Pregorexia is not caused by celebrity pregnancy

I'm getting really sick of reading about 'pregorexia'. In fact, it annoys me even more that the media is now suggesting that women are become pregorexic because of celebrities. While I'll be the first person to agree that celebrity culture is inherently problematic, the truth is that celebrities are actually not extremely significant in the life of the average woman and pregorexia is more likely to arise from significant body image issues that already existed prior to pregnancy. In fact, most body image issues in pregnancy are pre-existing. In my study, I found that sisters and best friends were far more important when it came to worrying about weight loss post-baby. If a sister lost baby weight quickly, that was more meaningful than if Angelina Jolie or Katie Holmes lost weight quickly as well. On the CBS Early Show yesterday, this doctor, Holly Phillips, was quoted as saying:

"I think we've never before been more kind of obsessed with celebrity culture, and with celebrity pregnancies, as well. It's not unusual to see pictures of these celebrities the day before and the day after birth and they're looking super-humanly fit. They're really incredible. "

I think these comments seem to assume that pregnant women (or women in general) are just these passive receptacles of popular culture, unthinking and unwilling to resist the templates of idealised beauty that put before them. Sure lots of women read gossip magazines. Heaps of women read them in my study. But, women are quite realistic when it comes to thinking about celebrities. Although my informants were interested in celebrity pregnancy and often felt badly about themselves when they couldn't lose their baby weight quickly, in the end, they would always recognise that celebrities are thin for a reason: it's their job. I hate the fact that the newsmedia constantly suggests that celebrities are like these demigods that all women, everywhere, aspire to become. Now, sure I have this blog which focuses on celebrities so you might think I'm a hypocrite but I have this blog because I think it's important to critique celebrity culture, not to constantly pay fawning tribute to these actresses just because they manged to get knocked up.

Phillips continued to say that "it's wonderful that pregnant women now have designer styles to choose from, especially those that celebrate and compliment the pregnant shape. It only becomes a problem when women become unhealthily fixated on remaining a specific size."

Yeah, well mainstream maternity wear is not necessarily 'celebratory'. In fact, it requires that pregnant women be comfortable with their size and shape in order to wear tightly fitted outfits. That in itself, is a problem, not just the fact that pregnant women worry about their weight gain. This is why alot of the women in my study didn't wear maternity clothing necessarily: they often reported feeling extremely ambivalent about wear something that would invite other people to look at them. Thus, some of these really complex experiences of pregnancy in 'public' just become watered down in the media.

Anyway, I'll just take a deep breath now and step away from the computer.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/11/earlyshow/health/main4337521.shtml

Mixed bag of pregnancy lollies

Information that you probably could probably do without. Sometimes it amazes me that these things are considered 'news' items:

Angelina Jolie did not conceive her twins through IVF:

"If they had been conceived through IVF, we would have been happy to discuss it," she says. "But we have been fortunate never to have had fertility problems."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jQchnBNzoLcNg4Ze-NPgs1i5XdggD92BNCQO1

Rebecca Romijn is craving ice cream, lots of it.
http://www.usmagazine.com/rebecca-romijns-pregnancy-craving-a-lot-of-ice-cream

And pregorexia is back in the news. Yay for moral panics!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1041605/Plague-pregorexics-How-women-dieting-exercising-pregnancy-cost-babys-health.html

I've already written about it, check out the older posts: http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2007/10/pregorexia-eating-for-one.html
http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2008/03/pregorexia-update.html

Pregorexia: update

In October, I wrote about 'pregorexia' the 'new' term for anorexia in pregnancy. In the post, I cited an article from The Sun which profiled 2 women who supposedly were 'pregorexic'. http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2007/10/pregorexia-eating-for-one.html

As it turns out, Laura Preston, one of the women featured in the article, contacted me and would like to clarify a few things about The Sun feature:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article314257.ece

I did not write about Laura directly in my blog post, however she says she's not anorexic and instead was diagnosed with Hyperemisis--extreme morning sickness. She was unable to contact the newspaper so here is her clarification:

'When I did this story it was being queried as to whether I had an eating disorder or not. In the end it turned out to be an illness called 'Hyperemisis' which I had with my first son too. This is basically like anorexia where you are sick throughout the day and can't stop but it is NOT self inflicted. The quotes in the article are all VERY false, being a mum to me is such a responsibility and I love it and would never harm my babies whether in or out of my womb. The picture that they took was actually taken the very day I turned 5 months pregnant and yes I do look skinny, I lost weight during my pregnancy at first but I was only out of hospital a few days before it was taken. That was the last time I was in hospital, after which the sickness calmed down and I enjoyed eating a lot and actually in the end I got told to slow down! I have complained to the magazine and the sun paper about this story but they deny what I say as being true.'

For more info about hyperemisis: http://www.helpher.org/hyperemesis-gravidarum/