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Jameela Jamil distances herself from body positivity as she’s called out for ‘diet destroyer’ shoot with no plus-size clothes


Jameela’s shoot has caused some backlash (Picture: Romana Rosales/ Stylist)

Jameela Jamil has come under fire for posing for a shoot entitled ‘The Diet Destroyer’ in clothes that are not sold in plus sizes.

The Good Place actress is the guest editor of this week’s Stylist magazine, and posed for a shoot in which she destroys weighing scales with a hammer.

Jameela explained: ‘For this issue, I wanted to create my very own magazine utopia, dedicated to all the things I needed to see and hear when I was younger. I grew up in the era of “heroin chic” where the ideal of beauty was to look like an addict who never ate… Diversity and representation were not a priority, in fact they were seldom even discussed. Whitewashing was just the norm.

‘Women’s magazines never challenged or informed us in their articles, we were just fed fluff that almost always carried subliminal messaging about how to be more attractive towards the patriarchal gaze, in both looks and behaviour. Diet culture was on an aggressive rampage, using fat shaming, Photoshop and erasure of all curves to pressure us into buying dodgy quick-fix slimming products. This all F***ED ME UP as a young person – and I didn’t grow up with social media.’

However, reader Amy Bottrill noticed that in the shoot, only one item Jameela wore in her guest edit reached a size 18, tweeting: ‘In her cover shoot titled The Diet Destroyer she wears seven different clothing brands. ONE item is available to women over size 18 – it’s a unisex pair of £180 dungarees.’

After another reader asked about the lack of plus sized ranges used in the shoot, Jameela replied: ‘I’m thrilled to bring you the feature on @gabifresh who designs underwear and swimwear for large sizes only. She’s a goddess.’

The 33-year-old continued: ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t part of any fashion decisions. I only created the features and dialogue. So I can have a word with the mag… but my job was just to create the message of the issue and decide on my contributors. Sorry if you feel disappointed.’

Bottrill responded: ‘what you’re saying is that you didn’t consider whether the clothes you chose to wear for the shoot (and presumably had some degree of agency whilst putting on your size 10-12 body) are even made for the women’s bodies you’re campaigning for wider representation of. you didn’t ask.’

In response to the backlash, Jameela shared a statement on the guest edit.

The former T4 star wrote: ‘I’m really proud of the issue of Stylist Magazine that I am on the cover of, and have guest edited. The team were amazing and so respectful of all of my wishes, and we created a dream magazine together. There was no photoshop used in the mag (not including advert pages, nobody can control those.) We had diverse and exciting writers cover dating as a fat woman, white privilege, mental health, invisble disabilities, grief, human rights violations against women around the world, to name a few. We had a beautiful dark skinned woman for our beauty section, I grew up only seeing make-up modelled on light-skinned women, and I wrote an op-ed about the dark side of the diet industry and how it ruined my life personally.

Jameela said she promotes body neutrality, not body positivity (Picture: ENT / SplashNews.com)

‘The point of the issue was to let people tell their own stories from their point of view. This wasn’t a body positivity issue. It was about difficult conversations, and eating disorder rhetoric is my biggest personal axe to grind, based on my suffering.

‘Most people have loved the issue, and I’m thrilled, but a few have chosen to entirely disregard the good of the issue, because the size of the clothes I wear in our comedy shoot only go up to a size 18. I understand your frustration. I hear it. And I can imagine that after waiting for so long to be remotely included, you’re done waiting for anything other than perfection. Part of my job involves wearing high fashion, that’s how I manage to get into the magazines to talk about the things I raise. So I’m gonna wear brands that fit me, that may not go all the way up to the size 32 that I wish all clothes went up to. But I will continue to push for more and more size inclusivity for the rest of my career.

‘I wish I could perfectly encapsulate everyone’s wishes all of the time, and make everyone’s personal wishes come true in this industry. I’m doing the best I can to be inclusive of experiences that aren’t my own, by promoting voices of those experiences. If my inability to always ensure everything I wear goes up to a size 28-32, discounts all of my work, then I accept your stance. But I’m already jumping a lot of industry hurdles to start the conversations I am, and it will take quite some time for one woman alone (there are LOADS of amazing activists out here, but I mean few people in my position in the media) in this industry, to change it all, all at once.

‘There is a lot to unpack and undo. Doing my best while straddling this industry and activism. Sending you all my love. And may we continue to teach each other and move upwards together.’

Jameela also distanced herself from the body positivity movement, saying she promotes ‘body neutrality’.

jameela jamil tweet

jameela jamil tweet

The actress tweeted: ‘Just to be clear this cover is about the perils of the incredibly devious diet industry and eating disorder culture. It’s not AT ALL about body positivity.

‘Had an overwhelmingly lovely and emotional response to today’s Stylist issue. But a small amount of people have mistaken my message to be about BoPo. It isn’t. It’s just about eating disorder culture. I’ve been careful to take measures to extract myself from BoPo, as I’m slim.

‘Some great sources for BoPo if you’re looking are people like @yrfatfriend @NerdAboutTown @meghantonjes @Tess_Holliday. But I personally promote body neutrality/ambivalence, which involves not loving or hating your body, just accepting and kind of ignoring it. That’s my method.’

While there was criticism of some aspects of the issue, there was praise for the features commissioned, with pieces from Scarlett Curtis, Munroe Bergdorf and Cathy Rentzenbrink and articles on white privilege and transgender rights.

Jameela also shared her own experiences of toxic diet culture, writing: ‘Throughout my teens and early 20s I was consumed by all of it. I drank all the detox teas, I took all the laxatives, I did all the fad diets, I studied all the pro-anorexia websites. I spent every penny I had on trying to be thinner. I would pass out from lack of nutrition. My periods stopped for a year.

‘I was so thin at one point that I got bed sores from my own mattress. My heart thinned. My thyroid and adrenal glands were in a state of binge-and-starve panic. My digestive system was destroyed by magic potions off the internet. I was depressed. I was weak. I was in chaos.’

The full interview appears in this week’s issue of Jameela Jamil takes over Stylist out today.

For support with eating disorders, call Beat on 0808 801 0677.



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