well, renee zellweger (if the spelling is right) was always skinny and got chubby for bridget jones(maybe the photo is from then), nicole ritchie was friends with paris hilton and got media exposure, and I guess sort of the same applies to Lyndsay Lohan, Madonna's just getting older, Amy Winehouse does crack, I didn't notice much of a difference with Jennifer Connely, Courtney Love I remember appearing to be thin or fatter at random.

Christina Ricci did got really skinny and the rest I'm glad I haven't heard about, because I think I already know way too much about celebrity's weight gain/loss.

some of these women are/were drug addicts and alcoholics, which accounts for fluctuating appearance, especially in the case of winehouse, lohan, nicole ritchie and courtney love... i can't believe this fact was overlooked... and the first picture of madonna was taken prior to her macrobiotic-fitness queen days. that being said, thin frames in hollywood is not really a new phenomenon. dissecting this would require an investigation of the entire second half of the 20th century, i think....

I couldn't agree more with Anna. My first thoughts were that this list is contained too many examples of drug addicts (which will always lead to fluctuating weight). My second thought was that women like Ricci and Hatcher have long had public battles with weight.

While I'm not suggesting that body image isn't a problem, it's long been an issue in Hollywood and the media. So I'd say there's nothing new to see here...move along everyone.

*shrugs*

What does interest me is that-while most of them have gone from curvy to slim- Madonna has basically become very muscular/toned (whatever the right word is).

Which leads us onto the whole new topic of whether this is healthy or because she feels pressured...

AGH ITS ALL TOO MUCH

What does it say about me that I didn't recognise any of them with their faces showing let alone with their faces obscured?

I like some of Amy Winehouse's music, but I don't make it a priority to be able to pick the artists I like out of a lineup, real or otherwise...

why is one of the trackbacks a porn site?

I disagree with a lot of the above commentors. First of all, I'd postulate that to select a sample of celebrity women that isn't skewed toward those who have/have had drug/alcohol problems, eating disorders, public battles with weight, or are yo-yo dieters would be quite a feat. No matter those "problems," those are still the primary women in the limelight. Second, the fact that weight has always been an issue doesn't mean that there hasn't been an extra emphasis on thinness from the 90's to now. Give me such a list of examples of women celebrities who have gotten fatter and continue to be in the limelight for anything other than the spectacle of their fatness.

"Curvy" always seems to mean "boobs and/or hips." What about us gals who are not slim but also are flat-chested? I'm build like a tree trunk. I'm not thin (beautiful) but nor am I "curvy." If "real women have curves," where does that leave me and others like me?

I guess we're not real women. We lose either way.

I hear you anon.... I'm fat AND flat.

I think they looked a lot better when they were curvy, because then they looked healthy. When will people realize that starvation isn't beautiful by any standard?

@The Nerd

It's very difficult to gauge someone's healthiness just glancing at their body. I resemble the stars in their skinnier state. I eat right (I certainly do not starve) and I exercise, and according to my latest physical, I am as healthy as a horse.

Also, it's impossible to generalize one's personal sexual preferences to those of the whole human race. "Despite" being skinny, which, according to you, means I look starved, I've had men tell me that I look good. There are also people who don't even consider weight, and others who are attracted to the extremely fat or, yes, even the dangerously thin. Standards of beauty are malleable and personal, varying across cultures and individuals.

I'm soo tired of this constant objectifying of women, this obscuring of their accomplishments and reduction of them to nothing but their bodies through the relentless obsession over their weight.

At the same time, I recognize that these women's bodies are commodified by the very nature of their careers (acting, modeling), and that therefore, trends in their appearance reflect the changing tastes of the public (or at least, what advertisers and producers believe the public's tastes to be).

I also recognize that the commodification of women's bodies occurs regardless of whether we discuss it on this blog.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that by discussing these women's appearance, and not their accomplishments, we are complicit in their objectification.

Drug Addicts? Come on girls, the judgement implied in these words blurs the reality that these women are no different to the rest of us - their body and self images damaged further by the Hollywood and music biz straitjacket of female conformity.
Women must stop individualising the problem and admit that we are all constrained by unrealistic expectations of what our bodies should look like. And further, none of these images have escaped the dreaded Photoshop, so none of these women really look like this anyway!
Love and sisterhood
Maggie

Maggie: Calling many of them 'drug addicts' isn't a judgement, it's a fact. I've spent my fair share of time in Manhattan and Hollywood (I grew up in LA), and in places like that nearly everyone believes they are the coolest people to ever walk the planet, especially the ones who are already famous. Their hubris is fed by the public's insatiable appetite for trivia about them, so I can see why it goes to their heads.

Anyhow, most of the top tier of the celebrity scene either does coke, heroin, amphetamines (pharmaceutical or illicit), a few sundry exotic substances, or some combination of all of them. If consumed regularly, any or all of these drugs will eventually make anyone look at least a little bit like a runway model; the dark circles under gaunt, dull eyes, the starved-looking body (there are very obvious differences between someone naturally skinny and someone emaciated by recreational chemistry if you know what you're looking for), and a slowly-setting hardness about them that's difficult to describe but you know it when you see it.

Here's my point: The self-absorbed world of pop celebrities and wannabe's are largely whacked out on drugs that eventually make them look like warmed-up death, which they essentially are. They are also the people who dictate trends in fashion and appearance, which puts them in the unique position of being able to shift public attitudes about their own deteriorating appearance, redefining it as "in." The public didn't suddenly decide this look was "in" and force celebrities to adhere to it; what's "in" is dictated to the public by the celebrities.

IMO, if someone's appearance is changing due to their recreational drug use, it is in fact a deterioration even if everyone else they do lines with think they look great. Hollywood and the fashion industry are inbred circle-jerks, and they exalt whatever the Alphas in the scene happen to look like as "the" standard to meet. Those in the scene who are not doing the drugs have to conform to the aesthetic set by those above them (who generally are) if they want to be allowed past the velvet rope. Even in Madonna's case, it may not be just a lot of working out. One of the top-rated/most popular yoga and fitness instructors in Manhattan likes doing speedballs occasionally and heroin or coke (separately, not mixed in a speedball) fairly often. I know this because I went to college with her; she got into the hard stuff when she moved to the City to teach yoga. She parties with this celebrity in-crowd (including two pictured above), and I got a firsthand peek into that scene when I visited last, but the years are catching up and sure enough she's starting to get that runway-model-junkie look... thank God it's "in!" We're no longer friends thanks to me calling it as I saw it and expressing my aversion to the idea of going to her funeral. I was there for the funeral of her boyfriend, the second one to OD within three years and her 11th funeral to attend in the past two; being so awesome has its price (9 were drug related, one had bad luck and died while getting breast augmentation surgery, and one was shot). That's the reality of the scene.

Is it de rigueur to immediately deny the premise of the original post's question, without trying to offer a good faith reply? Would it kill some of you to at least try to answer the question on its own terms without forcing your own? It's like grad school hell in here, damn. Granted, questions themselves need questioning too sometimes, but seriously... there's NO truth in the observation that female hollywood stars have gotten noticeably "twiggier" through the late nineties? Deny that, and you are willfully blind and annoyingly contrarian. Watch some 80s movies for a while, you'll see tons of twiggy ladies with six-pack abs.. uhhuh, rigggghhhhht.

So, with a little respect to the post's author, whose observation is spot on, here's my shot at answering the question at hand:

The most public bodies, female and male, are under more intense and total regulation (whether external or internal, or both) than before. Perhaps it is the effect of a culture in late-capitalism rooted in an ethos of maximum control, efficiency, perfection, and the appearance of flawlessness. There becomes no tolerance for so-called "imperfection." Female bodies move particularly in the direction of extreme slenderness because....? I'm not sure. Because for women, slenderness is the most visible signal that one has conquered desire and that control has become paramount? Because, for some reason, they feel "guilty" for being successful women and thus punish themselves with this strict body regimen as self-induced penance?

I think it's hard to identify anyone based solely on their body; whether these stars were curvy or thin, I would not be able to tell who they were if their faces had been distorted.

The original pic of Madonna is from the Golden Globes when she won for Evita. It was weeks after her daughter's birth and she was breastfeeding. They picked the largest pic of her they could find over the last couple of decades it appears.

I think you guys are missing the point here...

Hmm. We seem to be at an end-point in terms of naturally achievable starved-looking levels of thinness. Whatever will be next in fashion and Hollywood celebrity? Maybe Hollywood is waiting for population expansion and food shortages to drive most of us to this state (yes, a dystopian projection based on years of natural resource economics studies) before they let stars gain weight again and make that the new standard of un-achievable glamour?

Official Hollywood Glamour seems predicated on difference and the unachievable. Now that many more of us can afford knock-off glamourous dresses, coloured contacts, etc. the body has become the last frontier for controlling female self-esteem.

Yet, audiences continue to love actresses in the classic films when they looked realistically more average, from Kate Winslet in Titanic to Minnie Driver in Circle of Friends, to Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones and Jenna in The Office, more recently Christina Hendricks/Joan of Mad Men! And who can forget Elizabeth Taylor's entire relatively voluptuous by today's standards career, the not-so-secret appeal of cheeky Roseanne Barr, etc., etc., etc.... Dame Judy Dench has also done well for herself.

My husband always thinks I'm beautiful, size 10 or size 14. He says that if men truly disliked fat, porn wouldn't show it at all, but in fact it is attractive to see women who are larger, more vital and likely to keep up in his opinion, in the fun things in life. We have known several ultra-slender, fit-looking people who can barely keep up to us on a hike. He also has a slightly softer shape but is very active and strong, but not interested in the bodybuilding zero fat male culture so popular here on the west coast. Regularly he amazes thin people with his agility, stamina, strength, good graces, balance, you name it while at work as a tradesman/home designer. We are not afraid for our health, and we pity the fashion industry victims that I used to be, for giving up everything that's worth having for the sake of showing one's ribs.

We think the best thing you can do for your daughters is to emphasize non-fashion examples of culture in their activities: the outdoors, modern dance with more full figures such as the incomparable Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (boobs, hips, large frames, some female muscles and roundness and fantastic athleticism), music that emphasizes the quality of the aural rather than the visual, real women role models who achieved things, and so on. Above all, emphasizing healthy food and personable personality, and non-obsession with diet and thinness over other considerations... A tall order in today's culture, but a good fight worth fighting for boys and girls.

I suppose we are all a bit subversive at heart.

The scariest thing about those before and after shots is that the thought 'Well if they can do that...' momentarily flashed through my mind. I thought I'd left all those thoughts back in my teen years.

#4 ought to be really skinny by now.

Jennifer Connelly I love her when she was busty and curvy the perfect body just like Terri Hatcher, Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Madonna, Christina Ricci they had bodies that you can hold on to for a long time but now they went the Hollyweird way be skinny almost to be anorexic. Amy Winehouse and Courtney Love they did a whole lot of drinking and drugs enough to put Amy to a early grave. I would like to tell females who was born with like a hourglass figure with a little more waist don't destroy the beautiful body that The Lord gave you with over eating or not eating to be popular or being like everyone else.