(Mis)measuring weight: thinness as an indicator of female success
Photography by Matilda Singer
Rebecca Lyons discusses implications of the media’s fixation on Adele’s weight loss.
After a prolonged media hiatus, Adele’s recent reappearance into the public eye follows the announcement of her £140 million divorce, concluding three years of marriage with entrepreneur Simon Konecki. This would otherwise seem like a wholly typical occurrence: the predictable staging of a well-known celebrity publicity stunt involving a dramatic caterpillar-to-butterfly like reinvention.
What stood out was the subsequent media coverage of this event, which fixated on Adele’s noticeable weight loss, a topic apparently deemed worthy of front page coverage in multiple national newspapers. Within a day, a Google search for ‘Adele’s weight loss’ generated over twenty-six million results; The Mail Online commended the “singer [who] looks slimmer than ever,” The Sun praised her “tiny figure” and revelatory “beauty”, whilst others branded the weight loss a “success story”. Taking to Instagram, the star herself posted a photograph from the evening, captioned “I used to cry but now I sweat. #gingermckenna.”
Adele’s wording echoes that of destructive A-lister statements in the past, like '90s supermodel Kate Moss’ memorable 2009 interview with Women’s Wear Daily. When asked what motto she lived by, the model responded “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, a quote adopted by pro-anorexia websites, which would serve as their mantra for years to come. It took almost a decade for Moss to retract the proclamation that caused widespread outrage amongst eating disorder and mental health awareness groups. She explained that the line was said as merely “a little jingle”, and expressed regret over the attention it caused. Whilst Moss’s recent backtracking can be viewed as a move in the right direction, it’s of fundamental importance that celebrities grasp the profound impact of their off-hand remarks. In an age of social media hyperactivity, celebrities hold greater sway than ever before, with significant numbers of impressionable young fans blindly emulating their every move.
Adele’s unparalleled achievements throughout her career are nothing less than remarkable. Winning nine Brit Awards, a Golden Globe award, an Academy Award, eighteen Billboard Music Awards, fifteen Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, and two Ivor Novello Awards, all before the age of 30, is an undeniably impressive feat. Signed three days after leaving school at just 16, Adele’s debut album, 19, won the Brit Awards for Critics’ Choice, with her second studio album, 21, maintaining the top position on US charts for no short of 24 weeks. With her endearing personality and apparent lack of ego, Adele won over the public early in her career, establishing herself as a national treasure and global icon.
I myself have long admired the singer, recalling the lengths I went to buy tickets to see her live, and the magnificence of her performance at my first-ever concert. Perhaps this personal appreciation for her talent and refreshing individuality amplifies the disappointment I felt in light of Adele’s recent celebrity conformism. Adele has long stood as defiant, a woman breaking through glass ceilings in an industry obsessed with thinness. With every achievement and award she’s won, Adele has silenced the critical voices of Hollywood; and yet, this ennobled body “transformation” seems to be the antithesis of the voice of female empowerment that she’s previously represented.
By no means am I suggesting that the individual choice to alter one’s lifestyle is an outrageous offence deserving of criticism, neither am I seeking to criminalise a consciously nutritious diet, nor attack the desire to lose weight. Every person is entitled to their bodily autonomy, and should weight loss be in pursuit of enhanced health or a heightened sense of self-esteem, I am in full support of it. What I intend to challenge is the dangerous idea that success is in direct correlation with one’s weight loss, which furthers the notion that women’s worth is quantifiable by a numerical value: their weight. The bombardment of sponsored weight-loss content advertised over social media is a deliberate, cruel form of intimidation that targets women’s vulnerabilities.
The aggressive onslaught of media coverage on celebrities’ appearances has deep-seated roots: the rigidity of the feminine beauty ideal isn’t a new phenomenon. The Grimms’ Fairy Tales, first published in 1812, formed the foundation of typical Disney fantasies, rewarding beauty by associating it with virtuousness. In our current society, which idolises thinness through mainstream media companies (Disney being a prime example), tabloids’ fixation on women’s weight is unsurprising.
In a recent interview with The Independent, activist and actress Jameela Jamil spoke of launching her online campaign “i weigh”, which encourages women to post a picture of themselves alongside a list of their achievements. With the movement gaining close to one million followers, Jameela declares that “Time’s up on women being sold as nothing more than flesh on our bones.” Jameela views the encouragement of female thinness as a reflection of society’s exploitation of women; the notion that desirability should be awarded is entirely fabricated, an absurdity we need to stop reinforcing.
Such potent appraisal of a woman’s body, scrutinised through distorted “before” and “after” images, is a shocking abuse of media power, with profoundly damaging effects. Adele’s beauty and artistic talent has no relevance to the size of the dress she wears. The idea that she is “a new object of desire” perpetuates a dangerous eating disorder mindset. In order to change the way that we value women and define our own worth, it is crucial that the media is challenged on their depictions of ridiculously narrow limits within which women are deemed “attractive”.
I implore the media to recognise the psychological cost behind these toxic messages of thinness, and to understand that each negligent headline further convinces a woman of her inadequacy. It is time to change the narrative, and to rewrite social constructs which undermine female accomplishments; because our achievements as women carry so much more weight.
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