Free An Apple a Day by Emma Woolf Page A

start of the OK! and Hello! wedding industry)—had another baby, and another, getting thinner year by year.
    What is Victoria so famous for? As she herself admits, she can’t sing in tune—and I have no clue how much of her eponymous fashion line she designs herself. I don’t know if I admire her or identify with her, or if I’m just curious. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t in Heat magazine, or a time without the constant media updates on her weight loss, weight gain, weight anything. There were the unfortunate breast enlargements, the allegations of David Beckham’s affairs. And yet she’s still going. I don’t care if she never smiles for the paparazzi (would you?), and I think she’s genuinely pretty. I like the fact that she and David are still married and seem to be happy together; I like the fact that they’re always out with their children.
    Most of all, I’m fascinated by the pregnancies. She recently gave birth to her fourth baby: how does she do it? I’m the same height and weight as Posh. I know that every woman’s reproductive system is different, but let me tell you—you’re unlikely to ovulate naturally at that weight. I don’t understand how she can conceive and carry a baby. How is that possible? ( Masses of fertility drugs and a large dollop of IVF is what one doctor-friend told me—although of course that’s just his opinion.) Faced with the necessity to gain weight in order to have a baby, I feel envious at her Earth Mother act; more than that I feel inadequate and frustrated. Howcome Posh gets to stay thin and elegant, when normal women have to have a certain level of body fat?
    Speaking of fat, Victoria’s eating habits are a particular source of media frenzy: there’s an entire industry devoted to it. Apparently she’ll only eat fish and steamed vegetables; apparently she’s eating only pineapple now; apparently she takes a small set of scales into restaurants and weighs her food; apparently she cuts each portion in half and sends the other half back to the kitchen. Who knows whether it’s fact or entirely media fiction—but the messages about food, body shape, and diet are certainly very confusing.
    A photographer ex-boyfriend of mine once told me that the most lucrative paparazzi shots are those either up a woman’s skirt—the so-called “money shot” (when she’s getting out of the car, or falling out of a nightclub)—or a female celebrity eating. “It’s really good if she’s not wearing knickers, and even better if she’s eating a hamburger.”
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    Basically, when it comes to women, both aging and eating are somehow shameful. That sounds extreme, but it’s true. And if you can’t age and you can’t eat, living is rather difficult. More than forty years after Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch , a woman’s worth is still very often measured by how she looks rather than by what she does. Just this morning I read a profile in The Observer of Christine Lagarde, the recently elected head of the International Monetary Fund; it focused more on her sex appeal, piercing blue eyes, and long legs than it did on her powerful new role. Lagarde is in her early fifties and likes designer clothes—so what? It doesn’t seem to matter if men have wrinkles or gray hair—think Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Robert Redford. We don’t care how old they are, or scrutinize their thighs for signsof cellulite, or juxtapose pictures of them with and without beer bellies on the beach.
    Most of all, we don’t gasp over pictures of famous men tucking into their food. This obsession with what women really eat is exemplified by the recent phenomenon of DIPE. DIPE is an acronym (coined in Hollywood) that stands for “Documented Instance of Public Eating.” It’s actually pretty funny: in any interview with a high-profile