Kat Armstrong: Celebritease

Jul
26
2013

Baby Weight Expectations for Kate Middleton

It's not OK

Will-kate-baby

I'm a bit of an Anglophile, I admit it. Readily. Hell, I collect Charles and Di memoribilia (and some other royals, but mostly their stuff). So, I did follow Wills' baby news with some regularity. However, the coverage went from "too much" to "are you shitting me?" really quickly and I decided I would abstain from writing about the royal couple, or little Prince George (sounds like the greatest 80s amalgamation of all time). That is, until this Wednesday's OK Magazine came out. Just 24 hours after the baby was born, their cover story screamed KATE'S POST-BABY WEIGHT LOSS REGIME. 

Are you fucking kidding me? The woman is scrutinized enough for everything because she married a royal, and now you're already speculating on how she will lose the baby weight 5 minutes after she gives birth? There's been a huge backlash on Twitter, rightly so, and a number of women's and parents groups in the UK fighting back reminding new mums that it's OK to have baby weight. As one mum said, "you just made a human!" 

I'm nearly 7-weeks postpartum, and while I exercised and ate healthfully during my pregnancy, I still have about 15lbs to loose and I'm not even WORRIED about it. Because I just made a human. And I'm breastfeeding him. So I'm hungry all. the. time (I eat all the things). I hope that new mums the world over don't take this to heart and spend time relaxing and enjoying their new babies. The pressure to be thin is high enough for women. This postpartum skinny thing is a tad over the top, and these rags are sinking to a new low by putting this stuff out there. 

Hopefully the backlashes against this stuff will continue and we'll see less and less of this on magazine covers and online. 

So, spill it! What do you think of the Will and Kate baby coverage?