SINGING ADELE’S PRAISES
In this season of awards for entertainers, I would like to nominate Adele as patron saint of new moms. If it were up to me, I’d put a full-length photo of the award-winning singer on something like those little prayer cards we used to get in Catholic school. I’d hand them out in delivery rooms, so every new mom languishing over her out-of-shape body would see Adele and remember, these things take time.
Because the latest untruth Hollywood seems to be promoting is that getting in shape after pregnancy is — pardon the pun— a piece of cake.
I’m pretty sure this crazy phenomenon began inadvertently with Heidi Klum and took an ugly turn from there. A mere six weeks after giving birth to her fourth child, Klum strutted down the runway at a Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Yes, she was wearing a sexy corset, but Klum also was covered in strategic spots by some crazy greenery and crinoline.
At the time she admitted she was the heaviest of the models that day. (Still, something tells me Klum would be beautiful at any weight.) She figured she still had 20 pounds to take off and was working — slowly — with a trainer, telling a People blog, “You can’t do too much too early.”
But the part where Klum talked about putting in time to get back to shape got lost in the translation. My guess is one crazy Hollywood publicist had a pregnant entertainer as a client and decided, she can be just like Heidi, only faster.
Since then one celebrity after the other has gotten pregnant and shown off her taut postpartum body in Guinness World Records time.
Now, the fact that they can get themselves back in shape so quickly isn’t what bothers me so much.
No, what ticks me off is that, for the most part, they act as if it just happened. That not only did the baby pounds fall off, but that they got tight abs in the process. (We know this because they all are photographed baring their midriffs.) No gym time, no trainer saying one more rep. Anyone who has given birth can tell you, you don’t get muscle tone just by losing the weight. You gotta put in ab work. Lots of it.
But, for some reason, Hollywood’s elite won’t — or can’t — say that. Initially, actress Kate Hudson did admit after baby number two she worked out six(!) hours a day. She’s since been silenced, apparently. When she popped up in a magazine spread soon after that confession and the ooh-ing and ahh-ing over her body began, those hours weren’t mentioned.
That’s why Adele — who already seemed quite comfortable not being bobblehead thin — is a breath of fresh air. She attended the Golden Globes wearing the sort of dress you used to expect on someone who just gave birth a couple months earlier. Flowing, forgiving of extra pounds.
Why does any of this matter? For a few reasons. It makes it seem as if dropping pounds and sporting a tight body with no work is an achievment worthy of an Oscar. It minimizes the actual talent of these entertainers when the focus is zeroed in on their post-baby waistlines.
And it’s just another way — with society’s current emphasis on Hollywood perfection in looks — to make average women feel bad about themselves for no good reason.
Right after a baby arrives should be a time for a mom to bond with and fall in love with this new and wonderful being. Not spend time worrying she still has a belly that jiggles like Jell-O.
Oh, I know the old boys club that runs the Catholic Church won’t be having any of my St. Adele movement (for one, I can’t find any evidence the singer is Catholic). Still, Adele is just what new moms — heck, most women and young girls — need to see.