Chrissy Teigen's 'Post-Baby Body' Is Just a Body. End Of.

I've never been one to read Celebrity weekly magazines or the infamous Sidebar Of Shame (unless for work purposes, obvs), but the coverage of Teigen's pregnancy and existence since giving birth to baby Luna has been unavoidable and totally infuriating.

Newsflash: after giving birth women have bodies.

This, in celebrity journalism, is commonly known as a 'post-baby body'. In reality it is just the body of a mother. All our mothers have post-baby bodies, in fact, most women will have a post-baby body for the majority of their lifetime.

Why then, does a post-baby body make headlines?

On Thursday, the MailOnline Celebrity Twitter account tweeted a story claiming that Chrissy Teigen was "showing off her incredible post-baby body", complete with a heart eyes emoji - a strong contestant for the biggest non-story of the day.

In fact, Teigen was wearing an off-the-shoulder top and shorts, with hardly any of said post-baby body on show, unless she grew the baby in her kneecap. Perhaps the headline should really read: Mother Sits On Sofa.

In the media's eyes, as long as Teigen has a body, she will always be "showing off her post-baby body".

Reframing a woman's every waking moment since birth as a "showing off her post-baby body" is firstly, a stretch from an editorial perspective and secondly, does nothing for women and mothers' self-esteem.

Why? Because all women's bodies are different, their pregnancies are different, their priorities are different, their ability (both financial and time-wise) to exercise are different.

Sometimes women's bodies spring back into shape; sometimes they work out or diet to lose their pregnancy weight; sometimes they decide not to work out and continue to carry excess weight for a while; sometimes they never lose the weight gained during their pregnancy.

I've never been one to read Celebrity weekly magazines or the infamous Sidebar Of Shame (unless for work purposes, obvs), but the coverage of Teigen's pregnancy and existence since giving birth to baby Luna has been unavoidable and totally infuriating.

But to blame media alone is unfair, in fact - the problem spreads far and wide. Just days after giving birth and sharing a photo on social media Teigen was accused of "self-promotion" by commenters because you could see part of her breasts - in reality she was being a proud new mother showing Luna to her fans.

Let's not forget how excited her and John have been about bringing a new life into the world after having problems conceiving. Let's not ruin their first months with objectification and misogyny, surely the world has grown up by now.

Close