When Us Weekly opted to position a picture of Lena Dunham next to a cover headline titled “20 Slimdown Diet Tips Stars are Using,” they clearly didn’t consult the Girls creator-slash-star.
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Upon seeing the teaser for the feature centered on weight loss, Dunham — who is known for being a major role model in the body-pos community — used Instagram to post her own version of 20 slim-down diet tips.
Among them? Things like having an anxiety disorder and the constant nausea that comes with it, living through “an election that reveals the true depths of American misogyny,” suffering “abdominal adhesions pinning ovary below uterus” (which she notes is a preexisting condition), and “having your phone number leaked to your phone by randos under names like [email protected].”
The list goes on and on.
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What Dunham has done, of course, is point out that her weight loss — and the weight loss of most women — is the result of many different factors. Dunham’s reasons specifically are not necessarily cause for celebration, but rather the result of various stressful triggers in her life.
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She summed this sentiment up pretty succinctly in her 20th tip, stating, “I have no tips. I give no tips. I don’t want to be on this cover cuz it’s diametrically opposed to everything I’ve fought my whole career for and it’s not a compliment to me because it’s not an achievement thanx.”
And while Dunham does make her fair share of controversial statements, there’s no denying that the post in question does diametrically oppose her own values — she routinely uses her celebrity to raise awareness for issues women face.
Her podcast, Women of the Hour, is devoted to exploring these issues and the nuances of being a woman in the socio-political culture we currently inhabit.
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Dunham holds space for women as flawed, complicated, beautiful, messy, wonderful creatures. She strives to present a more multifaceted picture of who we are as opposed to the one-dimensional personas cultivated by often-sexist media coverage.
Although it’s readily apparent Dunham has lost weight recently, she has been candid about the fact that her endometriosis and other personal issues served as a catalyst for the loss.
She has also been candid about the fact it’s nobody’s damn business.
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