Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Kate Winslet draws line in the sand

Good for Kate Winslet. On the heels of recent annoucements by the catwalks in London and Paris that they will no longer allow chronically underweight women to participate in the spring and fall fashion shows, Winslet has publicly said that she and her husband (director Sam Mendes) make a point of not allowing any fashion magazines in their house in case their kids get the wrong idea and think it's cool to be anorexic.

I wish more Hollywood moms would take the hint and lead by example not just for their kids but also for themselves; and the same goes for the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan. It's hard to imagine that in a course of twenty years we've gone from a world where it was pretty easy for a woman to get a starring role if she was a 10, 12 or even 14, to one where Tinsletown and the papar****s won't even give her the time of day unless she's a four or less. The current "in" size for female celebrities is zero, and some fashion designers are actually creating dresses for negative sizes. Negative.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, hypocrites we are, are pigging out a storm and facing a life of obesity. That's a fine future for the health care system, including publicly funded ones like ours in Canada. Making sure the underweight and overweight merely stay alive!

It takes courage to do the right thing. Kate Winslet is fine just the way she is. Maybe a few extra pounds, but she doesn't need implants, a facelift or anything else to make her presence both on and off the screen. She deserves an Oscar ™ just for saying enough is enough.

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