IT'S THAT time of year again. Day after day we're subjected to photographs of sylph-like stars rubbing our runny noses in it as they enjoy their jollies on exotic shores, a different bikini for every day of the week. It's been business as usual for old bag o' bones Winehouse as she staggers her way around St Lucia and Paris Hilton is all loved up and Twittering in Anguilla. Yawn.
So it was a joy to behold Kate Moss sunbathing topless aboard Philip Green's yacht off the coast of Monaco recently. Nothing unusual in that, I hear you cry; the Croydon crumpet has her baps out at every available opportunity. But what's that I see?
Why, strike me dumb if the onetime waif doesn't have a spare tyre. Hallelujah. There is a god.
Then there was Julia Roberts, frolicking on a Hawaiian beach sporting an itsy bitsy polka-dot bikini and displaying the unmistakable Mississippi Delta of stretch marks across her middle.
Now before you write in helpfully pointing out that the 41-year-old has had three children (two of them twins, for heaven's sake) so is more than entitled to be a weeny bit wobbly, I wholeheartedly agree. She looked great, damn her (though the elaborate tattoo of her children's names just above the crack of her bahookie was less seemly). More important, she didn't seem remotely self-conscious about her wrinkly mummy tummy. And why should she? The actress has never been one to flaunt her curves and famously used a body double in Pretty Woman. "I won't do nudity in films," she said. "To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary." Here, here.
So why are we women still so hard on ourselves when it comes to our bodies? Do we forget or simply choose to ignore that those images of so-called perfection we are subjected to daily have been sucked, squeezed and photoshopped beyond all recognition?
One lovely and perfectly average-sized chum is a case in point: she has her heart set on a gastric band. Another has skin like porcelain yet is determined to get botox, while another recently put herself through one of the most punishing dietary regimes I have heard of, all in the name of health. The so-called apple and oil liver flush saw her consume two litres of apple juice and four apples daily for five days. On the sixth day she ate only vegetables along with the apple/juice combo, washed down with a cocktail of Epsom salts, olive oil and lemon juice. Yum.
Day seven, she reported from the safety of the downstairs loo between purges, was the worst of her entire life. Enough said.
A new over-the-counter diet supplement seems to work along similar lines. The makers of Alli advise of "unpleasant effects" should users consume more than 15g of fat at one time. Which may explain why they also suggest dieters wear dark clothing and never leave home without a change of underwear.
One online correspondent put things a little less obliquely: "You will leak orange foul-smelling oil from your tushy if you eat fatty foods. It will not clean with toilet paper, it will stain the toilet bowl until scrubbed with bleach, and it will leak through your pants uncontrollably, also staining your clothes (it is very hard to get out, even with bleach)."
He goes on but I think you get the message. Why would people put themselves through this? Wouldn't it be simpler just to eat healthily and exercise regularly? Or perhaps, with the holiday season approaching, rather than beating ourselves up and making ourselves ill, like Julia, we should just swim and bare it.
