It's better to be Natalia Vodianova than fat

I'm glad to have helped Elizabeth Nolan Brown theorize about why the concept of "natural beauty" is a load of bunk. The deal with natural beauty is, it's meant to sound like this noble concept - it lets you avoid toxic chemicals and fight the patriarchy! - but it's actually fairly creepy. It's about shaming those who get pleasure from self-expression through appearance-manipulation, a spectrum that ranges from spray-tans to neon mohawks. It is also, at its essence, about making sure that women with dyed hair, thinness brought about by dieting, high heels, etc. don't sneakily trick men into reproducing with them, and god forbid producing offspring without the desired traits.

The story Elizabeth responds to is about an 18-year-old British girl who won a contest for her natural beauty. Says the winner: "Women should not have to feel that they have to wear make up. I hope people will look at me and think they don’t need to wear lots of make up." Yes, this is exactly what women will think when they see a clear-skinned, rosy-cheeked 18-year-old.

But this above-average UK teen has been majorly outclassed on the looks-privilege-gaffe front. Natalia Vodianova, the startlingly beautiful Russian model, a woman who exists for the express purpose of reminding us that some high-fashion models aren't merely skeletal and vacant-looking but are in fact better-looking than the rest of us and even though they're 30 they look like a girl who peaked at 14 did at 14, which is why they're paid the big bucks, the very same Natalia Vodianova explains that we could all look the way she does, if only we didn't eat so much, oink oink. And so, we are meant to believe, the former fruit-peddler launched a hundred thousand eating disorders.

Meanwhile, as far as I'm concerned, Vodianova is inspiration for us normal women not to go on a diet for vanity reasons (to be distinguished from: doctor's orders, or an attempt to avoid being subject to anti-heavy-person discrimination). I look at a picture of Vodianova and think, the fact that she's thinner than I am is absolutely the least of it. If I were as thin as Vodianova, I'd still be much shorter, and would be a gaunt and cranky version of myself, not a Slavic supermodel. Far from being depressed by this knowledge, it frees me up to not worry about it.