Not that anyone will get this far, but I figured I might as well post my views. Thank you, Quicksilver, for starting this thread. I also was pretty annoyed at the, “eat something, you skinny bitch,” attitude that was displayed in that other thread but didn’t want to go into it there since it would have been a derailment. I’m not going to attack anyone or get into any arguments. I’m also not going to speculate on Simpson’s surgery or lack of; the truth is that no one knows for sure except her.
One thing I can say is that she is not too skinny.
Looking at the original linked picture, you can clearly see good muscle tone in her legs. You can even see chest muscle from the side angle, and from the front you can see decent tone on her arms too. Her stomach muscles are not clearly visible–her abdomen shows a rounded outline of the muscles–which indicates that she has a layer of fat over well-developed stomach muscles. On the side view, she has a slight sag at the upper arm, indicative of fat deposits, and from the front, you can see creases at her armpits, which also show that she has a layer of fat under her skin. In the pictures, you can see that she’s got nice rounded hips, and though you don’t see it in those pictures, I remember from other pictures I’ve seen that she’s got a round rear too. She wouldn’t have either if she were underfed. You need a decent amount of both muscle and fat to get that look.
From everything visible, she has a healthy amount of body fat for a woman who obviously exercises regularly and does not over-eat. The only advice I would give her is to do some more upper body work so that her development would be a bit more balanced. She probably concentrates on lower body workouts so that she doesn’t get “too big” in the upper body. If she worked her arms as much as she works her legs, I’d bet that she’d show a decent bulge in her biceps if she flexed.
In my opinion, anyone whose reaction to seeing those pictures is that Jessica Simpson is too skinny has an unreasonable view of fitness. Yes, she has relatively low body fat, but she is not undernourished or unhealthy.
I don’t think that either a perfectionistic or permissive attitude toward body shapes is good. An inflated ideal is harmful because some people try to change their natural form too much to conform to that ideal, whether that ideal is held by society at large or just in their own minds. The opposite view of greater tolerance for people being out of shape is harmful because it encourages people to make excuses or just not care when it comes to maintaining a healthy body weight.
I was shocked at how many frankly obese people I saw in the US the last time I went back. People’s perceptions have been skewed so much by the average American’s body shape that they think that should be the norm. It should not be the norm. My youngest sister gets snark all the time because she exercises regularly and eats a healthy diet. To most people’s eyes she’s “too skinny” and her “cheeks are hollow.” She’s actually got around 20 percent body fat, give or take a percent or two depending on her workout schedule. She’s in great shape and she doesn’t starve herself. She actually ate a bit more than I did when we had dinner together on my last visit. Healthy and in-shape apparently equals too skinny in many people’s perceptions.
On a slightly different topic, I’ll add that men’s sizes have changed too, it’s not just women’s sizes. I went back to the US for a visit this winter and while I was there I went shopping for jeans, since half of mine from 3-4 years ago have worn out and I’d lost some weight over the last year and a half. I figured that I was probably down to about a 31-32 inch waist since I was somewhere between 33-34 when I was overweight. I was sure that I hadn’t lost enough to get back to a 30 inch waist, since I haven’t been that skinny since I was putting in 3 hour workouts in swimming and diving back in high school.
My old “skinny jeans,” which were 31x32, fit okay but I figured that they were probably stretched out a bit from my earlier weight gain. I tried on a couple of pairs of 32x32s in different styles, confident that they would fit but maybe be a bit loose. The damn things would have slid completely off if I didn’t have a decent butt. To get the waist to even get close to fitting, I had to go down to a 30x32, but then the thighs were too tight to be comfortable except in “Baggy” styles, which made me look like a wannabe hipster.
Waist sizes in the US have inflated between 1 and 2 inches, and apparently the norm is not to have muscular legs anymore. I wasn’t able to find any brand that fit well. Granted, I haven’t been able to wear Levis 501s for years because my legs got too big when I started putting on bulk post-adolescence, but the waist size should not have changed since it’s supposedly based on the actual measurement.
US clothing sizes are obviously a useless way of categorizing fitness or body type. Even men’s stuff doesn’t really fit the way it should. Hell, at 5’10", I should not have to sometimes wear an XL shirt just so it fits okay in the shoulders. I’m not anywhere near as muscular as I would like to be and I’m starting to get to the edges of the current size charts. I used to be a solid L, XL would have been way too big. What do big guys, or guys who are in really good shape do to get clothes that fit?
