Let me be clear from the start of this story, I don’t think Christie Brinkley is wrong, I just think that she’s full of sh*t. She’s obviously telling people what she thinks they want to hear, and what she believes will sell her new book, Timeless Beauty. The last we reported on Brinkley, 61, she was claiming that she’d only tried Botox once while conveniently forgetting to mention the plastic surgery which has significantly changed the entire shape of her face. She was also touting diet and exercise for boosting one’s mood and looks, which is perfectly reasonable. In this new interview, with AOL Build, Christie talked about body image, image standards, and how women often strive to please others with our appearance. It was a good message, but this is a lady who has a beauty book and a hair extension and skincare line. She’s not really following her own advice. Here’s more of what she said.

“I think that my industry has come a long way, although we’re still a little too appreciative of the super, super unhealthfully skinny body. People’s bodies come in every shape and size, and I really believe that all shapes and sizes should be celebrated as long as that’s your natural, healthy weight,” Brinkley said during the chat.

Brinkley, whose kids Jack and Sailor Brinkley-Cook have both dabbled in modeling, is all about having a more relaxed perspective on appearance and setting our own standards of what’s beautiful.

“If I could say something to my younger self or to my daughters, I always try to say, ‘You know, we’re always so concerned about what ‘they’ think or what ‘they’re’ going to say. Well, who is that, ‘them’? Who are we referring to?’ Because basically, it’s up to us to set our own standards of what’s right for us and be leaders, and not be under this pressure of thinking that we need to fit in to something that maybe we’re not meant to fit into. Maybe we’re meant to be leaders and set examples,” she said.

“Right now, what I’m seeing is a real movement of women supporting women, like, really being excited to encourage each other and be there for each other, and I think that that’s really important,” Brinkley added. “I think that that will only lift all of us and make all of us thrive and really shine.”

[From The Huffington Post]

Much of what she said, barring the fact that she’s saying it, rings true to me. We do need models who are not underweight (which is technically below a BMI of 18), as we discussed in the post on Victoria Beckham a couple of days ago. I don’t believe people have a “natural” weight, weight is the product of what we put in our bodies and how much energy we expend, but I believe we have a “healthy” weight, which can be objectively measured for height, age and gender. That’s probably what she meant anyway. It’s also true that we should live and look in a way that’s genuine to who we are, not what other people expect from us, which can be arbitrary and can change with beauty trends. Again, this is Christie Brinkley saying these things, though. She’s a model and she’s kept up her looks with hard work and she’s capitalizing on it. These words might ring more true from, say, Geena Davis, or someone committed to these causes. It’s not really a congruent message coming from Christie. Also, Kaiser put it much better than I did, she told me that “people are tired of being preached to by blonde, traditionally ‘beautiful’ women who have spent their entire professional careers profiting from their inclusion in society’s extremely narrow definition of beauty.”

This comment from Jay on the Huffington Post also sums it up for me. “In related news, Bill Gates said today that we should stop worrying so much about money.”