Tyra Banks is Gorgeous
ALL is not lost – I now weigh less than a supermodel.
Admittedly that supermodel is Tyra Banks, who at 33 is now retired, and she is currently being called Tyra Pork Chops after photos of her appeared on a website titled, “Tyra Banks is Fat.”
But I was confused by all the controversy because Tyra still looked totally gorgeous on America’s Next Top Model this week (yes, my television is tuned to wall-to-wall trash. It comes with having teenage daughters). None of the skinny young striplings fighting for the next top model title were a patch on Tyra’s luminous, full-bodied, bootylicious good looks.
So I went on-line to see this so-called fat picture. And there it was. Poor Tyra, snapped by an intrusive paparazzi as she emerged from the sea on holiday in Australia in her swimsuit. And yes, she looked more my shape than the stunning TV presenter I’d seen the night before – big bum, chunky thighs, rounded tum.
Had she ballooned since the show was filmed? Or had somebody maliciously added some digital pounds to the picture?
I typed “Tyra Banks” and “Fat” into Google and was shocked by what came up. One website alone had over 750,000 people logging in, mostly to write insults about Tyra’s new curvier figure.
By far the oddest response came from “supermodel agent Dino Mistello” who seems to be under the misapprehension that models should not eat at all. He is quoted as saying: “As soon as ugly rumours of eating start circulating about a supermodel like Tyra, people will turn against her, especially those in the supermodel community.”
Notice he doesn’t say over-eating, or eating problems…just eating! Mistello goes on: “She says it’s a fat suit, but people I know say she has been spotted eating animal crackers, which is food. They say she ate at least two giraffes and one seal. So sad.”
At least two giraffes! How could she?
I next found a video clip of Tyra on her American chat show. Now here she is, bravely wearing the same swimsuit, but looking noticeably smaller than in the infamous beach pic, raging against the media’s obsession with weight, and against all the mean and nasty insults being thrown at her.
In that one minute clip Tyra showed that the camera can lie. She breathed in. She lifted her arms above her head, stretched and twisted like a cat and did the whole model pose in her high heels, explaining: “Y’all are used to seeing me look like this. Nobody complains about this Tyra.”
But then she turned sideways, breathed out, relaxed her stomach, neck and shoulders and sank down into her hip joints. Slumping like the relaxed Tyra strolling out of the surf. The change was miraculous. Suddenly she was, a dumpy, ordinary girl with a pretty face and fabulous hair. Still not fat exactly, but her bottom half looked reassuringly more like my own reflection in the mirror.
Then she wiped away a tear as she railed against criticism of her fuller figure: “If I had lower self-esteem, I would probably be starving myself right now.
“To all of you who have something nasty to say about me or other women who are built like me, I have one thing to say to you,” she said, slapping her behind and shouting defiantly: “Kiss my fat ass.”
Tyra is 5ft 10in and weighs 11st 5lbs and is a British size 14 jeans size. Yes, she admits she’s gained two stone since she was a young lingerie model, but she looks just as gorgeous and surely that’s the point.
I would give anything for a figure like that. I may have the bum, but I don’t have Tyra’s big boobs and lovely long legs to go with it. Why aren’t we all admiring her as a model of perfection?
She said: “I get so much mail from young girls who say, ‘I look up to you, you’re not as skinny as everyone else, I think you’re beautiful.’ So when they say that my body is ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting’ what does that make those girls feel like?”
“I still feel hot, but every day is different. It’s when I put on the jeans that used to fit a year ago and don’t fit now and give me the muffin top, that’s when I say, ‘Damn!’ I feel more comfortable when I’m lighter.”
And there we have every woman’s daily dilemma. Settle for a bit of muffin top, or worry about every bite we take.
This is not just about an American celebrity.
At work this week I have been writing about issues affecting local people… a new unit has just opened, one of a handful in the country, which will treat young women from South Devon with eating disorders; a new obesity strategy is being drawn up for Torbay, and the Go For It campaign has been launched in a desperate attempt to get our couch potato population out of our front doors and exercising at least three times a week.
None of it makes sense. We know more than ever before about nutrition, exercise and optimum health. Yet the more inundated we are by this knowledge, the less willing we seem to be to follow good advice.
Personally speaking I have been just about sticking to my new year’s resolutions on more exercise. But as a single mum I was feeling guilty about not having time to get “proper” meals on the table every evening.
So I hit on a solution. Using my new cooker I can time the oven to come on an hour before we all pile back home from school and work. I did all the preparation the night before, set the timer and got home to the lovely welcoming smells of home-cooked food.
I loved it. Dinner time was more relaxed. But there was a big downside. The children ate their usual mini-sized portions, but I was hungrily finishing off platefuls of hearty stews, baked potatoes, risotto or casseroles every night.
The result? Let’s just say I’m glad the paparazzi don’t follow me around and stick pictures of me on the internet.
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