There’s a new double “0” in Hollywood, and it’s not James Bond.
It’s the dress size of stick-thin celebrities whose hollowed-out cheeks, bony chests and protruding pelvic bones have dominated the coverage of star-obsessed tabloids.
Nicole Richie, Kate Bosworth, Victoria Beckham, Ellen Pompeo and Keira Knightley are part of a rail-thin rotation of stars who have been accused of eating disorders in celebrity magazines. The starlets have denied having any disorders. But how thin is too thin?
Local health and fitness experts say this question is coming up more often as celebrity envy blurs the line between a focused fitness plan and an unhealthy obsession with weight.
They also say one size–particularly that double-0–does not fit all and if you’re not careful, pursuing a super-skinny figure can jeopardize your health.
Kristin Kaye said she learned that lesson all too well after a battle with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that includes self-starvation, distorted body image and compulsive exercise.
The 18-year-old former junior national rhythmic gymnastics champion said her illness began to show in March 2003.
“At the time, it just looked better when thinner gymnasts performed routines,” said Kaye, now a resource counselor for Highland Park-based National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. “My coaches didn’t pressure me to be a certain weight, but I was a perfectionist.
“Other coaches and other girls were very focused on staying a certain weight, and I began really controlling what I ate. That’s when things got serious,” said Kaye, a Northbrook resident and Bradley University student.
Kaye’s weight plummeted from lack of nutrition combined with rigorous exercise, she said. By June 2003, her parents forced her into the first of two eating disorder programs. Kaye, who said she suffered a relapse at the end of 2003, has since recovered but has changed her life dramatically.
“I had to stop gymnastics for treatment, and I never went back,” Kaye said. “I had to find other interests that didn’t have such a focus on weight.”
Another thing she gave up: celebrity magazines.
“You look at the magazines and the beautiful celebrities, and you just want to be like them,” Kaye said. “I don’t want to relapse, so I can’t let those magazines trigger me.”
But far too many people, particularly young women, continue to concentrate on the shrinking size of celebrities.
“I have a client who weighed about 118 pounds, was maybe 5-foot-7-inches tall, but she still didn’t feel she was lean enough,” personal trainer and Bar Fitness owner Patrick Kamara said. “She would bring up people like Victoria Beckham when talking about her fitness goals.”
That kind of thinking is dangerous, said registered dietitian Christine Palumbo, who advises adults to avoid size-obsession and instead assess themselves by body mass index, the ratio between height and weight.
According to that calculation, Kamara’s client’s BMI was 18.5, on the bubble of being underweight. A BMI score of less than 18.5 poses health risks, including loss of bone density and low resistance to infections, Palumbo said.
“If you lose too much weight and too quickly, you are also losing muscle in your arms and legs,” Palumbo said. “You can even lose weight in your heart, which you have to remember is also a muscle.” This could lead to the weakening of the heart, she said.
Kaye said the dramatic drop in her weight–which she declined to quantify as part of her new outlook that pounds shouldn’t matter–took its toll on her health in only two months.
“I look at videotapes of my gym routines in March [2003], and it was the best routine in March,” Kaye said. “The worst ever was in May [2003] because I just didn’t have the strength, power or stamina anymore, and it was evident.”
Those same symptoms apply to the average individual, Palumbo said.
“You should only be losing about one-half to one pound per week, even if it is frustrating and appears to be too slow,” Palumbo said. “You have to be careful that you’re not losing energy and that your skin doesn’t look or feel different. You shouldn’t be pale, and your eyes shouldn’t look sunken.”
Palumbo said she thinks she sees some of these signs in celebrities, including Knightley and Bosworth, but emphasized that it’s hard to debunk their denials of eating disorders without “spending a day watching them eat or talking to them about their body image.”
And even if your favorite celeb is losing weight the right way, don’t be fooled into thinking you can fit into their skinny jeans.
“Most of us have schools and jobs to attend to, and we don’t have time to spend four hours a day at the gym,” Palumbo said. “And we can’t afford to have a personal staff telling us what and when to eat. Trying to look the way they do is not likely to happen for you unless it’s the result of genetics.”
Kaye said people might be more realistic about weight if magazines shifted the focus off of celebrity size.
“These magazines don’t realize that while they may be saying someone looks horrible or is too thin, there are young girls out there with an eating disorder or the beginnings of one,” Kaye said. “They may be too far gone to see the ‘horrible’ in the headlines. Instead, they are scanning that article for tips on how to get down to that size.”
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kkyles@tribune.com
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WARNING SIGNS
Dieting is one of the surest paths to an eating disorder because it places too much focus on food, said Vivian Hanson Meehan, president of the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders in Highland Park. The average person doesn’t realize how easy it is to fall into what she called disordered eating, a precursor to a full-blown disorder.
Here are some warning signs that you may be taking your fitness goals too far, or even suffering from anorexia or bulimia:
– Obsession with counting calories
– Taking entire food sub-categories, such as bread, out of your diet because they are “bad” foods
– Eating inadequately or enormously
– Losing muscle in addition to fat, which manifests itself in losing some of your physical stamina
– Constant, negative thoughts about your body
EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON THIN
With all the rumors–and photos–floating around the Web and in magazines showing super-skinny celebrities, RedEye asked local fitness, dieting and modeling experts to weigh in on whether certain starlets look too slim.
While the experts couldn’t say for certain whether these slim celebs are suffering from eating disorders without evaluating or talking to them, they based their opinions on these media photos supplied by RedEye and their own expertise.
Here’s what registered dietitian Christine Palumbo, personal trainer Patrick Kamara and Jaffa Modeling International owner Jaffa Odum had to say about these skinny stars as well as what the celebs have said about themselves in the wake of gossip.
— Kyra Kyles
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Kate Bosworth
Bosworth made a splash in Hollywood when she starred as a shapely, toned surfer girl in 2002’s “Blue Crush.” But in the summer of 2006, Bosworth–who had recently starred in “Superman Returns” as Lois Lane–emerged with a shockingly skinny frame. So shocking that Us Weekly has established a “Sternum Watch” on its site, showing various photos of Bosworth bending over to reveal a bony chest and ribcage.
Palumbo: She looks like she has no butt. She also looks like she has no hips. I would like to see another picture of her, but in this one, her body looks thin everywhere, ultra thin.
Kamara: I’ve seen worse pictures of her, but she looks pretty skinny. Now, she does look better than those twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. They are scary.
Odum: Her legs look skinny. I don’t think she looks that bad here, but I’d have to see her in person.
Bosworth has told Us Weekly in the past that she does not have an eating disorder and is naturally thin.
Ellen Pompeo
As the Grey in “Grey’s Anatomy,” Ellen Pompeo found herself facing tabloid scrutiny for skinniness last year.
Palumbo: She has a nice long torso, looks slender, but she’s got hips. She looks OK. She could be naturally thin, but I’d have to see her in person to be sure.
Kamara: Her arms are lean, and it looks like she works out. If you look down, there is some muscle around the knee, looks like she has been working out. It looks like she could be naturally thin.
Odum: Her legs look OK, but her arms are really thin. In the chest, there seems to be some extra thinness. I can’t be sure, but it doesn’t look healthy to me. I wouldn’t send a model out that looked like this.
Pompeo, who told People magazine she is about 5 feet7 inches and weighs 100 pounds, said she eats normally but is naturally thin.
Victoria Beckham
Beckham, the artist formerly known as Posh Spice, began attracting British tab attention for a newly waifish figure in 2000.
Palumbo: She is slender everywhere: arms, waistline, bust and thighs. This could be somebody who is naturally thin, but more than likely, it looks like she is not eating enough calories to maintain a healthy weight.
Kamara: With the clothes she has on, she doesn’t look too bad. But I’ve seen pictures of her in the past in which she looks way too skinny.
Odum: If somebody sent me something that looked like this to my e-mail, I would delete it immediately. There are pelvic bones showing even though she has on a lot of clothes.
Beckham shot down anorexia rumors during a recent BBC interview, according to People magazine. “I eat really healthy, I love Japanese food, lots of fish, any sort of fish, any sort of vegetable, lots of fruit, that kind of thing,” she said. “I think there’s a big difference between someone having an eating disorder and someone who is controlled about what they eat.”
Nicole Richie
While co-starring with Paris Hilton during the first season of “The Simple Life” in 2003, Richie was the thicker of the tabloids’ favorite frenemies. But by 2005, Richie was flaunting a new pencil-thin figure, and in October 2006, her publicist announced that the celeb was undergoing treatment to deal with her shrinking figure.
Palumbo: Too thin, and the more vehemently she denies having some kind of problem, it sends up a bigger red flag.
Kamara: I saw one photo of her where she had on short-shorts, and her legs looked like arms. It was pretty much horrible. This pose here makes her legs look thicker, but she is way too thin.
ODUM: To me, her head looks really huge. She is too small for many of my clients who wouldn’t want to taper outfits to this small size. This doesn’t look right.
In November, Richie told Us Weekly: “I’m not in rehab, and I don’t have an eating disorder. I’m getting the help I need and taking care of my health.”
Keira Knightley
In addition to battling undead pirates in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Knightley has found herself fighting rumors of anorexia stemming from her recent ultra-thin appearance when compared to her more solid figure in her star-making role in “Bend it Like Beckham.”
Palumbo: She looks like a skeleton with makeup. If this isn’t someone with an eating disorder, I don’t know who is.
Kamara: She looks horrible in the photo and … her BMI will indicate she is severely underweight.
Odum: She looks very frail, unhealthy, and I wouldn’t be interested in representing someone that looks like this.
During a press conference for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” in July, Knightley acknowledged a family history of anorexia but denied suffering from it. “I’m not saying there aren’t people in the film industry that suffer from it, because I am sure that there are, Knightley told the press. “But I’m quite sure I don’t have it.”
— Kyra Kyles
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TELL US
Do you think celebs try too hard to be thin? Or do you think skinny stars look good? Tell us at ritaredeye@tribune.com. Include your full name, age and neighborhood.
