It was no surprise to see the Daily Mail proudly showing off a photograph of the former MP Nadine Dorries wearing a skimpy bikini, after she revealed she had lost two stone as a result of taking the slimming aid Mounjaro. I saw the photograph to save you having to. I have no criticism, nor even any kind of opinion, of Ms Dorries taking a few quid to pose wearing next to nothing in a tabloid newspaper in her 70th year. But this is what the Mail does. A newspaper produced exclusively for older women that is utterly obsessed with how much women weigh and what they look like. In her own way, Dorries plays into that agenda. I doubt that she could care less.
On the basis of medical advice, and a desire to fit into my suit again, I too have taken the weight loss situation on board. And frankly, it is no one else’s business what they think of how I look, never mind telling me, as several people have done over the years: “Ooh, you’ve been piling on the pounds, haven’t you?” Why do people think it’s right to talk to someone like that?
My stock response has always been along the lines of, “You don’t know what’s been going on in my life, but thanks anyway in trying to make me feel even worse about myself than I already do” and I resolve to never again waste my time engaging with people who are that fucking rude. This attitude that somehow you must look a certain way, which in the eyes of both the Mail and the rest of today’s media is slim, bordering on thin, is widely held.
Mail readers – as I say, almost all middle aged and older women – are bombarded with images of how they should look, as well as frequent dieting advice. “Lose two stone in a fortnight,” they scream. “Get your bikini body back.” After which the Mail celebrity column shows images of usually young, sometimes famous, women “flaunting” their bodies, taken by photographers hiding in the next postcode, as they emerge from a swim in the sea. “That’s how you should look, ladies.” But it isn’t.
The gutter press don’t show images of their hacks on holiday, their bulging beer bellies hanging over their swim shorts. “Here’s Gorgeous Steve Scrote (23 stone), our home affairs correspondent, showing us some sexy builder’s bum on the beach in sunny Benidorm.” Funny that.
Arianna Grande is a victim of the opposite kind of weight story. The young songstress is too thin, I read, and the press draws comparisons with Karen Carpenter who died from complications of anorexia nervosa back in 1983. I remember the story oh so well and it was utterly tragic. I have no way of knowing whether Ms Carpenter was influenced, even back then, by the media’s obsession with weight loss, but if she wasn’t – and as I say I have no idea – she would be in a minority of people. I hope the people around Ms Grande keep her safe and secure and well away from the damaging media tittle-tattle that passes for news.
We are all different shapes and in truth there is only so much we can do about it. I can try to roll back the years to my skinnier days, which I am doing at the moment with reasonable degrees of success, but I will never be who and what I was. Eventually, time catches up on you and no matter how much you pretend to the contrary, you are what and who you are.
People are underweight and overweight often for reasons that are little of their own doing. Poor health, both physical and mental, can play damaging roles in one’s life. In the end, there comes a time when you can only do so much and you have to accept that for yourself. What others, particularly down in the gutter of the tabloid press and the shitty gossip magazines, think is irrelevant. If they attack someone famous for being too thin or too fate, you do realise, don’t you, that they would do exactly the same thing to you if you swapped places with them?
I genuinely believe that beauty is not skin deep. It’s the whole picture. It is not for me, or for you, to judge the appearance of someone else. It is not for me, or you, to point out to someone they are too fat or too thin. And if someone is looking for perfection then perhaps AI images of the so-called perfect woman and a box of tissues is probably what you really need.
Nadine Dorries’s physical appearance is of zero interest to me. It’s more of who she is and what she stands for and who she is. And that is a far right failed politician who these days trades on hatred and division and whose name appears above a piss-poor column in a rag of a newspaper. No amount of Mounjaro can change that.
