LeAnn Rimes: Other People Suffer From Eating Disorders

Skinny minnie posts essay to her blog about the need to refocus obsession on body image with education about how to stay healthy

By Natalie Finn Jun 17, 2011 9:30 PMTags
LeAnn RimesGerardo Mora/Getty Images

Some things are just too important to tweet.

So, LeAnn Rimes has taken to her website to offer a treatise on body image to people of all ages, noting, "What no woman or man needs is anyone telling them they are 'too fat' or 'too skinny.' "

Well, not unless they're unhealthy and really need help, but we're paying attention...

"Imagine," Rimes begins, "your dad, who you idolize, walks into your bathroom one morning. You're in the 11th grade. He lovingly asks you, 'When are you going to take care of yourself and lose some weight?' He doesn't mean anything by it other than, 'I love you and want to see you happy and healthy.' But he didn't exactly say that. In your young mind, he said what all of the other girls in school say to a beautiful, normal girl—'You're fat.'"

Sounds like a traumatizing experience for anyone. But the longtime country-music pro doesn't come right out and say it happened to her.

"I could tell you a similar story," Rimes writes, "in one way or another, about each and every one of my girlfriends. And I bet a lot of you can too. We could probably say the same story about girls we've never even met. Would you then think before you spoke?"

While she makes a touching argument throughout, the at-times awfully skinny songbird isn't offering up anything revelatory about herself, admitting (and not for the first time) only that she's tired of being scrutinized when her weight fluctuates.

But she does insist that people can get super thin for all sorts of different reasons, not just because they have an eating disorder.

"We are all made with the design for our bodies to change in many different ways as our lives unfold," she writes. "Our bodies change in various ways with exercise, healthy eating, poor eating habits, having children, and difficult life changes. Some people have higher metabolisms, lower metabolisms, some build muscle faster. There are so many variations and things to consider when you look at a person's body. There's a whole history and story behind who they are.

"We've never walked in each other's shoes," she continues, "but we are always so quick to comment and give an opinion on things as if we have the right to.  What no woman or man needs is anyone telling them they are 'too fat' or 'too skinny.' That just adds to the many stereotypes out there about a person's weight.

"I don't deny that there are people around the world with real problems such as bulimia, anorexia, or binge eating. But I'm talking about our obsession as a society with body image and how it's started to control and tear our lives apart."

Alas, that obsession is selling magazines, too, so it might be awhile before a size 2 doesn't look like the promised land anymore.

But Rimes makes some valid points, and, compared with some of the other stuff celebs are saying out there, that's always appreciated.