Unrealistic Fitness Standards For Celebs Are Both Unfair And Unnecessary

The obsession with unrealistic fitness standards and weight also enables people to ask invasive questions. Also, statements such as “You’ve gotten fat” are commonly thrown around with no hesitation. Not even mothers who just gave birth are spared from the invasive questions and statements about their bodies. In a humiliating incident, singer Victoria Beckham, also known as Posh Spice, recently opened up about the time when she was made to weigh herself on live television two months following the birth of her son. Just because somebody is a celebrity does not mean they have to share every detail about their life. Why are celebs forced to uphold unrealistic fitness standards?

Singer and fashion designer Victoria Beckham is married to football player David Beckham. Being a member of the prominent group Spice Girls meant that she was often in the spotlight. After Beckham gave birth to her son Brooklyn in 1999, she found herself on the live British talk show TFI Friday. She spoke about how she had lost a lot of weight after giving birth and how she was asked by the host of the show Chris Evans (not Captain America) to stand on a scale and be weighed.

Evans asked Beckham about her marriage, their baby, and most importantly, how she got back to her shape after birth. He asked whether her weight was “back to normal” and after Beckham said her weight was fine, he took out a weighing machine and asked, “Can I check, do you mind?”

Beckham who stepped onto the scale as Evans revealed the number to the audience, later described the stunt as “horrible”. Recalling how she had just lost a lot of weight after child birth, Beckham said in her recent interview, "It happened to my mum after her pregnancies. It doesn't mean you have an eating disorder. And he made me stand on the scales to be weighed." She further added, "Can you imagine doing that nowadays?"

Any talk show host would have truly faced a lot of flak for pulling such stunt today. But does that mean the intrusion in celebs' lives has gone down. Nope. See how Indian paparazzi follows celebs in and out of gyms for instance? How social media trolls actors mercilessly if they gain weight.

Suggested Reading: Dealing With Body Image Issues: How I Learnt To Love My Body More

Why Are Celebrities Subjected To Such Unrealistic Fitness Standards?

From fat-shaming actor Allu Arjun and saying he looks like a vada pav to checking the wait of Victoria Beckham two months after she gave birth, audiences and fans are too involved in the physical appearance and fitness standards of celebrities.

Do people really have nothing better to do than judge and mock celebrities based on their physical appearance? Why are celebrities expected to maintain their physical appearance to a certain unrealistic beauty standard for the sake of pleasing their followers?

Many of us love to joke about how our weight fluctuates on the basis of how much junk food we eat, yet somehow celebrities are expected to maintain peak physical condition? Can't they take a breather from the non-stop regime that is required to maintain those washboard abs? Must they power through grueling workouts even if they are not feeling up to the task mentally or physically?

Why Is Having Unrealistic Fitness Standards An Issue?

Constantly holding people to unrealistically high fitness standards makes them fixate on any “imperfection” about their bodies and lowers their self-esteem. Diet culture and extreme workout regimes are a result of chasing impossible fitness standards. The fear of judgement leads to people forcing themselves to push their bodies to the limit.

A study revealed that women that only viewed posts about fitness inspiration scored lower on self-compassion while women that viewed posts about compassion were kinder to themselves and felt better about their bodies and physical appearance.

Celebrities are constantly criticised for their appearance and are held to unhealthy and unrealistic standards. They are expected to look a certain way and mocked relentlessly if they don’t comply with unrealistic fitness standards. It's time that people began seeing celebrities as human beings and stopped projecting them as demi gods.

Image Credit: Vogue

Views expressed are the author’s own.