Is Losing Pregnancy Weight In 11 Days Something We Should Applaud?

Arjun Rampal’s partner is in news for losing all her pregnancy weight in just 11 days. A leading English daily has called Gabriella Demetriades ‘model mama’ for sweating it out in the gym merely two weeks after giving birth to her son. Their caption has naturally earned them some wrath, and rightly so. Weight gain during pregnancy and the ensuing difficulty to lose it after delivery is an ordeal millions of women have to go through. While many succeed in getting back into shape, many struggle with a life time shame, anxiety and body dysmorphia because they can’t lose their pregnancy weight. Besides, is it even healthy to push your body to such an extent, which is already dealing with exhaustion brought on by delivery and new motherhood? Should we be applauding this ‘model mama’ without fully understanding the consequences it can bring upon a new mum?

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• A leading daily has deemed Arjun Rampal's girlfriend as ‘model mama’ for losing her pregnancy weight in 11 days.
• Should we be celebrating rapid weight loss in new mother at all? 
• Wouldn't it put the well-being of new mums at risk, if done unsupervised?
• The last thing a mother with an infant to care for should have to worry about is ‘slimming down.’

Is it even healthy to push your body to such an extent, which is already dealing with exhaustion brought on by delivery and new motherhood? Should we be applauding this ‘model mama’ without fully understanding the consequences it can bring upon a new mum?

Let us make one thing clear. I am not advocating an unhealthy lifestyle here. But then being healthy itself is a concept that takes different meanings in different stages of life. For a new mother, being healthy means taking proper rest, eating well, since she is still eating for two, and accumulating strength for the challenges that new motherhood will present her with. And yes, one may take up exercising to gain strength and stamina. However, the focus should be on staying fit, not losing pregnancy weight as fast as possible.

Dear @MumbaiMirror... A new mother losing all her pregnancy weight in just 11 days after the baby’s birth is NOT really a “Model Mama”. Stop setting these idiotic standards for the rest of the womenfolk. Stop being stupid. pic.twitter.com/jzLKXUNOFf

— Vaibhav Vishal (@ofnosurnamefame) August 1, 2019

The larger problem with this headline is that it glorifies rapid weight loss, that too without including a medical opinion. Such glorifications can be dangerous for young weight conscious mothers, who measure beauty and fitness purely by the weighing scale. Wouldn’t it be better to talk to your doctor about it? I also wonder what the newspaper could have done differently. Perhaps they could have opted for a headline which didn’t glorify rapid weight loss, or they could have included a disclaimer or an expert’s opinion with it. Or perhaps they could have not carried the story at all. Seriously, why is it news that a woman lost her pregnancy weight very fast?

Pregnancy is not a phase when a woman should have to worry about weight gain, because it is inevitable. You will lose that trim waistline, and even after child birth most of us carry the remnants of this miracle in form of stretch marks and saggy tummies

But alas, the news we get is the news we want. If a daily is devoting a column to Arjun Rampal’s girlfriend losing weight, then that is what readers must be interested in. Which brings us to our own obsession with ‘slimming’ down. Pregnancy is not a phase when a woman should have to worry about weight gain, because it is inevitable. You will lose that trim waistline, and even after child birth most of us carry the remnants of this miracle in form of stretch marks and saggy tummies for a lifetime. Unless you are really blessed by the almighty, or have enough money to opt for a cosmetic procedure or can hire a fleet of trainers and dieticians to get you back in your pre-pregnancy shape.

Not a lot of women can avail such facilities, and which is why we need to stop looking for fitness goal amidst women who can. Besides, no two bodies are the same, so how can they react to pregnancy or weight loss regimens identically? Pregnancy weight doesn’t make us any less beautiful unless of course we refuse to see our own beauty beyond the parameters of cellulite and BMI.

Picture Credit: medicalnewstoday.com

Also Read: Jason Momoa Shamed For ‘Dad Bod’: Are You Kidding Me?

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own.