Halle Berry: thrilled to be eating

I've said more than once that pregnancy is often the only culturally sanctioned time of life when women can be 'fat' and are expected to have big bellies (notwithstanding the fact that there are size zero maternity jeans). I wrote about Milla Jovovich and how her somewhat extreme weight gain (reportedly 70lbs) was most probably symptomatic of her inability to have a healthy relationship with food given her career as a model, and in fact, she confirmed this late in her pregnancy http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-more-more-milla-j-are-cravings.html

I was sad to read yesterday Halle Berry said this about her 7 months pregnant body:

"This is the first red carpet that I've really walked down where I didn't have to think about holding in my stomach – because I can't."It's the first time I've been to an awards show where they served a meal and I actually ate it – the whole thing," she said. "I was eating off everybody else's plate and that felt very liberating and good."

I think it's great that Halle feels 'liberated' as she says but I'm not surprised that she feels this way. Women are taught to suck in and push up and shove all the extra floppy bits away so no one can see them. When you're pregnant, clearly sucking in just isn't going to happen. But to think that these smart, funny, talented women have never been able to eat a proper meal in public because their dresses are too tight or because an armada of cameras are staring them down, at the ready to splash just how much they ate across the headlines of the tabloids, is just sad. I think most women who read this blog are guilty of indulging in the same self-defeating behaviours at some point in their life but why do we allow that? We should feel liberated to eat whenever we want, not just when we are growing another human life. Halle might feel free to indulge herself now but no doubt when that baby is born, like every other celebrity, she will be back in her jeans faster than she grew out of them.

Source: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20169669,00.html