Kim Kardashian wears the infamous Jean Louis dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to JFK in 1962.Credit:AP
Kim Kardashian shut down the Met Gala when she stepped out wearing one of Marilyn Monroe’s most iconic dresses on Tuesday. But the staggering weight loss required for the show-stopping spectacle raises big questions.
“I had to lose about 16 pounds [7.25 kilograms] to fit into the dress,” Kardashian told Vogue prior to her red carpet appearance. “I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill … and just eat the cleanest veggies and proteins. I didn’t starve myself, but it was so strict.”
Designed by Jean Louis and worn by Monroe during her infamous performance of “Happy Birthday” to then US President John F Kennedy in 1962, Kardashian revealed that when she first tried it on, “the original naked dress” was too small.
“When it didn’t fit me I wanted to cry because it can’t be altered at all,” the 41-year-old said. Due to its historic significance, the dress could not be altered and so, instead of having a replica made, Kardashian got to work crash dieting, telling Vogue, “It was this or nothing.”
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Marilyn Monroe at Madison Square Garden in 1962.Credit:Allyn Baum/The New York Times
“When I see this kind of stuff I roll my eyes and think here we go again,” says Leanne Elliston, an accredited practising dietitian with Nutrition Australia. “People who go on fad diets usually aren’t any more healthy for it.”
Kardashian is no stranger to controversial dieting practices. In 2018, she received backlash after promoting appetite suppressant lollipops and has been a vocal advocate for waist trainers for almost a decade. Even before her dramatic Met Gala weight loss, Kardashian was estimated to weigh between 50-60 kilograms. Losing an additional seven kilograms from that, Elliston says, poses the risk of being “quite an unhealthy weight.”
“She didn’t starve herself but that kind of restriction with food is not healthy,” says Elliston, adding that discussing restrictive eating with so much popularity and fame behind her poses a huge risk to impressionable fans and followers.
“If you have no reason to lose weight and you’re an otherwise healthy individual it comes down to vanity. That can promote a negative mindset around food and make food become the enemy. There is a risk of young people thinking this is what is normal and what you do to fit into a dress.”
“When you go on these radical diets, yes, your body reacts very quickly, but you’re usually losing water and lean muscle weight, not fat.”
The problem with crash dieting, Elliston says, is multifaceted. In addition to leaving people with a lack of energy, making them irritable, impacting sleep and playing havoc with the body’s stress and sleep hormones, crash diets also pose huge risks for people with underlying health problems.
“Crash diets are restricting your food intake and putting your body into starvation mode. And when you go on these radical diets, yes, your body reacts very quickly, but you’re usually losing water and lean muscle weight, not fat,” says Elliston.
“When people remove those restrictions we often see they not only gain any weight lost but also gain additional weight througha combination of not having lost any actual body fat through the crash diet and the effect of having a pre-existing unhealthy relationship with food.”
She adds, “if you have a heart condition, diabetes, blood pressure issues or are pregnant, for example, you need to be really careful and lose weight with expert advice and under supervision.”
Instead of focusing on a number on the scales or the measurements of celebrities such as Monroe and Kardashian, Elliston suggests people shift their focus away from weight and towards health.
“It should be about what’s healthy for you, and often in making those healthier changes or choices you’ll lose weight anyway. Yes, it will take a bit longer, but it’s realistic and achievable and much safer from a health and a psychological perspective,” says Elliston.
“Everybody’s weight is different. We all have different genes that set our bodies at different weights.
“People need to accept their own bodies as they are.”
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