i hate the term "body issues" almost as much as i hate this quote from jessica alba.

"Because obviously, if you have a womanly figure, you're not allowed to have a brain or any idea of the world whatsoever. You just have to be hot and use your body to get ahead." ~ from this month's In Style magazine

yes, jess, your intellect was so apparent as you were slaying comic book demons wrapped in lycra.

girl goes on to describe herself as "curvy" and having had "womanly curves at a young age". maybe so, if by "curves" you mean "tits and ass on an otherwise stick-thin, clavicle-jutting frame".

i have much dislike for this sort of hyperbole from twenty-something actresses. it isn't the thinness that bothers me. so maybe your metabolism is naturally quick. so what? skinny girls have body image problems too! girls who weigh one hundred pounds can hate the way they look in a bikini just as easily as a one hundred and forty pound girl can. bodies come in many shapes and sizes, and none of them are perfect.

what bothers me about this ridiculous attempt at depth is the misappropriation of the word "curvy". scarlett is curvy. kate winslet is curvy. selma hayek is curvy. j-lo is curvy. beyonce is curvy. shakira is curvy.

jessica alba is not curvy.

unless, of course, "curvy" -- which used to mean a woman with healthy hips, a soft belly and a rack that men wanted to curl up to sleep on like babies (a'la mae west and marilyn monroe) -- now means something else entirely. and if what "curvy" means is what jessica alba is, well then...what does that make women who fall under the old definition of "curvy", which is now larger than curvy? (kind of like what is a large at wendy's now that a large is a medium.) if we're taking cues from the fast food industry, that makes them supersized. and that is pure insanity.

sometimes, i have to thank whatever powers may be that i was raised by a woman who frowned heavily upon self-denial of chocolate. (a woman who, at forty-five still can fit into a juniors nine, still looks young enough to shop in that department, and readily admits that while pregnant with me she would bake a double chocolate cake, cut a slice for my father, and eat the rest at two o'clock in the morning with a half-gallon of milk). i'm also glad that i was raised to protect myself from the evils of other women by thinking "she's just jealous because i'm cuter than she is" whether that's the case or not (a tactic i still use to this day, and share with all my friends who had mothers that weren't as snarkily cool as mine). i'd hate to be a little girl today.

but i'm of the age where in the near future i may have a little girl of my own to raise. i hope my mother's self-confidence and acceptance -- passed on to me in a time when the media was dominated by cindy crawford, kathy ireland, julia roberts, janet jackson and other athletic, healthy female role models -- will survive the nicole ritchie makeover era. what's happening now is just quite fucking sad...as the general public gets meatier, the ideal of feminine beauty gets whittled down to a mere slip of a girl. how's that for a conflicting message? supersize it all, little ones, just remember not to get fat while you're at it. kind of like jessica simpson in daisy dukes hawking pizza hut. because she totally looks like she's scarfing those cheesy bites between takes.

i really don't know where to peg the responsibility for this malarky. it would be quite easy to blame jessicas alba and simpson, but i won't. because they are twenty-something girls, and so am i -- so i know how stupid and easily influenced by the big, bad world even twenty-somethings can be (and i was ready to make that statement before i got to the part in the article about the sanskrit lotus tattoo).

but goddamnit...curvy?! pizza bites and defined abs?! show some self-respect. at the very least, think of the children...make it your next charity event. i hear that gets almost as much press as dating musicians.