Pregorexia?

Recently guidelines were dropped for how much weight is recommended for expectant mothers to gain. For women already in the “overweight” category, that is. The reasons being that these women already have gained the necessary girth, and don’t need to gain more- all it will do is open them up to various complications, including gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia.

Of course, this reminded me of another story I’d read about how there are more women who are barely gaining weight during their pregnancies. Women terrified of gaining weight- they’ve dubbed it pregorexia.

I’ll be honest here. I didn’t gain the 20-35 lbs my ob/gyn wanted me to gain, though I really tried as hard as I could. I have an insanely active metabolism, that once a baby was thrown into the mix, became even more active. I ate the most unhealthy diet possible just to gain as much weight as I could. However, I did gain 18-20 lbs with my pregnancies, and had two healthy boys.

Now, back to pregorexia. This fear of gaining weight during pregnancy is sadly, nothing that surprises me. Pick up any of the tabloid magazines and you’ll see images of an A-list actress working out while pregnant. Nicole Kidman worked out through her whole pregnancy and looked unbelievably tiny. Just last week I opened up US Weekly to see pictures of Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo leaving the gym (Link goes to People, who had the same image). These women are under pressure to keep themselves slim so that they can return to work quickly after giving birth- they don’t have the luxury of being able to to take their time losing weight.

Look at People’s big story about Melissa Joan Hart finally losing the baby weight. I remember seeing the “shocking” pictures of her from last summer, heavier after giving birth to her second child. And while the internet slammed her for taking so long to lose the weight, I was relieved. It was nice to see an actress (albeit one who hasn’t worked in awhile) who wasn’t focusing on being tiny.

Ultimately, it comes down to this- actresses in that league are basically paid to look their best. So they have two options on how to proceed with their pregnancies: gain all the weight and then have to go on a crash diet immediately afterwards, or keep working out to minimize the work once the baby comes. But that’s their job. Just remember that for the rest the world, our job is to make sure that our children are born healthy. It’s unrealistic to think that we can all look as fabulous as the celebs look while pregnant- they also have trainers to monitor them, nutritionists making sure they get what they need and doctors who’ll fly around the world to monitor their pregnancies. Which is an awful lot of work. On top of being pregnant, which is still an awful lot of work. (You try carrying around all that extra weight in front of you!)

Tabloid magazines need to stop trying to tell women that we should all look fabulous by being skinny while pregnant. Pregnant women are fabulous regardless- besides, how often in our lives are we told to have an extra helping of food and sit down and relax? Take full advantage of it!

Originally published at Whitney Drake. You can comment here or there.