Rosie Mortimer: 'Don’t hate me for being thin'

‘Hot Feminists’ argue that they’re not betraying the sisterhood. Rosie Mortimer explains why being slim is not a character flaw

Confident: Rosie Mortimer (Picture: Rebecca Reid)

Rebecca Reid

Rosie Mortimer

29 May 2015

The other night one of my friends tried to convince me that it was “un-feminist” for women to care about their weight or to aspire to be thin. “People shouldn’t try to look good just for men,” she announced. But what if you are not doing it for men, I replied. What if you are just thin? The truth is: no one likes the thin girl. There’s only one thing worse: a thin girl who shrugs and says she’s perfectly happy with the way she looks. Actually she quite likes it.

“Thin-shaming” is everywhere and the debate around it never louder than this week when journalist Polly Vernon’s book, Hot Feminist, came out. In it she says it’s OK to be thin and feel sexy because being thin and sexy does not let the sisterhood down. Vernon wrote about being thin (and loving it) back in 2003 and has been criticised ever since.

Society’s schizophrenic attitude to being thin is confusing. We are obsessed by healthy eating and fitness. The diet industry in the UK is now worth £2 billion annually and the health and fitness club market £2.67 billion. Every year 55 per cent of Britons diet and only five per cent of women say they never think about their weight. Slimming World is the fifth most popular magazine in the country.

So why then, when so many are trying to lose weight, have we become so “thinnist”? As a teenager I was very thin, a British size 4 at one point (a US size zero), but this was in no way because I did not eat. My mother was seven stone at 20. By the time I was 17 and working as a model in London I was living off white carbs — bread, pasta, etc — because they were cheap.

This was when I first fell victim to thin-shaming. A friend of my mother’s approached me at a party and said, “You’re far too thin, Rosie.” Feeling immensely self-conscious and not sure how to respond to this I mumbled something along the lines of “Oh, OK.”

“That was not meant as a compliment,” she replied. I ducked away into the bathroom and burst into tears.

Rosie Mortimer: ‘I don’t look in the mirror in the morning and punch the air with delight but nor do I sob into my coffee’ (Picture: Rebecca Reid)

Rebecca Reid

On many more occasions I was made to feel insecure about my size. Shopping for bridesmaid dresses I was repeatedly told that nothing suited me, “because you’re too thin”. The other bridesmaids giggled and joked that I needed to stuff my top with oranges.

Even on the beach, sunbathing innocently, a woman approached to say, “I can see your bones, it’s disgusting. You need to cover yourself up.”

But nothing could make me put on weight. I spent a year drinking cans of revolting milkshakes specifically designed for weight gain.

Countless times I’ve been taken to one side and asked if I’m anorexic. Some of those who realised that I genuinely loved food assumed that I was bulimic. I felt nervous going to the loo in case someone assumed I was throwing up.

A recent survey found that 36 per cent of young people have been bullied because of their body shape, size or weight. Adults comment so disparagingly on the figures of others that it’s not surprising bad messages are passed to children.

Actor Lily James was accused of promoting anorexia when images of her corseted waist in the new version of Cinderella were released. There’s an Instagram account called You Did Not Eat That, dedicated entirely to pictures of thin people posing with calorific food — the assumption is that anyone of size eight or under will never eat a cheeseburger.

In my mid-twenties I became pregnant. During that nine months I put on almost five stone. Five years later, when my second child was two-and-a-half, I had dropped to a size 12 without dieting. I decided to lose more weight. I am reasonably tall but I have small bones, tiny wrists and narrow shoulders.

For two months I avoided carbs and processed foods and went to the gym. I lost a stone. I eat normally. I’m happy. I still go to the gym because it helps me sleep better, have more energy and, yes, I like the way my body has started to become more toned.

My BMI (body mass index) is 19, which is on the low side of the recommended 18.5 to 24.9. No, I don’t have a Protein World idea of a bikini body, and in no way feel smug about my appearance as thinnists assume someone with my sort of figure might. I don’t look in the mirror in the morning and punch the air with delight but nor do I sob into my coffee. There are certain parts of my body where I can still grab a big handful of fat.

Offensive: Protein World's 'beach body ready' advert

Catherine Wylie/PA Wire

Of course the second I lost any weight the comments started: “Eat some pies”, “Are you OK?” “Get some weight on you”. Now I have children they worry about my health and my mental state.

I am not for a second trying to dismiss the problem of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. But if someone suffers from one shaming them by telling them to “eat some cake” or that “it makes me feel sick just looking at you” is not going to help. Pointing out what you don’t like about someone else’s size — too fat or too thin — is not going to change them. Would it be okay to go up to a woman and tell her she was overweight, that she looked ill or simply that she ate too much? Obviously not. You would be causing huge offence. It swings both ways.

There’s a lot we could do to ease the pressure on young people to conform to a certain body image. The fashion world and media has a responsibility.

I have friends whose attitudes towards their weight could be considered unhealthy. Some claim to have intolerances to foods that might be described as fattening. Others work out constantly and more than a few could discuss their weight and their latest fad diet for literally hours.

My Instagram feed contains endless photographs of avocado on rye bread, healthy salads and gluten- and sugar-free desserts. I skim past, happy not to restrict myself to these diets, but am equally unbothered if that’s what they want to do.

Polly Vernon was vilified for saying she was happy with her weight back in 2003, and is being villified again for having the confidence to say she thinks she’s pretty too. But surely that’s exactly what we should all be aspiring to. My advice: avoid being hung up about your body but equally don’t judge others — fat or thin — on theirs.

Rosie Mortimer: 'Don’t hate me for being thin'

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