Nina Dobrev posted the photo above where she’s looking particularly slender. I think it’s just the angle as her head is in the foreground. A lot of Instagram photos end up looking bizarre like that. She’s a very fit woman but she’s not that tiny. Anyway people started talking about her in the comments and speculating about her weight, because that’s what happens to celebrities. Nina told one person, who said Nina reminded her of her own battle with anorexia, that she eats all kinds of food and just works out.
While the post was meant to credit Dobrevās styling team, the star was quickly inundated with hurtful comments regarding her weight, with many calling her ātoo skinny.ā
āI canāt believe no one is noticing that sheās anorexic,ā one person wrote. ā This picture just reminds me of my anorexic self. Stop praising her how she looks its not healthy. Nina needs help, you guys are just pushing her to eat air. Just look at her past photos it hasnāt even been that long. Sheās gotten way too skinny in short amount of time. Trust me Iāve been through this and she is definitely showing signs of someone whoās anorexic.ā
āShe actually gained weight. She just looks ugly,ā another troll chimed in.
When Dobrevās fans began targeting one another over speculation of an eating disorder, the actress took matters into her own hands.
āThank you for your concern,ā Dobrev began. āIām sorry to hear you werenāt doing well, I hope that you are taking care of yourself and doing better now. Iāll also let you know that I eat burgers and fries and all kinds of yummy things all the time. You should do the same. Eating everything and working out (which I do) is the healthy solution for people who have problems. Body shaming people on the other hand is NOT healthy and very rude. I donāt do that, so you should also do the same. Have a wonderful day.ā
[Dobrev] also took on critics who said she was looking old noting her change in appearance was due to āa radical concept called time.ā
āI know. Crazy. Itās what happens when it goes by. People get olderā¦But Iām 30, and damn proud of it!ā
I sometimes wonder if I could handle being a celebrity and having people speculate about my body and appearance. That’s just what happens to famous people on social media I guess. Plus look at the comments. One person is calling her ugly and saying she gained weight, another says she looks old and the other one is saying she’s anorexic. People are rude and obnoxious and it can suck.
I believe Nina that she eats decent food. I have a similar strategy for eating and keeping my weight down. I love working out and keep track of what I eat but I eat whatever I want and try to balance it. Sometimes I eat more because I’m mad or lonely or whatever. Someone called it “sad” in the comments after I said I weigh peanut butter and calorific food. (Update: We worked it out in the comments below!) That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to lose weight and keep it off, by weighing food and counting calories. I believe everyone should do what they want to do with their diet and exercise, as long as they’re not harming themselves or recommending something harmful. Even if Nina was a vegan who mostly eats tofu and vegetables, who cares? She’s not telling anyone how to live.
She looks great, it was the angle of the photo!
Photos credit: WENN and via Instagram
Even IF that pic was a realistic representation of her weight and appearance, that is fine too! There are a lot of very skinny people out there who can eat what they want and they donāt gain wait.
Not to mention that if someone HAS an eating disorder, calling them out on it in the comments of an Instagram post isn’t going to magically heal them. SMH
I would go further and say that it actually ENCOURAGES people struggling with an ED to eat even less. When I was deep in it, I LIVED for people commenting on how skinny I was.
this is not saying she had an eating disorder, just a point I have to make:
Eating burgers and fries and eating disorders often coexist. They do not cancel one another out. The eating disorder is in the relationship to the food, not the food itself.
Also- an eating disordered person isn’t necessarily skeletal and underweight, and size isn’t always an indicator of healthy relationships with food. I’m smaller now (but ridiculously healthier and happier)know than I was at many stages of very awful disordered eating and restricting.
I have people tell me all the time to “eat a burger”, they always think it’s funny but hearing it nearly every day is pretty anger inducing honestly. I’m a small person, just over five feet tall and just over 100 pounds, everyone seems to think they know what’s better for me than I know myself. I eat good, I cook for a hard working man every day and I usually eat what he eats, plus I think I’m literally addicted to chocolate lol. My partner and I are both very similar, we can pretty much eat what we want and not gain weight. People need to mind their own business and not comment on people’s bodies
THIS!
Yes, but there’s a difference between “not being able to gain weight” size and people who are clearly dealing with a disordered relationship toward food. I think the photo above shows a woman who is thin but not dangerously so… although a photo doesn’t tell how or why anyone is the size/shape they are.
When I was a kid, some family friends had a horrible habit of calling me ābird legs.ā When I was a teenager, girls I didnāt know would come up to me in the lunch line and ask if I were anorexic. Iāve had people tell me to eat a sandwich more times than I can count. And this still happens now that Iām in my 30s. Itās still incredibly hurtful and disheartening.
Bryn: yep!! Some of us are like this and when people arenāt like this, they canāt wrap their head around it. I try not to take it personal because it says a lot more about the person saying it than it says about me.
Honestly, the answer to that, like so many other inappropriate comments, is “Shut your mouth.” In this context, they can take it so many different ways, but since they are being so rude to you, who cares?
If I had a dollar for every time someone said “I wish I had your problem” when learning of my digestive disorder… it’s so rude and I wish had the gumption to say, “Shut your mouth” just like that. I try for some kind of happy medium, like pointing out that OTHER people have made that same “original” observation so many times. Mostly I say, “No you don’t.”
I agree. But if a person was not really, really skinny, then got that way, then it’s concerning.
Did the people calling her “old” looking (which HA!) forget that she’s not *actually* an immortal vampire?
Lol! That must be it!
She looks super tiny on the Instagram pic whereas on stage,she is healthy
Yes exactly, if you look at the photos celeb mafia posted on their site, they are obviously unedited and thereās one photo where her arm is double the size of what she posted on her insta. She looks very healthy in those photos and not too thin definitely not skinny or unhealthy and no bobble head in the unedited photos either.
She looks great, very pretty woman. Though I do notice something odd on her arms. Eczema?
I think that is the reflection of light from the crystals on her dress.
Ahh, maybe you’re right. It looked like some sort of skin problem, but it’s probably from the sparkly stuff on her dress.
I weigh my peanut butter too! I am not great at eyeballing portion sizes so it helps me a lot, and it takes no time. I also track my expenses … sometimes I feel like my brain won’t do cumulative math lol. If I don’t track these things I will overeat and overspend and end up with heartburn and overdraft š
I have nothing on-topic to add except that people can be so rude.
I weigh my meat,fish and chicken. Nothing wrong with that. Itās portion control. Iām short and put on weight easily. I learned this from weight watchers and itās not an eating disorder.
Agreed. Keeping track is a good way to help get extra weight off (like, um, maybe me with my post holiday weight). Itās very easy to eat more calories than you realize.
I do find that photo slightly concerning. I mean – I’d never say anything to her because I think it’s genuinely rude – and she looks great in the other photo of her in the same gown. But I do find it concerning that she would post that photo knowing how unrealistically tiny she looks. I know some people are just genuinely incredibly slim and have insane metabolisms – I have a friend who’s mother told me she spent the teenage years worrying people would think she was starving her because she ate a ton and was healthy and fit, but just couldn’t keep weight on if she tried. But when Nina is already so stunning and incredibly fit, it does make me pause that she would choose to highlight a photo like that.
She does look much thinner in the pick she chose & I don’t understand why she would post a pic that makes her look anorexic. A co worker of mine got alarmingly thin. She ate lunch with us everyday because she was really good friend w/a male co worker of mine. She got so thin her boss actually contacted her mom she was so concerned. To this day the male coworker who was a good friend never thought she was anorexic, but I would bet my hat on it. But being she had close friends, her mom was involved & she had a boyfriend, I figured those close to her were in the best position to have that conversation, not me, so I never said a word about it to her.
A boss should never, not in any situation, make contact with an employeeās family like that. The boss doesnāt have any clue of the employeeās personal health and medical history, and that is a major overreach. The boss is lucky they didnāt get fired or sued. If I were in that situation, I would be making a stink at HR until they were canned.
@ Shrute’s Beet Farm- Agree completely.
My brutally honest perception of Hollywood is that most of the women, even the āhealthyā ones, are likely eating daily calorie levels or exercising in ways that would make typical doctors cringe. Sure, there are people out there with fast metabolisms – but given the amount of ED we hear about in the industry, itās doubtful Hollywood snatched them all up. She doesnāt think twice about posting that photo because thatās what been normalized for her: there is no level of thin that is too thin.
Someone called you sad? I wish I knew how to weigh food and calculate calories! My relationship with weight and food would be so much better and healthier.
I use an app! So easy & free. It’s got a huge database so I can usually get a good estimate. I use the Fitbit app but I think you can use it without the fitbit. I’ve heard good things abouyt myfitnesspal too. Tracking is not for everyone, lots of people find it a pain or misuse it to undereat, but I like it! Hope you don’t mind me chiming in with suggestions š
You can get a food scale on Amazon for cheap. When my son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes my friend with kids who are also T1D gave me one and it’s amazing for weighing portion sizes, something I’d never done. Then I check the carb count on Calorie King or My Fitness Pal. It’s gotten to the point now where he and I can eyeball portions pretty accurately so we don’t use it much. But if you want to be strict about calories the scale would be super helpful.
MyFitnessPal has a free version with tons of foods/restaurants in its database plus the ability to scan barcodes. I use that and a cheap kitchen scale I bought to track.
I can highly recommend the book “You are WHY you eat” by Dr. Durvasula. I do not love how often she uses certain phrases but I definitely think highly of her hypothesis about food and why we over or undereat.
She also wrote a very insightful book about the narcissistic trait.
I think she looks to be a “healthy” weight and it truly was the angle in that first photo. But what about people like Leandra Cohen or Alexa Chung? Those women are startlingly thin in photos, so I’m guessing even thinner in real life. I don’t think it’s appropriate to call people like that out in comments, necessarily, but those two, in particular, are like the queens of the pro-ana movement. Every time they post a photo showing how emaciated they are they get SO MANY comments from young girls who aspire to be just like them. Do they have a culpability/responsibility? I mean – I think it’s wonderful for people to show off their bodies for myriad reasons and it’s healthy for all of us to see all different shapes and sizes of people, but what if those bodies are the result of self-harm, which then, in turn, promotes self-harm?
I was a ballet dancer and still train dancers to this day. I know from thin. And I’ve never ever seen someone “naturally” as thin as Alexa Chung or Leandra Cohen, honestly.
Do you say the same thing about obese celebrities who post pictures of……themselves, thus making people think it’s ok to be obese?
Idk – are there pro-obesity boards that teach teenagers how to gain as much weight as possible? It’s a false equivalency anyway because our culture isn’t promoting “Obesity is best! How big can you get!?” The message is quite the opposite really. Thigh gap, flat stomachs, thin arms and bony chests are #goals in this society. People die every day from aspiring to be “as thin as….” And of course disordered eating isn’t solely due to celebrity inspiration, but we’d be kidding ourselves to think the two weren’t related.
I’m not talking about every thin person out there, I’m talking about women (in this case) who are very clearly dealing with a disordered relationship to food, who have millions of young followers and who constantly post photos of themselves looking as small as possible.
There actually are pro-obesity communities popping up these days.
The point is, stop telling women to hide themselves because of the crap other people do.
Ehhhā¦.. I do agree that we can’t police thin women for merely existing.
But I think there’s another issue of women who are suffering from an ED posting *thin pr0n*.
If you’re not familiar, allow me to explain: in the pro-ana community there are lots of close-ups and cropped photos of all the coveted, telltale markers of full-blown anorexia: thigh gaps, protruding collar bones, pronounced hip bones, vertebrae poking through the back etc. The fetishizing of thinness and the community that surrounds it is extremely dangerous.
Shamefully, I used to frequent those forums back in the day as a lurker. I found it comforting to see women who aspired to be as skinny as possible. Those forums are extremely problematic as they normalize and validate abnormal and dangerous behavior. I also found the imagery very inspiring hence the term “thinspo”.
So I agree with both of you in that I don’t think women like Alexa Chung should feel responsible because some women aspire to be as thin as she is. But I do believe women who post thinspo imagery should be held responsible for sharing images that helps to perpetuate a dangerous and often deadly mindset.
Your “telltale markers of full-blown anorexia” such as visible collarbones and hips are supposed to be visible on every human of a healthy weight as well as your spine and your ribs when you bend or lift your arms over your head. These are healthy body features that only disappear once a person is in the overweight and higher BMI.
The thigh gap will appear on women with wide hips and it’s down to their skeletal structure not their weight. Most instagram models, and they are far from anorexic, can have a thigh gap in photos just by rotating their legs and tilting their pelvis forward when they pose.
Kara, those “pro-obesity” boards…are they, in fact, encouraging people to be more obese (as the pro-ana boards are) or are they just giving people who don’t conform to the western ideal of “thin is best” a forum in which they feel like it’s ok to exist and learn they don’t have to hate themselves? I think it’s probably a lot more the latter.
@ Hikaru-
Um NO. And I can tell that you’ve never had an ED nor have you frequented the pro-ana boards. There is literally NOTHING healthy about a skeletal body. Starving people should not be aspired to. On the contrary, they are ill and need help.
“The thigh gap will appear on women with wide hips and itās down to their skeletal structure not their weight.”
Sigh. On one hand, it’s pretty clear that everything I said went over your head. On the other hand, I think you’re inadvertently making my point for me. The fact that a thigh gap is contingent on pelvic structure is exactly why it’s dangerous and self-destructive for women to obsess over it.
Because many of them will likely never have that coveted gap yet will starve themselves in hopes of attaining it.
So even if you think that skeletal is normal and a sign of a “healthy BMI” (oh brother), SURELY you would agree that worshipping and obsessing over emaciated body parts is NOT normal or healthy.
But as I said, you’ve likely never seen the pro-Ana community firsthand. There’s a reason why a lot of those sites were shut down and it’s not because they were filled with images of “healthy body features”–they are not filled with images of IG models (like, what??)–they are filled with images of people who are often very sick and severely underweight. These sites have helped to reinforce the dangerous behaviors and patterns of people suffering from EDs.
Educate yourself.
Iām sorry celebitchy I didnāt mean to say something that affected you badly. I guess what I meant to say is it makes me sad how much time, energy, and mental space food and diet can take up for women.
I understand that you do whatās best for you. I guess at first I interpreted you saying that to mean you stress over food and worry about food. And that made me sad, because youāre a very talented person. But I see that I misinterpreted what you were saying. I guess any time we talk about diet and food habits it can get dicey, because it is a very personal thing.
When I was in a period in my life where I weighted food and counted every calorie it was miserable and obsessive and took away from my talents and my inner peace. Iām glad itās not that way for you. Weigh all the peanut butter you want and please excuse me for overstepping with my remark!
It’s ok I get it. I lost 60 pounds that way and to me it isn’t stress and I actually like doing it! It’s more stressful to me not to know, and it’s second nature to count calories and keep track that way. I wish I was like that with my finances. I agree that it’s very personal. Thanks for responding it means a lot and you were not overstepping, you were saying how it felt for you. You didn’t affect me badly and I was defensive about it as I sometimes wonder if it’s wrong or if I shouldn’t focus on the numbers. That’s what works for me though, intuitive eating means I eat the whole bag.
I commented too, but I didn’t mean it as something against you Celebitchy. Just that women, myself included, put so much time and effort into monitoring our weight. Men in comparison, don’t put in a tenth of the effort. But women are judged much more than men on our looks. We’re held to a higher standard
That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you explaining it. We are held to a higher standard.
Yeah,I read this yesterday and understoodw what people were saying,but understood your response too,CB.
I went through a time when I weighed everything,my food,myself,even would weigh my clothes and shoes and jewelry if I had them on when weighed at the doctor and felt I needed to see how much less I was without (obsessive I know,and I don’t do it any more).
Being a woman is hard because we are still judged on being slim,looking younger than our actual age,uhh!
If weighing your peanut butter works then go for it!I also know CB has talked so openly about alcoholism,and following a program to achieve sobriety (congratulations,you are an inspiration)so it would make sense that you probably do best on a structured way of eating to achieve the healthiest weight for you too.To each their own I say,but I have to ask on a side note,WHY do people say to eat a burger every time they think someone is too thin,it’s not the way to help someone who struggles with being too thin ,just like telling an over weight person to eat a rice cake.It shouldn’t be this hard to be a woman.
Come on. She’s a actress in Hollywood, she’s not eating burgers and fries all the time. Even the “normal” weight girls, in person, are shockingly tiny. She eats low calories and exercises.
Why bother with trolls? Why respond? Why is the answer to looking “too skinny” always have to be fast food? “I can’t be anorexic I eat fries” “You’re too skinny, eat a burger” Anorexia is a serious condition. I’m sure she eats very healthy, which is better than burgers and fries all the time any how.
I can literally eat burgers and fries, meat and potatoes every day and not gain any weight, I don’t for health reasons but I have in the past when I was younger. I’m not saying it to have people bash me because I’m sure some will. Some people just have a fast metabolism, I like it but I have to watch it because I could eat sugar and bread all day long and even though I don’t gain weight, it sure as hell cant be healthy.
So just because she’s a Hollywood actress, you know for a fact that she eats no burgers and fries?
It’s really frustrating dealing with people who just assume that skinny people starve themselves, or assume we eat only low calories and always exercise. I for a fact eat lots of fast food, have no eating disorder, and don’t do much exercises besides long walks, but still put up with people who don’t know me assuming I have an eating disorder. Why respond to trolls? Because their insults are unfair and frustrating
@Eliza
Exactly, if you put the pictures out there get ready for the trolls.
Ignore them, don’t play into their hands.
She could eat burger & fries (or other cheat/fast food meals) once or twice a week & still keep things generally pretty low calorie & exercise a lot for the rest of the week.
I don’t think she’s saying that she lives on fast food
She doesn’t look anorexic to me. I think it’s just the way she was photographed.
Some people are just thin. I have a mate like that, dude eats like a horse and always seems to be trying to set some sort of speed eating record and he never puts on weight.
I get that such commentary is unkind, but this idea that you canāt be anorexic and eat those things is wrong. You may eat a hamburger…and then absolutely nothing else all day, despite two hours of exercise. Thatās still anorexia. I get her frustration, but itās a bad argument.
She’s been that small since she was on Degrassi, and she just looked like a naturally very slim teenager. While she has that “bobblehead” (a “tell” of an eating disorder) look a little bit in the picture, I think it’s just the angle because she doesn’t look that small in other photos or on film.
I am a similar size/build to Nina, and lost about half a stone after the death of my mother. When I am sad/anxious, I lose my appetite. I am a happy eater. So the grief took its course and I lost weight. I was shocked at the number of people who simply assume that you lose weight because you want to/are obsessed with being skinny/assume an eating disorder, rather than actually understand that periods of illness/grief/anxiety/depression can cause weight loss just as they cause weight gain.
It’s very counterintuitive and dangerous when people project their own agenda onto someone else. Nina looks perfectly healthy and even if she did have an eating disorder, it is not anyone’s business to out here, especially as eating disorders are not as simple as wanting to be skinny, they can also be about control/anxiety/abuse/trauma.
True. I always lose a ton of weight when I’m feeling anxious and sad, to the point when ppl start making comments. When my life evens out and I stop feeling so worried my weight naturally starts going up.
I actually had to have a talk with my daughters yesterday about weight, body size, healthy eating, genetic predisposition to body-type, etc. They are 6 & 8yrs old! It made me incredibly sad that I had to explain to them SO young how important it is to have a healthy body image because they are already feeling the pressure to not be ‘fat’. They have already learned about the healthy food plate at school (balance of veggies, proteins, etc), but to have to discuss body type & image to my kindergartener really bummed me out. Then I felt horribly guilty that I had somehow contributed to their concern by starting to measure my portions 6mos ago (I’ll be 40 soon this year & a birthday goal is better eating habits). Meanwhile my husband has put on 40lbs in 18mos & doesn’t care at all. The pressure we feel as girls/women to not be too fat/thin/whatever is starting SO early, and at nearly 40 I feel like it will never end.
It sounds like you’re trying to instill healthy habits and self-love in your girls, Scarlet Vixen. It’s a rough world for women and femmes out there, but having a mother who supports your personhood and bodily autonomy will help counteract it. I say this as someone whose mother is an uncontrollable body shamer.
I’m getting an Ariel Winter vibe on this one. She chose that particular picture to post, knowing it made her look very skinny and would attract criticism. Do whatever you want, look however you want; but if you’re doing it to solicit comments so that you can virtue signal and be “right fighting” all the time…get a therapist.
Nope, she reposted the pic from her makeup artis’s IG which is similar to how all her celeb clients pose. Also, you weren’t on her IG page where grown ass men were telling her to eat a burger.
She is anorexic looking, she is thin but in no way malnourished in appearance. When did at the low end of your weight range become anorexic? Are we as a nation becoming so big in weigh that normal looks anorexic?
Iāve seen her in person. Sheās 5ā3-5ā4 and EXTREMELY thin.
Ive seen a lot of celebs in person, you are talking about 90% of celebs regarding weight lol. They are all thin with a few exceptions.
She’s a little taller than that IIRC.
OK, I’m going to try to put into words what i went through. My older sister became anorexic and bulimic in her late thirties. She had borderline personality disorder and that was one of the “addiction” components of it, but she utterly refused to get therapy. Another component of her addiction was alcohol – towards the end she was living on vodka. She died a horrible, horrible death and since then I’ve been very conscious of women who clearly show signs of eating disorders. Of course there are naturally “thin” people but there’s a difference between them and people with eating disorders – I’ve seen walking skeletons who look like they could expire in a minute, so thin you wonder how they can even stand. I worked in HR for many years and have had to counsel young women who for whatever reason started down the path to anorexic behaviour and because it’s so personal for me, I took that role very seriously in offering them advice and telling them about my sister. I guess I was traumatized by her death but when I read comments pooh-poohing those of us who show genuine concern for young women who are “unnaturally” thin I get angry because of the pressure these women face today to sacrifice their health to look a certain way.
I’m really sorry to hear that about your sister. While I think it is incredibly rude and intrusive in everyday life to presume the state of someone’s health, I do think that entertainers, celebrities, and the hollywood-fashion industrial complex do deserve a more discerning review. Simply because they are in the business of selling images to a public and deceiving them.
What an unfortunate turn of events.
There are several celebrities who, I believe, have eating disorders (they weren’t always THAT thin; bones protruding unnaturally; significant hair loss; etc.). On the one hand, I think it’s dangerous that they are still held up as examples of “beautiful” women. On the other hand, is it really my concern, or is it just another form of Darwinism? How I feel about it changes all the time.
It’s about how people of a certain body type are foreground in entertainment. If the imagery we were presented were more varied for those who get the “romantic” treatment then maybe this wouldn’t be such a hot button issue.
She chose to post/repost that photo showing her looking extremely thin and frail. I agree with those saying it’s not an accurate photo but is instead the angle. But the fact that she chose to put the photo out there is bizarre. She had to be expecting comments on her weight. It’s a bit like those people who post bikini photos and caption them ‘blue skies’ or something like that. A pretend misdirect, when really they couldn’t care less about the sky and just want people to comment on their body.
Itās the angle with a little help from Facetune. Check put her post versus the non edited images from the show, line the 2nd to last photo posted here and also if you check out photos online, her frame is much wider and bigger than what she posted.
This is body shaming. I don’t see how people don’t get that. For some reason, it has become okay to comment on skinny people’s weight, but God forbid you comment on someone who is over weight. It is NEVER okay to comment on ANYONES weight unless it is positive or they have a legitment issue they need to be confronted about. Calling a skinny person ‘anorexic’ is exactly the same as calling an over weight person ‘fat’ or ‘fatty’. Neither is okay!
Wait until you lose a friend or family member to eating disorders. See my post above. This issue is neither black nor white, we need to see all the shades of grey in between. We also need to point the finger of blame that causes celebrities, mostly women, to feel the pressure to be unnaturally thin. Hollywood and the media are relentless at turning on women who aren’t a perfect size zero.
It’s insanely trashy when someone comes in expecting others to have sympathy for their losses and understand where they’re coming from, complaining about how societal standards put women at risk, while having zero sympathy or concern for how society teaching that women are literally trash if they aren’t sexually modest puts women and girls at risk. Where is your sympathy for the fact that women are abused, victim-blamed, and killed (either by people who carry the message you preach to it’s natural, violent conclusions of because they were driven to suicide) because of THAT message?