People Magazine published an article on October 28th, 2022 with the headline "Sheryl Underwood Celebrates 95-Lb. Weight Loss by Wearing a Dress and Heels on The Talk for the First Time."
Now, I want to be very clear. I am not at all for tearing down a woman's choices about her own body, and that includes the decision to lose weight. Weight loss is not inherently bad. However, the reason behind why Ms. Underwood lost 95-pounds is something I'd like to discuss, because it goes directly against pro-recovery mentality.
For context, and to help those of you who don't want to read the entire article linked above, here are some of the most important quotes...
"...while celebrating her 59th birthday, the TV personality reached out of her biggest goals - losing what she felt like was enough weight to wear a dress and heels on the show for the first time. "
"'You see I crossed my leg twice,' she boasts again. 'You just want to feel sexy...and that's the great feeling about this and it makes you continue on this journey.'"
Here, I want to distinguish between weight loss for health reasons and weight loss to achieve society's standard of beauty. There is a difference between a medical professional telling you you need to lose weight, and you deciding for yourself that losing a bit of weight will make you feel better about yourself. I won't speculate about what Ms. Underwood's personal reasons for weight loss are, but I do worry about the messaging put out by People Magazine in this article.
The writers wrote this article with very targeted wording - specifically in the first quote. What is the weight where you can all the sudden wear a dress and heels? I've never heard of this - there's a specific number where that's allowed?
I hope I've made this distinction clear. Weight loss isn't bad in itself; it's the mindset and the reasoning behind it. Tying weight loss to a green flag on wearing dresses and heels is a start to tying weight loss to self-worth. When your weight becomes intertwined with your self-worth, that's when eating disorders can happen.
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