14 DAY TRIAL // In the latest issue of Love magazine, Lily Allen tackles one of the most discussed topics of the moment in the fashion industry: size 0 and, in particular, how come she’s not stick thin as well. Apparently, the singer suffers from a condition called body dysmorphia that makes it so that every time she looks in the mirror she sees an overweight person staring right back at her, as Celebrity Health Fitness can confirm.
Allen, who has constantly struggled with her yo-yo-ing weight over the past few years, tells the magazine that it’s not so much her fault for gaining weight and then going slim again, since it’s her own perception of her body that is defective. She gains weight when she’s under stress, she goes on to explain and then, when she looks in the mirror, she sees a very overweight woman instead of just someone who might need to drop a couple of pounds.
“[I see] someone who is more overweight than I actually am. It’s body dysmorphia. I honestly think I look like Michelle McManus or something,” Allen says. McManus won Pop Idol, the British correspondent of American Idol, in 2003 but was subsequently dropped from her label. The reason for that was, she claimed at the time, the fact that she was overweight and her label would not have an artist like her signed: so, when she refused to lose the weight, it terminated her contract.
However, even if that condition is not the case here, Allen still thinks the attitude towards weight is completely wrong. In the fashion industry, for instance, it’s common to encourage models to have a cigarette instead of lunch and this contributes to their impression that there is, after all, something wrong with their body, the singer reveals. She knows this from experience, of course, having already modeled for Chanel and several other brands.
“The reason the fashion world has embraced me is because I lost [21 pounds] last year. They probably wouldn’t have when I was heavier. Compare me to Kate Moss and all of those supermodels and, yes, I probably am on the podgy side. But in reality I’m fine. […] You can’t fit into [the dresses], and they’re rolling their eyes at you as if it’s your fault. Hold on a second, I’m a pop star, not a model. Don’t make me feel [expletive] for not being really skinny and having an eating disorder,” the singer says, also for Love.