The Emaciation Trend

by Neena Louise


Calista Flockheart


What is going on with this trend for the super-skinny actress? They seem to be everywhere now and the catty weight/health speculations have switched from models to actresses. Compare, say, Lara Flynn Boyle or Courtney Cox to any supermodel and the supermodel looks downright fleshy in comparison. The "waif look" is supposedly passé, but these actresses don't even look waifish. They don't have the delicate, fine-boned features to go with their tiny little bodies. They generally have average builds and wind up looking like lollipops (big head, stick body). Ugh! I find the death-camp-survivor look repulsive and I wonder why someone doesn't take these skeletal figures out and feed them.

When these actresses are asked about their excessive thinness, they become very defensive and insist at length that they do not have an eating disorder and claim to simply be naturally thin. True or not (and that's their business), it's not just that they're thin: it's that they've lost weight before our eyes and gone from thin to emaciated. Compare Calista Flockhart, Courtney Cox (whom I've heard described as an "emaciated scary witch"), Jennifer Aniston or Helen Hunt during the early days of their series to now. They were all thin to begin with, but went from thin to skeletal during their series. Real people who are naturally thin and healthy don't lose weight unless they are ill or stressed; when the naturally thin lose weight, it's generally cause for concern. How, then, can these walking skeletons insist this is their natural look and they're perfectly healthy?

It has been said that TV depictions of scrawny women are responsible for an increase in eating disorders. I don't think that's true: anorexia is a complex disease with many causes. However, I think it gives the eating-disordered permission to stay emaciated since all the successful actresses are skin and bones yet claim to be healthy, after all. I would think it becomes harder to treat anorexics with so many stick-figure role-models around. If these women insist they like to look the way they do and refuse to eat once in awhile, the least they could do is dress better. Forget the low cut spaghetti-strap dresses, skin-tight clothing and sleeveless tops; hide those jutting ribs, prominent hip bones, razor-sharp shoulders. No one wants to see that.

The argument can be made that TV does not, and should not, reflect real life, and that it's pure escapism. Well, there's escapism and then there's surrealism. The average woman in the U.S. is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. Do you know ONE female that even approaches a look like this on TV? They are either emaciated or fat and very few are in between. The few that are more normal looking usually play housewives. (Although, on the new series "Get Real", the actress playing the mother is yet another super-skinny. Get real is right.)

To all those bone-racks out there: Feed yourselves, for heaven's sake! To swipe a line from the movie In and Out: "you look like a swizzle stick". You're not attractive -- you're sickening.


Kate Moss