Was this an irresponsible comment from supermodel Kate Moss? The New York Post calls it a ‘horrifying endorsement of starving your way to supermodel thin’. And there’s no shortage of people who feel that her comment during a recent interview will encourage anorexia and other eating disorders.
Here’s an honest opinion on her statement from someone who admits to flirting with the pro-anorexia movement.
‘ I still stand by my belief that the media do not CAUSE anorexia, because without the right predisposition eating disordered behaviours are not likely to take hold in a person and become a fully fledged mental illness, but comments like that are still incredibly unhelpful. Sorry Kate, but I’m not buying it. Been there, done that…and you’re welcome to the t shirt. I don’t think it’d fit me.’
K and her friend are trying to lose weight – starting tomorrow. She think’s Kate has a point.
‘”Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” I feel like that is so true. I can’t wait to fit.I want so badly to wear a swimsuit and feel good in it. I don’t want to be left out of trends because I’m simply too big for them to look good on me.’
She says it’s one of the mottos she lives by, but is this something she should be sharing with us? Should Kate Moss have known better?
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BBC World Have Your Say 
If she means being healthy and feeling good about how you look, I agree.
does super model mean super brain as well?
“nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”; To me, this quote sounds right out of a horror movie. In that case, how about this quote (coined by me just now)- “nothing tastes as good as skeletal feels”; besides, they’ll qualify as the best apparel-hangers; no wrinkles, no bulges, just plain and straight creases: as if tailor-stitched ON you.
Blaming a skinny model for the focus on skinny women is like blaming illiterate children for a lack of schools… you’re blaming a sympton, a result, not the cause.
Why is the uproar not directed at the thousands of magazines that pay Kate Moss and other skin & bone displays millions of dollars to grace their pages… providing that they’re skinny enough.
Why is the uproar not at the thousands of fashion designers who design runway attire simply to be worn by models and Skeletor?
As long as there is a market – an incredibly lucrative one at that – for skinny models, there will be skinny models.
It’s like when people wonder why pro athletes risk their health and body to play during injuries…. they make a lot of money because of it.
Kate can say whatever she wants. I’d say she’s a tool, but tool’s are useful. She’s a walking clothing rack.
Oh, that first quote is from my blog 🙂 that’s rather exciting! I have had anorexia for 13 years and like I said, at times I did end up on the wrong sort of websites. That message is going to be obsessed over by some very unwell people. If Kate Moss can think what she wants, but she is a role model for some people (not me) whether she likes it or not and she should be careful about saying things like this. I think she was probably trying to be deliberately controversial. I still disagree with her: being healthy is wonderful, but there is most definitely such a thing as being too thin and malnutrition does not equal happiness.
I’ve HAD a body fat of about 21% and I HAVE a body fat of 10% and I can tall you that nothing tastes and good as healthy skinny feels. It’s true and people who are horrified to hear that are people who are not in controle of their diet, don’t want to be and want everyone to be fat so they won’t feel like such loosers. In most cases there is no reason for a man to have a body fat of more then 15% and a woman a body fat of more then 20% People who are over that are waistful, decedent, gluttons and need to controle themselves. So much waist of natural resources but people over eating and eating junk food.
So what she doen’t over eat and eat junk food, good for her! Some Football players get crazy big for their profession and you don’t hear all the criticism.
I have to take issue with the comment by James – having a HEALTHY body weight (my BMI is just under 20 these days, so despite disagreeing with him I am definitely in control of my diet and my weight, thank you very much) is far more indicative of personal control than starving yourself until you can’t function. I can see how people who have been overweight in the past would differ in their views from people who have a history of anorexia like me, but I think saying that people who disagree are just jealous and out of control is extremely narrow minded and thoughtless.
‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’
I can show you a few restaurants here that will change your mind! Oh and some baklava for dessert. Yum yum!
There is generally no pressure on men to be skinny. There is moderate pressure on men to be muscely and athletic. Which means that good food and a good excercise regime can keep a person healthy and happy, tasting the best of both worlds.
For women it seems a bit different. There is a great pressure to follow trends and fashions and to be seen as stylish amongst peers. The fashion today is to be unhealthily skinny.
One way to tackle it is to censor what fashion designers can and can’t produce.
Another way is for parents to educate their children on the true priorities in life and steer them away from the culture of celebrity role models.
Can I offer a counter quote? Nothing tastes as good as a spoonful of Nutella on a Sunday afternoon. Seriously, she is entitled to feel however she feels. Personally, I feel life is short, so I want to taste a spoonful of everything, and two spoonfuls if it’s good. I guess I’m not as quotable. Maybe I can get a famous model to say it!
I like the way you think!
I LOVE IT!
I agree with James Ian 100%.
Anorexics are few and far between and anorexia and bulemia are psychological disorders–no one is going to become anorexic simply because of a role model. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous rubbish.
The only people horrified by the thought of others being svelte and attractive are overweight women who have let themselves go, wish to live in denial, and want to blame someone else for their problem. I recently lost about 20 lbs and will never go back to overeating or eating fried foods and all the other garbage people shove into their faces. I feel great, my clothes fit again, I look great, my doctor is pleased, and it’s even easier to do my running and exercises.
People need to to get over their addiction to immediate gratification. Being fat is just one more symptom of vanishing personal responsibility. Thin is superior to fat. You can’t argue that fact away.
James and Stever of Boston. Spot on. I lost a couple of stone which I didn’t even realise I had put on. Feel so good now. Still snack when I feel like it but haven’t put it back on. She’s right – nothing tastes quite so good as being skinny – again.
Anorexia and Bulimia are born directly of a girl’s (usually) desire to be thin and quickly become obsessions that are very difficult to overcome. Our daughter only kicked bulimia by dying. They are very focussed, very unrealistically, on their body image and, I am certain, hanging on Kate Moss’s every word. It’s not skeletal teenagers who keep fashion designers and models in business, it wasn’t twisted girls with BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) who elevated Moss to a position where anybody cares what she has to say and I don’t think that she should be held responsible for any nonsense that she throws-up. It does feel good to be thin but you don’t necessarily need to give up your favorite flavors to be fit. It is anorexic thinking that makes the enjoyment of food the enemy of fitness.
What she said comes from the Atkins diet. But I agree with her.
I am 40 LBS overweight & have been fighting it with diet & exercise, but when I eat junk food it tastes sooooo good! Her comment helped to remind me that it would FEEL better to loose by fat belly than to enjoy putting junk into my mouth. The media jumping on this broadcasting it over the airwaves is more damaging than anything. If they really had a problem with what she said, they should not repeat it to those who have not already heard it.
Thanks Steve and congrats on loosing the weight.
Good point Eve and good luck with your goals. The feeling of being comfortable in your skin is much better then any food can ever taste, really. Don’t let anyone derail you and your goals. Do it healthy though.
Kate Moss’s comments are not going to make balanced girls without father complexes and low self esteem start starving themselves to death.
Anorexia is a sickness and a symptom not of listening to a model’s opinion but from years of being brought up needing/ lacking approval and acceptance and of not believing in yourself and your own selfworth.
Kate Moss was always skinny and no one seems to mind trying to make her (and all those other naturally skinny girls) feel bad about themselves. Maybe her comments are also just defending her right to be just how she is.
In a world governed by how fat you are the skinny case has a cutting edge.
“Was this an irresponsible comment from supermodel Kate Moss?”
Moss never was one of the supermodels, there were only about three supermodels back in the 1990s and she was not one of them. I forget their names except for Cindy Crawford. Maybe Linda Evangelista?
Moss is and has been a big time model but the label “supermodel’ has been mis- and over-used so that it no longer means what it used to in the days of the big three.
I don’t understand why people are shocked by this or why Kate has suddenly become a role model – she has had several large scale drug scandals so and is hardly a respected role model. Her career has been made on her waif-like looks and this comment just shows she is a bit stupid and shouldn’t give interviews.
Nothng tastes as good as skiny feels. Women who say this will cause young girls to have eating disorders are very disingenuous. They don’t care about young girls. They are just jealous and envious. These simple minded women are just fooling themselves and no one else. I think kate is just great and free to speak her mind.
‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’
It is Kate Moss’s point of view and I don’t see why the New York Post should criticise it with, ‘A horrifying endorsement of starving your way to super model thin’
After all it is the media that manipulates and forms the fashions of the day.
Not being a woman myself, there’s not much chance of me understanding their insecurity and inferiority complex caused by ages of discrimination by the male of the species. I for one have always put women on pedestals, which may be the result of being brainwashed by the ‘Virgin Mary’.
It is but natural that women do anything to be accepted in a man’s world. Including starving themselves to loose weight.
You do not have to be skinny. So long as you are healthy and fit, you are good. This should not be seen as an endorsement of obesse behaviour.
There are so many misconceptions about eating disorders about it’s incredible. Anorexia at least is highly genetic – between 60-80% of the ’cause’ of the disorder is genetic. It’s nothing to do with the media, not having a supportive father (where on earth did that one come from?!), being vain, or anything like that. The disorder crosses into cultures where there is no pressure to be thin – the symptoms are the same but the stated reasons for starving themselves are different. It’s a biological illness triggered by stress or malnutrition which then takes on a life of it’s own, and because humans always seek to find reasons for their actions, sufferers usually decide that they are doing what they are doing because they are too fat. I never said that the media causes eating disorders on my blog because I’ve read the research and I know it’s a biological illness, but I DO know that statements like that make it more difficult to leave behind the warped thought processes of the disorder, both because I am in recovery myself and because I’ve known a lot of people with eating disorders who would have taken that statement and used it to further justify their behaviours.
In a sense, Ms. Moss is right. Would you rather look “nice” or have something sweet (which translates to lbs)? In that case; would you still reach for that something sweet?
As others have pointed out, I don’t think Kate Moss could be considered a role model. However, like someone else pointed out; I think to target her is to target a symptom. This desire to be super skinny did not start with her or because of her comment. It’s been there a long time and I think will continue.
It’s not right to starve yourself; it’s also not right to stuff ho hos and twinkies in your face 24/7 “just because” you want to. I think people should be increasingly aware that they only have one body in this life and be good to it.
How about the old cliche “a minute on the lips, forever on the hips” We are living in a culture of extreme obesity. While I realize there are girls with eating disorders,(such as starving and vomiting) the health dangers of being overweight are just as great, and even more so. Consider all the diseases that are brought on by extra baggage. Heart failure, diabetes, high blood pressure, to name a few.Even if Kate may have ripped this slogan from somewhere else, I feel it is beneficial to a degree. We eat because we are bored, not because we are truly hungry, many times. And this “mindless” eating does add up, to the tune of 10-20 lbs a year and morbid obesity in many cases. Is ulta skinny attractive? While some may prefer this, I feel most men still want the women with “some meat on their bones” Is being fit attractive? Of course, and the old adage your only as young as you feel is certainly related to being fit. Maintaining your proper weight in the “battle of the bulge” is won in the battlefield of the mind, so if a slogan helps your brain stay in charge, more power to you.
Loads of people have mantras they repeat to keep them going when they’re trying to lose weight. A lot of people use song lyrics etc for inspiration so I can’t understand why Kate Moss is being so heavily criticised. Her job is to be thin because clothes designers would rather be dressing little boys but the money is in women’s clothing.
If you ask the vast majority of people with eating disorders, you’ll realise that they have other issues that have nothing to do with images of skinny models in the media. Anorexics often want to feel in control and whilst I understand that’s a generalisation, it seems counter-productive to attack Kate Moss for a problem that isn’t her fault. She’s a model because of how she looks, not her personal life. If our children are looking up to Kate Moss instead of looking up to real life heroes like our army boys, our athletes in the Olympics or even our charity workers whose fault is it? Certainly not Kate’s or any other of her freakishly beautiful model friends. If you’re so outraged by her comments, address the problem, not a cog in the machine.
The best tasting food is usually food that’s bad for you!
She’s saying that it’s worth skipping out on all the junk to be thin…..DUH.
She didn’t say starve yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if those who mis interpreted the quote are over weight.
I totally agree with you Natalia. Instead of indulging in these temporary pleasures that chocolate cakes provide, make the conscious decision NOT to eat them and enjoy your thin body and small sized waste 🙂 We can on the other hand say YES to them every now and then. The problem is the majority make these exceptions far too often and end up overweight…
I’ll be honest; Kate Moss is right as long as she doesn’t mean unhealthy. A late middle aged woman, I was recently at the low end of my healthy weight range and it was great. I had a decreased appetite due to pain medications. I could walk into any clothes store without fear. I even had no fear of bathing suits. What was NOT so great was that people didn’t like it. But, I must have looked good because I don’t think they would have hated me if I looked bad.