Various sites are already claiming that Jessica Simpson was Photoshopped to look slimmer on this Lucky Magazine September cover. I think it’s probably an interesting story, especially given that her profile excerpt includes her thoughts on body image, and obsessing on “looking like the perfect Barbie type, and that’s not always what’s beautiful.” Now, I’m not saying that this photo of Jessica wasn’t ‘Shopped. It was, totally. But it could have been WAY worse. It’s nice to see someone with serious curves on a September cover, even if it’s only for budget Lucky Mag. And I really don’t think they ‘Shopped her body that much - the most glaring work I see is on her neck. Jessica doesn’t have this long, slender neck in real life, so they did some work there. Here’s the excerpt from the mag:

Jessica Simpson has undergone a noteworthy personal style evolution, inspired, she says, by coming to terms with some serious body issues over the course of the last year. She stopped fighting her hourglass silhouette, for instance, after realizing that “we all obsess over looking like the perfect Barbie type, and that’s not always what’s beautiful. It’s about making peace with yourself.”

This sea change came out of her globe-spanning journey for her VH1 show, The Price of Beauty—a trip that also provided the tools to diversify her wardrobe. “I encountered such vibrant colors,” says Simpson, recalling shopping excursions that yielded ethnic accessories way out of her casual-pretty comfort zone: ornate Indian bangles, leather bags from North Africa. “Morocco was a huge influence on me when it comes to jewelry and fashion,” she says. “You can’t help but want to buy caftans when you’re there!”

[From Lucky Magazine]

I agree, it is about “making peace with yourself”. I don’t know about you ladies, but I hit the wall at some point in mid-twenties, and I stopped giving a sh-t if I fit into my goal size. I started taking better care of myself, eating better and drinking more water, and beyond that, I just stopped caring and made peace with my curvy body type (which is a lot like Jessica’s, only my ass is bigger).

Okay, now that I’ve defended her, I have to hate on Lucky Mag for this terrible ‘Shop job on this one photo - this is not Jessica’s real body, at all. I really think they just put Jess’s head on another model’s body!

Lucky cover courtesy of HuffPo.

Unlike her contemporaries, we don’t hear much from gorgeous Newlywed Penelope Cruz about her diet, exercise regime or how she keeps her bod so svelte. There may be a very good reason for that. You Magazine quotes her as saying that you don’t have to be thin to be pretty and that she would “close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young girls to diet.” (Please note that while these quotes are excellent and they sound legitimate, I could not verify on You Magazine’s website that she granted them an interview to go along with their cover story. All they have on their site is a general article about her under-the-radar marriage to Javier Bardem.)

She tells Britain’s You magazine, “I would close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young
girls to diet. Who says that to be pretty you have to be thin?

“Some people look better thin and some don’t. There is almost a standard being created where only thin is acceptable. The influence of those magazines on girls as young as 13 is horrific.”

The 36-year-old actress also says she’s determined to grow old “gracefully” like movie icons Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn, and that she’ll never play the Hollywood game of knocking a few years off her birth date.

“I never want to lie about my age,” she says. “If I look around at the actresses I admire, they are all women who have not fought growing older, but embraced it — women like Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn … It’s a good thing to be old, because that means you haven’t died yet right? And when I do get older, I want to have the grace to be proud of it, not to lie about it or try to fight it.

“The people who love me, love me for who I am. They love me for a mixture of things that makes anyone love another person, and those things will still be there when I am 40, 60 or 80.”

[From Wonderwall]

Actually the teen magazines and general media influence girls much younger than 13. It’s sad and disheartening. I hope that if Penelope said this she’ll repeat it in more interviews. We hear way too much about celebrity recommended diets and exercises and not enough reflection about how that influences fans, particularly young ones.

In related news about Ms. Cruz-Bardem, Johnny Depp has confirmed in a teaser trailer shown at Comic Con (below) that Penelope is set to star in fourth Pirates movie with him, On Stranger Tides, and called her character “vicious and vivacious.” I hope that the next Pirates film isn’t as bloated and hard to follow as the last one. At least the stars are highly watchable.

It’s been a while since we’ve had something interesting about my favorite redhead, Christina Hendricks. Christina is the cover girl for the July/August issue of Health Magazine, probably to promote the new season of Mad Men (in less than a month!!!). In the interview, Christina talks about how gorgeous she is and how happy she is that she’s a lovely, curvy woman. But instead of sounding like Jessica “My beauty hinders my career” Biel, Christina sounds like a sweetheart:

Mad Men star Christina Hendricks says she’s always been proud of her curvier figure.

“Back when I was modeling, the first time I went to Italy I was having cappuccinos every day, and I gained 15 pounds. And I felt gorgeous!” Hendricks, 35, tells the July/August issue of Health. “I would take my clothes off in front of the mirror and be like, Oh, I look like a woman. And I felt beautiful, and I never tried to lose it, ’cause I loved it!”

In February, the actress came under fire when the New York Times posted an article that slammed the star for flaunting her assets at the Golden Globe Awards. “You don’t put a big girl in a big dress,” the critic wrote.

“I made the grave mistake after one awards show of reading comments online about what I wore, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, people are so mean!’” Hendricks reveals. “I still remember all those negative comments, despite all the wonderful positivity. That’s why we’re all in therapy!”

Because of the criticism, the newlywed admits she’s surprised to learn she’s often cited as one of the most desirable bodies in Hollywood.

“Really? They don’t say Jessica Alba? ‘Cause that’s what I say!” she laughs. “It’s such a compliment, because of all those times I had agents who were like, “You have to lose some weight,” and all of a sudden, people are celebrating it.”

But the buxom redhead — who admits she could “sit down with a bag of chips and French onion dip and go to town” — also makes an effort to stay healthy by varying her gym routine.

“I get kind of bored on the treadmill, but I do it. And I do a little bit of weight training,” she says. “I’m really into the BOSU ball. You have to balance on it, and I do weights and squats on it. I’m pretty good at it — I feel sort of like a Karate Kid!”

[From Us Weekly]

I’m totally with her on the salty foods. Potato chips are the reason any attempt I make to diet is dead on arrival. Both my parents loved sweet stuff, and I don’t have a taste for cakes and pastries whatsoever. I can pass by a donut place and never feel a twinge, unlike the rest of my family. But put me near a McDonalds, and I have to go get some fries.

In another part of the interview, Christina credits her healthy body image on her mom: “I guess my mom raised me right. She was very celebratory of her body. I never heard her once say, ‘I feel fat.’” Mama Hendricks needs to come give me a pep talk. She also talks about playing Joan Holloway, the coolest girl on Mad Men: “When I first started to play her, I would think, Oh my God, I would never want to hang out with this person. She would crush me like a bug! And then, I started to love her. I think Joan and I have a “no excuses” kind of mentality—I’m going to stand by my decisions, no regrets, no apologies. But she is far more confident than I am. She’s far more confident than most women are in the world!” I really want Joanie and Roger to get back together this season.

Contact Music has some quotes from singer Jewel, who was interviewed in the latest issue of Shape on her body image. It’s kind of hearbreaking to hear that Jewel was so affected by press coverage calling her chubby that she once ate a whole cake and then tried to throw it up. She wasn’t successful, and she said that she vowed never to hurt her body to stay thin:

Singer JEWEL was driven to the brink of an eating disorder when she was once labelled “the chubby RENEE ZELLWEGER”.

The Who Will Save Your Soul star was horrified when she heard about the nasty nickname during her first few years in the spotlight, and admits the painful jibe left her on the verge of bulimia.

She tells Shape magazine, “My feelings were so hurt by that story, I ended up bingeing on an entire cake. Afterward, I actually tried to throw it all up, but thankfully I couldn’t do it.

“It made me think, ‘I can’t go down this road.’ I had seen so many performers develop eating disorders or try to control their weight with drugs, and I decided I would do no harm to my body.”

[From Contact Music]

The other day I was a restaurant bathroom when I heard the woman next to me go in, throw up quickly, and then come out like nothing was wrong. It was really obvious that it wasn’t morning sickness or food poisoning and I wanted to say something to her but I kept my mouth shut. It probably wouldn’t have helped her anyway.

I have struggled with my weight and am back on track through Weight Watchers now but I can completely relate to eating to cope with problems. I still have a hard time when I’m stressed out as I just want to reach for a high carb snack to cope. It’s hard to replace those habits with healthier ones and it’s easy to fall into a trap where you gain a lot of weight quickly. It’s easy to get started and then eat a lot of calories quickly if you’re in that crazy eating mindset. I want to give Jewel a hug and tell her it will be ok. She seems to have come to terms with whatever she was struggling with, anyway.

Oh have any of you read that new book that Oprah is touting as revolutionary, Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth? I haven’t read the whole thing yet but I did see an excerpt in O! and read the preview on Amazon and found myself relating to a lot of passages. I’m not a spiritual person and it touts that heavily, although there are a lot of lessons to be learned about our emotional reasons for eating. I think whenever we can slow down and question our relationship with food it helps.

Update: Here’s Jewel’s Shape cover and more quotes from her interview, via The Huffington Post.

On being called “the chubby Renee Zellweger” in the media years ago:
“My feelings were so hurt by that story, I ended up bingeing on an entire cake. Afterward, I actually tried to throw it all up, but thankfully I couldn’t do it. It made me think, ‘I can’t go down this road.’ I had seen so many performers develop eating disorders or try to control their weight with drugs, and I decided I would do no harm to my body.”

Her advice to women:
“We should be more like men, God bless ‘em. They can take their shirts off and show their man boobs, and they don’t give a hoot. But women are so critical of themselves. We can be gorgeous and hot and still be embarrassed to wear a tank top. So if you can’t stop looking in the mirror, at least try to not think badly about yourself when you do.”

On her diet:
“I try to stay away from an all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to food. It’s like a pendulum: The more extreme I am–like saying, ‘I’m not going to eat any carbs’–the further it’s going to swing to the other side and I’m going to binge. My dad sends me fresh salmon and halibut from Alaska as well as dried nettles, which I like to put into soups. I also eat a lot of raw vegetables or bitter greens, like kale and dandelion greens, lightly sautéed in olive oil. People are so fat-phobic these days, but eating good fats is important, which is why I always try to get some olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado into whatever I’m making.”

[Shape via Huffington Post]

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Here’s Jewel in 1999 and 2000 (first two photos below, first one is with South Park Creator Trey Parker). This may be the time period she’s talking about as it’s the only time I could find in which she looked even slightly larger than how tiny she is now. She’s lovely and not at all chubby. I also included a photo of her from 2002 and one from the 2010 CMAs as you can see how she had her teeth fixed very slightly. The header photo and other photos are recent and credit: WENN.com

1999:

2000:

2002:

2010:

2010:

Kim Kardashian is the June cover girl for Shape Magazine. Once again, just another photo to show just how much work Kim has had done to her face - and how recently. I swear she wasn’t this cat-like three months ago. I’m guessing Kim thinks that everyone will be looking at her body in this little bikini, and they won’t even notice how jacked her face is. She could be right. I didn’t even notice her face the first time I looked at the cover. To her credit, and the magazine’s credit, Kim’s body doesn’t look that ‘Shopped to me. I mean, I saw those bikini photos of Kim right after she and Reggie broke up, and she pretty much looked like this. So… good for her. She’s has a lovely figure.

Unfortunately, the scant interview excepts reveal a woman who has had serious body image issues since childhood. Perhaps that’s why she’s still spraying Windex on her food? Could be. It all started when Kim was the first girl in her class to develop breasts:

Even as a ten-year-old girl, Kim Kardashian was a trailblazer.

“I was the first girl in my class to wear a bra,” Kardashian, now 29, tells Shape magazine in its June issue.

But she wasn’t happy about it.

“I remember crying in the bathtub,” she admits. The future reality star even practiced a ritual to keep her cleavage from expanding.

“I took a washcloth, made it hot, put it over my chest and prayed, ‘Please don’t let them grow any bigger. They’re embarrassing me.’”

Why the self-loathing?

She told Shape magazine: “All my friends were super-skinny and that just wasn’t my body type. And I watched my mum, who was always comfortable with herself and she helped me with my outlook.”

“I have curves and that’s never going to change, so I’d better start embracing them or I’m going to have a miserable life. It took me a while, but I finally caught on.”

However, she admits she’ll never embrace the bane of many a woman’s life - cellulite.

She added: “Just because I feel secure with my body doesn’t mean I think cellulite is cute! It will always be an issue for me. So let’s just say it’s a work in progress.”

[Shape excerpts from The Sun & Us Weekly]

F-ck, I have something in common with Kim. I, too, was the first girl to develop in my class, but I didn’t have the issues with it that Kim seemed to. I liked when my boobs came in. It was only when I was 16 and 17 years old that they got really big and started being a pain in the ass. What do you think Kim is? Like, a 36D? Those were the days.

Shape cover courtesy of Hot Celebs.