
A lusciously lumptastic Ashlee Simpson is seen leaving a makeup store in LA this weekend.
You know what I find amusing about this photo?
A six-months-pregnant Ashlee Simpson looks, well, about like what I look like normally. Including the little tummy bump. I was talking to a friend tonight about how I am tragically one of those girls who, no matter how thin I get, always has that little belly bump. I could weigh 90 pounds and I’d still have that bump where my stomach is. It’s just my anatomy. I have a little protruding Buddha belly, and it will never ever go away on its own. I am actually looking forward to having a kid so that I will have an excuse to have a tummy tuck and get rid of that thing. I’m just gonna tell the folks in the delivery room to give my husband the kid and wheel me directly to plastic surgery.
Anyway, so, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m doing Weight Watchers right now, which has actually been very effective for me, and I’m eating a lot healthier and seeing results, albeit slowly. But, okay, I just have to admit something. When you pay for the Weight Watchers online membership, you get access to their message boards. And they have like a billion different message boards, many of which might actually be useful to me. I don’t use those. But I spend hours a day lurking on the message boards for women who have 200+ pounds to lose. I don’t know why. I’m obsessed. I mean, I’m sure part of it is that it makes me feel better about myself — “Your goal weight is 40 pounds more than my current weight!” — but I also like rooting them on and, like, reading their little stories and journeys as their lives transform. Whenever one of them posts a link to her personal blog, I read the thing all the way through. I look at all the photos. I read all the stats. I’m, like, freakishly obsessed with watching these morbidly obese women lose weight. Why am I so weird?
And then I have to talk about something else.
So by freakishly reading these message boards, I am learning so much about plus-size fashion. And when they talk about a plus-size store, I immediately go and check out that store’s website, because I am so, so weird like that. I’ve noticed a couple of things. First off, all of these websites use, like, the same ten “plus-size” models. Secondly, none of these models are actually overweight. What they do is put, like, huge clothes on these tiny beautiful women, and they just look like something out of Big Love rather than normal women with normal bodies. Here are some examples:

Do you see??? These women aren’t even a tiny bit overweight. They’re just wearing clothes that are way too big for them. Like they raided their moms’ closets. What kind of message does that send? I dunno. It kind of bugged me, but it also kind of made me laugh. The whole thing is so ridiculous.