Fat-Bottomed Girls

So I'm standing in WHSmith and they have racks of magazines, birthday cards and so on as you go round the labyrinth to get to the checkout, presumably with the idea that you might say Oh yes, half price Haribo, THAT'S what I came into the stationery store for! Anyway I happened to glance at the girly magazines to pass the time and there were two making a point about certain very skinny celebs. One of them was running a story on Girls Aloud, and the other had one of the same photos plus photos of somebody else, I forget who. Anyway they're really laying into these (admittedly unhealthily looking-) skinny girls and I'm just thinking about the whole teenage girl psyche of must-lose-weight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that we all have our body hangups - regardless of age, or gender, or actual physical appearance. We'd all like to be a bit thinner, a bit better toned and so on. But it does tend to be the teenage girl and young woman demographic who not only want to be slimmer, but want to be unnaturally slim. I find this especially odd seeing as I don't know any men who support the stereotype. I suppose the age at which it begins is one where girls are less likely to have platonic male friends, or even male friends that they fancy who are sufficiently willing to make comments about not liking uber-skinny girls.

However, as I moved around the queue-snake I saw another magazine. One which made a big deal about so-and-so has lost a stone and a half; and look at this great new diet; and you could lose a stone by summer... For all the effort that the world is going to to try and undo the media's effect so far, I really wish that a minority of magazines and programmes wouldn't continue to mess with girls' heads.