Coral Amber

Last Month I got a copy of Self magazine and, to my delight, Ellen Pompeo from Grey's Anatomy was on the cover. Inside there is an interview that put a lot of emphasis on what she eats and her overall health because Self is a magazine that prides itself on promoting a healthy lifestyle.

I learned that, because of her asthma, Pompeo has (naturally hypoallergenic) toy poodles and that she is naturally skinny to the point that she has to eat every few hours to keep her energy up and ends up consuming around 3,000 calories a day. Pompeo admits that it's a blessing to be able to eat whatever she wants, but laments at all the flack she gets for being thin and how people assume she's anorexic.

This month I opened my new issue of Self and found an entire section where readers wrote in about Pompeo. Two-thirds of the letters were negative! While a few wrote in to share their struggles with being thin and trying maintaining a healthy weight, most complained that Self magazine was promoting a person who looked like she had an eating disorder. Some readers went so far as to say that their lives were hard enough without being discouraged by someone who can eat whatever she wants.

I was shocked!

While Pompeo may not be an average woman (she is a star on a popular series), she is one of the many naturally thin people who make up a decent portion of the population. I want to scream at these negative women: I'm so sorry you're all so narrow minded that you get discouraged by someone who can't help what size she is!

I tend to take this stance because I was naturally skinny for the majority of my life. I've had girls look appraisingly at my boobs and tell me how lucky I am that I can wear a tank top without any extra support (Is that an actual compliment or a dig at my small chest?).

I think that a lot of women get a picture in their head of how they looked at maybe eighteen years old. When they get older and their bodies change, they get so dismayed that they don't look like a teenager anymore. To say that they are discouraged by someone like Pompeo is such a crock. To say she looks anorexic is just spiteful. What they are is envious that she can still fit into her prom dress. Guess what ladies, that prom dress is 20 years out of style and Pompeo is too busy living her life to even think about that chiffon nightmare.

I'm just as dismayed as everyone else when I see a healthy (and too often very young) girl rapidly lose weight. I loved the shapely Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. I wanted to know what in the world she was thinking as she got skinnier and bonier by the day. I actually shake my head when I see the sunken in cheeks and pointed chin of the once adorable Hillary Duff.

Unfortunately, these girls (and others in the public eye) feel real pressure: the demands of agents telling them to hit the gym a couple more times this week if they want to have a chance to work, the embarrassment of not being able to fit into clothes at a photo shoot because they are all size four or smaller, the pressure of a million dollar contract hinging on gaining or losing ten pounds; not just a magazine cover staring at them.