The “Curvy” Jig is Up Angels
image courtesy dailymail.co.uk
In a new interview, Victoria’s Secret ‘Angel’ Adriana Lima reveals the grueling pre-show diet and fitness regime she and her fellow glamazons adhere to. Since those lingerie catalogues jammed our mailboxes in the early nineties, the Victoria’s Secret brand has sky rocketed to household name success on the premise of celebrating women’s natural sensuality, giving us a new and empowering leash on our own sexuality via lacy pushup bras and cute thongs. I can remember thumbing through page after page of the insanely bodacious Laetitia Casta, wistfully hoping my twiggy preteen frame would one day fill out into similarly Venusian proportions. In the intervening years, Victoria Secret models have become rock stars in the fashion world, some (notably the thinest) regularly grace fashion week runways of the top maisons.
However, in the intervening time between sexy underwear retailer to full-on fashion and beauty phenom, the standard of the models’ figures has also switched from buxom to skeletal. The Angels are modern paradigms of beauty, albeit a conventional low-brow variety. I’ve YouTubed countless Victoria’s Secret model makeup tutorials in effort to emulate their uncanny mix of girl-next-door wholesome health and smoldering sexiness. The fact that these women are hot is not in question, to suggest otherwise would be to admit the basest of catty envy. It would also suggest that I find my own (cough) fluffy physique less appealing.
Reading up on Adriana’s pre-game “health” plan was disturbing. She works out her athletic physique twice a day a month in advance. Her trainer explains that this is akin to a professional athlete – and hey, I’m not going to knock an aggressive exercise routine as I sit typing on my laptop, trainers gathering dust in the dark recesses of my closet. The diet is another matter entirely. Not only does her dietician weigh all food consumed to make sure she doesn’t put on an extra milligram, but she stops consuming all fluids 12 hours prior to show time. That’s just flipping crazy. Usually, models are renowned for chugging bottled water like alcoholics at an open bar. To forgo hydration in favor of peeing out the excess “water weight” (aka what 70% of our bodies are made of) is not healthy. Nor is the hyper-vigillance on maintaining an artificially thin frame.
I do assert that dehydration and weighing of all food intake is not part of a healthy fitness plan – don’t care what you say Candice ‘Skeltor’ Swanepoel – it just ‘aint right ladies! Furthermore it sets the bar ever higher for what is considered attractive, leaving normal (sane) women at a loss and yet still feeling the innate urge to compete. The whole point of lingerie and VS by extension is to (let’s not kid ourselves) highlight sexual attractiveness. Read: REPRODUCTIVE APPEAL. Starvation, physical exhaustion and dehydration are not ideal candidates for promoting health, not to mention fertility. It’s a self defeating game that leaves the young women who idolize the Angels without feasible recourse to emulate the bodies they and the media adore.
It’s time for a reality check, take a quick survey of the men in your life. I guarantee if you can get them to focus for five seconds, they will in fact tell you that they don’t give a rat’s ass about cellulite, they like real curves (not size zero “curvy” models with dangerously sharp collar bones ) and really, lingerie is a pointless roadblock on the trip to freaky town. If the whole schtick that VS is schilling is empowering sexuality for women, feeling good about your God-given bod is a logical first step, mental glamazons be damned. On that note, I had banana cookies and pasta in cream sauce for breakfast — never felt sexier.
