Magazines, tabs mix messages about skinny stars

NEW YORK — Photos of a bony Nicole Richie are perpetually splashed over tabloids and magazines alike; headlines scream: "Is she too thin?" and "Wasting away."

Just a few pages later, those same magazines offer tips on how to "lose weight like the stars," or get bikini-ready bodies in record time.

Teen Vogue's March issue showed Richie and teen queen Lindsay Lohan looking more like famine victims than young celebrities in the article "Dying to be thin?" But in the June issue, Lohan was named one of the 25 hottest stars younger than 25. The June issue of Vanity Fair features an extensive article about Richie's struggles with her eating — alongside photos of her in revealing outfits.

And in the past weeks, celebrity tabloids Life & Style Weekly, Us Weekly and Star published similar photos of stars such as Ellen Pompeo, Teri Hatcher and Angelina Jolie, wondering "are they too thin?" but also ran exposés on how stars changed body types and slimmed down.

With eating disorders skyrocketing — more than 11 million people in the U.S. are anorexic or bulimic and another 25 million struggle with binge eating, according to the National Eating Disorders Association — is the media perpetuating the problem by mixing messages? Is it the role of journalists to ensure unhealthy-looking girls aren't being glorified?

Jean Kilbourne, creator of the "Killing Us Softly" educational film series shown in schools, has been tracking the influence of media on women for the past 30 years. She says the pressure to be thin has never been worse.

"Women's magazines are more responsible for precipitating these problems," Kilbourne said. "People really do look at them, and aren't aware that stars are airbrushed, or that they are unhealthy. If that's what you see, you start to think it's the norm."

In Vanity Fair, Richie talks candidly about her eating woes and encouraged her nutritionist and doctors to talk to the article's author. But the piece was paired with photos showing the reality TV star in spanky pants and a bikini.

"It would be like photographing her with a martini when she says she's an alcoholic in the article," Kilbourne said.

"It seems to me that they should have editors paying attention, so that stories match photos."

Vanity Fair says the shoot was going for a specific idea.

"There's usually a concept behind a Vanity Fair photo shoot," spokeswoman Beth Kseniak said. "In this case with Nicole Richie, it was 'Bratty Ingenue Home Alone in Beverly Hills.' It's pretty obvious that she's thin and we didn't try to mask that."

Vanity Fair's readership tends to be older, and the topics of the articles more serious. Alongside the Richie story in the June issue there are heavy-hitting articles about Hurricane Katrina. It could be argued that teenage girls aren't reading Vanity Fair, so there isn't much worry about posing Richie in her skivvies.

But the magazine's reputation means it has more responsibility than a paparazzi-driven glossy, said Roy Peter Clark, of The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. It's held to a higher standard.

"When you sell magazines by exploiting the images of an unhealthy female body, you bear some responsibility for the unintended bad affects it may cause."

Clark said celebrity interviews are valuable because they create doorways to social issues: Rock Hudson being gay, Magic Johnson contracting HIV. "Journalists have a responsibility — photojournalists as well — to ask themselves 'What is the purpose of this?' 'What good does this do?' "

Most point to 1960s waif model Twiggy as the milepost for a skinnier Hollywood, but Kilbourne said it was more gradual, and the diet industry boom is partly to blame.

"It's a $60 billion industry. It doesn't stay that profitable if people actually lose weight," she said.

"The vast majority of women are obsessing about their weight, trying to lose 5 or 10 pounds, always thinking about it."