Lauren Conrad’s switching up some of the terminology on her lifestyle website. The change comes in focus with her June theme, “Shape Up.” Lauren will share workout tips and healthy recipes galore. She wants to get fitter with her readers and focus on menu ideas (like Meatless Monday) and tips (like reading food labels). Lauren hopes that people will find these columns to be “inspiring.” As opposed to Goop-esque aspirational, I guess. The big change refers to a meeting with her editorial team. They all agreed to stop using words like “skinny” and “thin” to describe women’s bodies. Here’s Lauren’s reasoning.
“It’s that time of the year again… swimsuit season. I make an effort to eat healthy and exercise all year round. But when summer hits and the layers of clothing come off, fitness becomes even more of a priority for me. So with that in mind, our June theme here on LaurenConrad.com is going to be Shape Up. You can expect all the great fitness content you’ve come to know and love here on the site, including my LaurenConrad.com Bikini Boot Camp series. But, you’ll also notice one key difference…
When we’ve talked about getting in shape in the past, words like ‘skinny,’ ‘slim,’ and ‘thin’ have often come up. Starting this month, we’ll be banning any body shaming terms from the site, and replacing them with words like ‘fit’ ‘toned,’ and ‘healthy.’ We try do to this for the most part anyway, but now we’re making it official! The word skinny will now be reserved for skinny jeans. My editorial team and I had a long talk about it, and we want to make sure that the focus is on being fit as opposed to a number on the scale. Every body is created differently–and healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes.
[From Us Weekly]
Lauren wants to emphasize all body types and the importance of being fit. Some might think she’s acting oversensitive by banning certain words from her website. I know people are exhausted by the term “shaming,” but what Lauren says makes sense. She wants to promote fitness, not whether someone can fit into a certain size clothing.
Anyway, yes. The words “skinny” and “thin” are triggers for many fit people. Depending on the way someone slings those words in another person’s direction, they can carry a derogatory meaning. The words can imply that someone simply got lucky with their body type. People think they’re giving a compliment, but it doesn’t feel that way on the receiving end. Lauren wants to stop using all disparaging terms referring to body type on her website. Hopefully, this change will spark a trend.
Photos courtesy of WENN
And words used to describe bodies at the other end of the spectrum? Is she banning those too? Just curious.
i read it as lauren thinks that people use words like thin and skinny as a way to express being healthy. no one would use the word fat to describe someone who looks healthy so the other side of the spectrum doesnt matter for the point she’s making, i think
Yes, Alessio. It’s that her writing staff is no longer using them for their fitness and nutrition articles. Which is a great idea and hopefully encourages readers to use them less. She’s got a younger audience and can really make a difference in how they think about their bodies and why they’re working out and eating healthfully. I think it’s such a wonderful idea.
I’m not sure why but reading your comment made me think that we use “fat” to describe animals that look healthy while “skinny” is used to describe an unhealthy animal. You don’t look at a thin cow and think, “yes, what health!” You wonder if perhaps she is being fed enough and if anything might be wrong. Of course animals can be obese and that’s unhealthy and bad, but if a dog is human-model thin, we’re all worried about it. Yet our culture is saturated with an “ideal” human size that produces concern if we see the equivalent in an animal.
Wren: I loathe the term skinny for the reason you describe. I’m a slim and healthy bmi weight and find the terms skinny and thin to describe me quite offensive. I know it’s probably not meant as an insult but I can’t bring my self to see it as a compliment. To me skinny implies something is wrong with me, that I’m lacking, not enough, not good enough, deficient, underdeveloped etc. I’ve been called both skinny/thin and fat and being called fat hurt far less to be honest.
OK, just wondering what was going on on that site. Words can hurt, I get it. I really try to only use “thin” or “skinny” to describe someone who is underweight to the point of being unhealthy, as in an eating disorder, and it is possible sometimes to spot the difference when you observe their behavior in person or by looking at their physical appearance (skin, nails, hair loss, etc.). I have several friends who are naturally slender, and I wouldn’t call them thin because I don’t thing they are: they don’t starve themselves to accomplish it, they don’t consider it the standard for all to achieve, and they actually do LOOK healthy, because they actually get the nutrition they need to stay healthy. I don’t think of “slender” as an insult or stigmatized. I similarly try to avoid the word “fat” because it’s got such a stigma attached to it.
Cool. But can we talk about her eyebrows? If she’s filling them in, she needs to stop, they’re looking a little Mommie Dearest to me.
I understand that she also bans the use of the words: “Wire Hangers”.
Go on with your Bland Self LC I don’t mind you in the least making your C.E.O Money!!
All my white fool friends love her. SORRY I had to.
You STAY never letting me live things down
Won’t lie. I’ve bought some of the clothes in her kohls line. I admire her hustle.
Not gonna lie, I like some of the LC bedding at Kohl’s. And some of the jewelry too.
Oh Im Not hating on her industriousness I too love the jewelry line
Admit it, you go just for the Adam Levine music.
Ohh, pulling from the depths with that one!
Kiddo- that Block is Gonna catch you hard sis! Don’t do this!!
I like Lauren. She is not the most interesting person in the world but that’s OK.
I think she is cute and smarter than most people think.
That’s not much of an achievement really.
A rose by any other name…
I’ve always liked her for some reason, seems like she has a sweet heart and a great business sense. I’ve never been to her site but good for her for trying to do something like this!
@Jess I agree. I like her too. Besides who does it hurt for her to advocate something like this? Thin does not equate to healthy and if she wants to redirect society’s obsession from thin and skinny to healthy and fit then I think that’s a step in the right direction.
Especially given a lot of young girls and women like her and check out her site. It might not change the world but if just a few girls and women begin to change their head space when thinking about their bodies…well that’s progress.
It sounds like she wants to emphasize that you can be fit without being thin, so….good for her.
I like it. We shouldn’t all aspire to be just thin or skinny, we should try to be stronger and healthy. But you walk by any magazine in the supermarket and they all have headlines on how to lose weight fast.
I’ll probably check it out. I’ve been wanting to start meatless Mondays too.
That’s pretty much it: regular exercise erases almost any of the (overstated) health dangers of obesity. Fat shaming makes fat people get fatter, so why not encourage healthy moving in everyone?
Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin.Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin.Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin.Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin Skinny Thin.
Lol, you are such a brat.
#BRATSHAMER
#BANTHEWORDBRAT
I am obesely excited by your comment. 😀
I was having a BIG FAT George Carlin moment.
Ok but can we please talk about miley cyrus’s newest instagram bikini picture and how justifiably concerning it is???????
It’s a perfectly normal, slim body.
She should just ban all adjectives to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt.
Comparative adverbs do it better.
I guess. Certainly you should be shooting for fitness, not thinness. I guess in the context she’s discussing, those words could be triggers, but I think “shaming” is going too far.
I’m not a fan of this fixation on “shaming” either. And to be honest, I think it’s turned into another way for people to divert the conversation about health and weight, along both ends of the spectrum.
I personally hate the terms “skinny” and “thin” because they’re pointless – they’re about an aesthetic and not a lifestyle. But isn’t it a contradiction for Conrad to ban those terms and still do a “Bikini Boot Camp”? The end result is still about how you look in a bathing suit.
Good point about calling it “bikini boot camp.” Lol, I didn’t catch that.
I agree. It’s over-the-top now, to the point where any sort of praise for someone is deemed a slam on someone else who’s the opposite (call someone petite and it shames those who are tall; call someone slim and it shames the fatty down the hall into inhaling an entire cheesecake; call someone tanned and it shames the pale girl into thinking she needs to hit the tanning salon; if someone says she wants to save herself for marriage, she’s slut-shaming those who are sexually active). I mean, where does it end? Why can’t we just state things how they are without worrying about someone greatly exacerbating the true intent of the word? I don’t even understand how this acts as a trigger; can a bigger girl not hear a comment about someone being in shape, without feeling it demeans her own self-worth? Nowadays if you say someone is slim, then you’re accused of shaming a bigger girl, like it’s on the same level as just outright telling her she needs to lose weight, or commenting on her double chin.
Very revolutionary ….I guess.
Does she think that …hm, weight challenged people are also dumb? And if you avoid a word it will change somehow their condition? That they don’t know they are (most probably) not fit?
I see this as fighting the symptoms but not the cause.
Ban it from marketing, as in the “skinny menu” at restaurants, and shit like the Skinnygirl margarita.
Sounds like a good thing to me – if it’s in the context of exercise, it should be about fitness and health.