Valerie Bertinelli bikini cover raises feminist eyebrows

I had some issues with the Valerie Bertinelli People magazine bikini cover shot and apparently I wasn’t the only one. Julie Neumann, a freelance journalist from Austin, Texas, posted an insightful article about our overwhelming obsession with dropping weight to achieve personal fulfilment. Neumann, a recovering bulimic, makes some excellent points about where the Bertinelli story went wrong:

Because age is one of the ways our society discriminates against women’s bodies, the story initially appears inspirational. “A bikini? I’m too old for bikinis!” cries Bertinelli. “Then I realized, Wait a minute. Why not a bikini?” But the article quickly devolves into a glorified diet ad.

At times, it goes a step further, eerily echoing eating disorder rhetoric. “I’m just one jalapeno popper away from being 40 lbs. heavier again,” says Bertinelli. She adds that every time she looks in the mirror, “My eyes go immediately to the parts I don’t like, the jiggly bits.”

This type of story reinforces extreme dieting and negative body image. Bertinelli claims, “We all just need to appreciate our bodies for what they are, jiggly bits and all.” But she obviously could not do that herself. Not only did she diet down to 132 lbs. in nine months, she got down to 123 for the photo shoot, hiring a personal trainer and restricting her calories to rock bottom levels. Now she vows to “stay vigilant” and keep working on her waistline. [Source]

The photo made me mad because I seriously didn’t believe it was anything other than a Photoshop masquerade. Even it Bertinelli really was bikini ready for the picture, Neumann points out additional hypocrisies that are worthy of note.