Breast best for bouncing back

Ah Tori. She has blabbed to Ok! magazine that after 3.5 months she has stopped breastfeeding so she can lose her baby weight:

"I haven't lost the weight yet! I'm wearing Spanx," she revealed. "I just stopped breastfeeding so now I can start a diet program. Getting back to working out is the hardest part but we have a really active lifestyle."

*Sigh*

Clearly, Tori doesn't know about the University of Georgia study that appears in the August issue of International Breastfeeding Journal in which the researchers found that breastfeeding BOOSTS post-baby weight loss. Women who exclusively breastfed their babies lost more weight than mothers who used formula or formula and breastmilk ('mixed feeding')

Sources: http://www.okmagazine.com/news/view/9074
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL66374420080916

The 'truth' comes out

The word on the street is Halle Berry has been looking so 'hot' in the last week because she's been shoving her post-baby body into Spanx, the girdle for the stars. She was snapped yesterday looking much more like every other new mother in the world with a bit of a tummy.














Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=563050&in_page_id=1773

Isla says thanks to spanx

Isla Fischer had a baby, in case you didn't know. In fact, that seems to be the only thing that journos want to talk about with her these days. Why is it that when a woman has a baby, all of her lifetime achievements, her every career success, is eclipsed by motherhood?

Isla Fischer is a primary example of this phenomenon because as her new movie 'Definitely, Maybe' is due for release this week, every article about this woman begins and ends with her recent birth. For example, USA Today captures the movie star in today's headline thus:

'Maybe' star Isla Fisher is a new mom, but definitely don't ask!

The author frames the movie release around the fact that Isla doesn't want to talk about being a new mother, which is ironic, given that not talking about being a new mother, actually frames the entire article about being a new mother. Isla argues she does not want to open her baby up to publicity; she wants to keep her private life private, and rightly so.

However, the reporter did manage to squeeze out a juicy tidbit about her post-baby body. In positioning herself as the saintly celebrity that does absolutely nothing to regain her figure, Isla does mention that her post-pregnancy body is all thanks to Spanx, a sort of postmodern 'girdle' that is a celeb favourite. To justify her lack of an exercise regiment, she says:

"I really felt like there's so much pressure on young women in show business. There's so much body fascism. I don't buy into any of it. But I do have good genes."

Hmm. Ironic, because by wearing Spanx she acknowledges that in order to be considered an attractive woman, she must have a flat stomach. Maybe she didn't sweat her pregnancy kilos off, but wearing 'slimming' garments is actually no different because it signifies the adherence to normalised images of slenderness. Isla, in fact, you are literally buying into and participating in 'body fascism'.

I mean what could possibly be more 'body fascist' than shoving your post-preggo body into uber-tight lycra with 'tummy control' panels and 'slimming' liners? Yikes!

Sources: http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-02-12-isla-fisher_N.htm
www.spanx.com