Hot bod like a Kardashian in just 30 days? It’s time women wake up and smell the protein shake
SO, can you keep up with a Kardashian?
That’s the question asked by the latest Tube advert for the controversial Protein World, featuring Khloe Kardashian.
You know, the company that created a huge backlash with its advert featuring a woman with a “perfect” body asking, “Are you beach body ready?”
Its latest attempt to trick young women into thinking some powdery shakes will give them the perfect body causes me so many heavy sighs.
You are challenging young women to “keep up” with, and emulate someone famed almost entirely for her body and her surname — two things down to luck and fate.
Also, “challenging” women to attain a particular body type is flawed on several levels.
For a start, when I saw this poster on the Tube, the question that popped into my mind was, “Is this airbrushed?”
Because, having seen this woman in person, this is NOT what she looks like to me, facially or bodily.
It is wrong to imply that any powder, potion or even diet will make you look like this. It will not. In my view, only Photoshop will.
But who wants to keep up with the Kardashians anyway? I certainly don’t.
The problem is, judging by the success of their TV show and the squillions of Instagram followers they all have, there is a whole world of young women who really, really do.
And this is the depressing thing. Can’t anyone see? They are being duped.
Not only into thinking 30 days’ supply of protein powder is going to give them the body of their dreams but, far more significantly, into thinking if they get the body of their dreams, they will be . . . what? Happy? Fulfilled? Rich?
More like starving — and broke.
Rumours of what Khloe may or may not have had done to her body aside, and besides the fact that, for me, this image clearly relies heavily on Photoshop, Khloe Kardashian no doubt has a personal chef and trainer to help make her body the best it can be.
Let’s not forget, this woman’s body is her job. If I had 24 hours a day to devote to looking good then I might look a bit more like her and a bit (well, a lot) less like me.
Sure, it’s important to inspire people to improve their health and wellbeing. But give them realistic goals.
It’s easy to say it’s “just” an advert. But, subliminally, adverts have an effect.
After all, an entire multi-million pound industry is based on selling people things they don’t know or think they need, by stealth.
We all need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Or the protein powder.
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Come on, girls. When it comes to life goals we can do better than this, can’t we?
It’s selling girls short to make their aim in life a “perfect body”. It is ridiculous and trivial.
May I direct your gaze instead to tennis player Serena Williams?
She looks a million dollars and takes pride in the fact that she is a strong woman, rather than skinny. That body is all her but just a side-effect of the hours of mental focus, discipline and determination channelled into her stellar sports career.
Or look at Adele, so brimming with talent and hard work that she won five Grammys last week then broke one in half to share with Beyonce.
Now that is woman power and sisterhood. Something to aim for, don’t you think?
Forget keeping up with the Kardashians. Let’s give our girls proper goals based on what they do, not how they look.
Because strong women can change the world.
WHAT WERE VIEWERS EXPECTING?
BBC viewers are up in arms about the inaccuracies in the way the Shannon Matthews case was portrayed in The Moorside.
That may well be true, but given it was a drama based on real-life events is it any surprise some things were changed? It wasn’t a documentary, after all.
Trump is being a big jerk
WHAT’S in a handshake? Well, quite a lot if you look at recent footage of Donald Trump’s approach to this seemingly mundane everyday activity.
A handshake is meant to be a polite way of greeting someone, but Trump’s favourite trick when shaking hands with other world leaders is to tug them towards him at the same time. It’s being called a “yank-shake”.
Trump jerks his victim towards him like prey in a demonstration of strength.
His recent handshake with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, went on for 17 seconds and was interspersed with some strange pats, almost as you would treat a child.
Basically, the man’s got as much finesse as a carrot.
Only the extremely handsome Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau has got the better of him so far.
Clearly, he’d been primed. When he got out of his car to meet the new President, Trudeau grasped Trump’s shoulder before he was yanked, thus displaying dominance over the man who seems hell-bent on controlling everyone he meets.
It turns out you CAN tell a lot about a man by his handshake.
And Trudeau has got looks, charm and brains. Can he do no wrong?
Nigella is inspiration to us all
NIGELLA LAWSON really is the phoenix that keeps on rising. She has been through a huge amount of adversity – including losing her sister then her husband to cancer, and enduring what she called the “emotional abuse” of her second marriage.
Nonetheless, she looks poised, stylish and happy with amazingly beautiful skin.
She’s a great example of the fact that it’s not what happens in life but how you respond to it.
Why has nobody staged an intervention?
WOMEN who fall for men serving life sentences are one of life’s unsolvable mysteries.
Take actress Paula Williamson, 36, who says she has fallen in love with 64-year-old Charles Bronson – a.k.a. the UK’s most violent prisoner – after reading his book about his six years as a patient at secure hospital Broadmoor.
It’s shocking to hear she sees this man as her soulmate.
Although I’m more shocked about what she wore to visit him in jail – a dress more accurately described as a top, leaving nothing to the imagination. What I want to know is, where are this woman’s friends and family?
Clearly, she has issues and they are manifesting themselves in her marrying this man. Somebody needs to do an intervention.
FROM ONE EXTREME TO ANOTHER
SO apparently pubic-hair transplants are a thing now. Is this for real?
Apparently we’ve all waxed our nethers into Brazilian submission so much that it’s impossible for some women to follow the current fashion to have a fuller bikini line.
The solution – obviously – is a transplant.
Presumably, the hair for the transplant comes from the head.
Does that mean the next big thing in bikini-line fashion will be a parting or a short-back-and-sides?
Silent as the grave
I THOUGHT it heartbreaking when Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s sister Santa spoke some truths about her sibling’s life.
For years it was reported that TPT was the goddaughter of Prince Charles, but Santa said this is not true. In all Tara’s interviews she had never corrected the mistake.
Then in November she revealed she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
But Santa said the coroner found Tara died from a perforated ulcer, not a tumour.
Tara seemingly enjoyed being surrounded by mystery. It is a tragedy that she will now never be able to give us her side of these stories.