Weight & See

‘ULRIKA Jonsson is right, as usual. “Life has taken such an unexpected turn”. Who would have thought it?

‘Don’t call me Anthea’

But there it is in inky black on glossy white – Hello! has uttered its first criticism of its target in a celebrity interview.

Sure, there is all the normal syrup we’ve come to expect from the magazine that can cause tooth decay. Hello! just happens to arrive as Ulrika is “fooling around in the kitchen making Swedish sponge cake with her two little girls”.

Hello! gives space for Ulrika to tell us: “When I was pregnant I didn’t mind how fat I was because my body was performing the greatest task.”

Being fat was not a reason for us not seeing Ulrika on our TV screens these past few months. No. It was not. “She made a conscious decision to withdraw from the public gaze,” says Hello! with childlike certainty.

But it’s on the subject of Ulrika’s weight that Hello! develops a literary tick. It’s as if the interview has been warned by the doctor that too much sugar is bad for the health. Go for some balance. Stick in something sour.

So with a quivering pen, the following line is laid down, to be read by all as nothing short of the cathartic moment when the wind changed and Ulrika’s face stayed fixed forever in a rictus grin of self satisfaction.

Says the magazine: “She is trim and toned – if a little too slim – and so fit that earlier this year she did a fun run to raise money for an orphanage in Thailand for children of the Tsunami.”

Good of her to run for charity like that, finding time to fit it into her hectic schedule of four runs a week: “two five-mile runs and two four-mile runs. The uplifting feeling it gives you afterwards – nut during – can be quite addictive, and I’ve become a bit obsessive about it.”

And the positively, life-affirming, exhilarating, rush of endomorphines is given an added warmth if the little loves in Thailand can benefit too.

But let’s rewind. It was easy to miss. So easy that we’d like to remind you, and us, that the words were uttered – “if a little too slim”.

Even if Ulrika herself says “I have lost too much weight”, she surely cannot have expected Hello! to size her up, and agree.

And it’s all so doubly wrong because, as we all know, you can never be too slim.

You can only be enviably slim. You are blessed of a model’s figure. You are empathising with African poverty. You are on hunger strike for a new handbag. You are svelte. You are blessed.

Even if you do look like you could do with a good meal and getting back on the magic box. Well, they do say the cameras add 10lbs – and Ulrika could do with the favour…’

Posted: 5th, September 2005 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink