JLaw Against Gluten-Free

So. I absolutely, 100% adore Jennifer Lawrence. I am not a huge celebrity follower, but I have my favorites - people I think are absolutely talented, gorgeous, quirky and interesting (Jennifer Lawrence and Jared Leto, really! Hahaha, don't judge me.)

 

Anyway.

 

I have been reading a few news articles where Jennifer Lawrence is bashing gluten-free diets as the "new cool eating disorder." And where she is against dieting. She is quoted as saying "I think that people are built the way that they're built" and "There's that Kate Moss quote that's like 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' and... I can name a lot of things that taste better than skinny feels: bread, potatoes... a Philly cheesesteak and fries." And she is LAUDED for eating spaghetti and meatballs for breakfast and a cheesesteak before some awards show.

 

Okay.

 

Well... that's all realllllllllllly easy to say and do when you look how SHE looks. Even when she is slightly "heavier," she is drop dead gorgeous and the perfect American ideal - men and women drool over her, want to be her, want her. She poses almost naked for magazines and in movies, completely unself-conscious. Which, again, is really easy to do when you look like her.

 

I still love her, think she is awesome and funny and, yes, beautiful. But I think she does not get to be on a high horse about people who diet or choose to be gluten free (for their health or their weight or for whatever reason they want to).

 

Would she be against eliminating more carbs if she was 50 pounds overweight? Would she be against eliminating gluten if gluten gave her awful acne and cysts on her face? Would she have eaten a cheesesteak before the awards show if it made her look 4-5 months pregnant in her slinky skin tight dress?

 

It's always been hard for me to hear women with idealized, Hollywood-approved bodies claim that we should all love our bodies exactly how they are, stop dieting, stop trying to change them.

 

And I know she has faced more body bashing than usual for young starlets - she is NOT stick skinny and refuses to GET stick skinny, which I applaud! But even when she weighs a few pounds more than usual and an agent says something unkind about her needing to lose weight, she still is not in the same position as those of us who have been or are obese.

 

No one gets to say others have an eating disorder because of the way they eat when they don't know THEM personally or their struggles or how food affects them. Especially when you are a Hollywood starlet.

 

I don't know - her comments rubbed me the wrong way, I think, BECAUSE I have looked up to her. I loved her strong, athletic body in the Hunger Games (exactly how Katniss should have looked - she was a hunter in the book who ate enough and was super active - not a starving waif). She is curvy and strong and looks extremely healthy. But she doesn't get to tout body positivity at any size, when she is THAT size! She doesn't get to tell us that we should be eating pasta and cheesesteaks and whatever else because SHE does - if I ate the meals she says she eats, I'd be 20 pounds heavier in about a month. I'd feel less energetic, less healthy, and would be more self-conscious about my body - it certainly wouldn't be a body that would pose naked on a magazine (it isn't that way NOW!).

 

I think her comments would rub me wrong even if I didn't love her. There is a weird feeling I get when people who look like models tell us dieting is stupid, or watching what we eat, or choosing not to eat a certain type of food, etc, is wrong. She should walk a mile in 20 year old Jeanette's shoes and THEN tell me that she would eat pasta for breakfast still.

 

That's my rant. Just had to get it off my chest :)