonder how a woman who knows she has talent and is good at what she does can believe she's not worthy of her fame just because she isn't stick-thin. Or does that pressure make her think the fame she got when she wasn't thin was just a fluke, and in order to keep that fame, and keep working, she has to get thin?
I don't understand it, because I never thought I was worthless because I was fat, I thought I was worthless because nothing I ever did was good enough for certain people in my life, everything I did could always have been done better if I had just worked a little harder, no matter how hard I worked. My diets weren't ever to improve my looks, I never thought I was cute, or pretty, or good-looking, so losing weight wouldn't have made me any better-looking, at least, not in my eyes. My diets were always for my "health" because doctors were just sure that I was either going to die any minute or I was going to end up with diabetes or some other debilitating disease, and they pushed the fact that losing weight would prevent any of that happening to me. So to try and lose weight to become better looking (or more acceptable in others' eyes) just is not comprehensible to me. I guess I was pretty lucky when I was working too, in that my weight was never an issue at any of the jobs I ever had. Never prevented me from getting a job I wanted, never prevented me from doing that job to the best of my ability, and didn't matter much to most of my co-workers (at least, if it did matter, none of them had the balls to say anything to me about it).
I am getting so fed up with the entertainment industry and their unattainable, unrealistic ideal for how women should look in order to be able to work. If a person has talent, they should be allowed to use that talent, and shouldn't be pressured to meet model-thin standards. I like diversity when I'm watching a movie or listening to music (if I didn't like diversity, I wouldn't listen to Jimmy Buffett and Metallica and Brule' and Blackmore's Night and Johnny Cash). So to deny diversity of talent and body shape/size in entertainment seems short-sighted to me. After all, if you look at the world around us, there is a huge amount of variety in sizes and shapes and colors, and that should be reflected in the movies we watch and the music we listen to and the books we read. I'm really sorry that that isn't the case, and I'm sorry that Wynonna has bought whatever bullshit her doctor spouted to get her to take Alli (how on earth do you perform on stage if you're taking a drug that can make you unexpectedly shit yourself?).
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