Rebel Wilson’s affirmation that 2020 was to be her ‘year of health’ stirred an immediate interest from the media: her goal weight was printed across the tabloids, whilst journalists and the public alike sat in anticipation of the results. This health journey may seem an unquestionably positive step for Wilson – promising to better her physical and mental wellbeing – and yet it has been met with debate and controversy.

For the most part, the public response towards Wilson’s weight loss has been encouraging, with many supporting her healthy behaviours and realistic goals. Her simple combination of exercise and mindful eating using the ‘Mayr Method’ (a diet premised on gut health) demonstrates Wilson’s intention to change her lifestyle for the better, rather than undertake a ‘quick fix’ fad diet. Jono Castano, Wilson’s trainer, emphasises the importance of focusing on realistic, long-term goals: ‘I think with any type of transformation, you shouldn’t always look to the easiest option, you know, two months is not enough time to be able to change your body’. Such an outlook clearly demonstrates a sustainable, healthy approach towards weight loss – so why is it being contested?

It is, perhaps, surprising that Wilson began this journey with so much determination and vigour. In 2016, her Cosmopolitan cover interview explained that she ‘wouldn’t ever want to compete with what I call ‘the glamours’ – the really gorgeous people. I’m about the brain, the heart and what’s on the inside. I feel really lucky to be the body type I am’. Indeed, her larger frame added diversity to the conventional petite Hollywood figure, and her acceptance and embracement of it was totally refreshing. It is, however, wholly unjust to hold her accountable to maintain her plus-size shape in the name of representation, to hold her up as a symbol of self-acceptance. This problematic narrative – that having ergo conformed to society’s narrow beauty standards, Wilson’s healthier lifestyle choices have rendered her a ‘let down’ of the body positivity movement, demonstrates that the issue does not lie with Wilson but in a collective ideology.

By reducing her to merely a size, a symbol, a spectacle, the media and public become complicit in a deeply disturbing fascination with the female aesthetic. For so long the media branded Wilson a heroine for plus-sized girls and the body positivity movement, but then criticized her when she decided to change her lifestyle. The cultural obsession with confining women to visual symbols therefore becomes a method of reducing them to a single categorized aesthetic. This was also the case following Adele’s alleged seven stone weight loss. Having had the audacity to change their own body shapes, these women are subjected to criticism and condemnation for rejecting the ideological narrative assigned to them.

Whilst Wilson initially decided to publicise her weight loss journey via social media, arguably somewhat inviting the media to comment on and analyse her progression, the issue lies in the fact that she has not been allowed to remain in control of her own narrative. Wilson labelled 2020 her year of ‘health’, and yet little consideration has been given to her physical and mental wellbeing, only to the effect it has on her outward aesthetic. Despite the fact that Wilson is voluntarily in the public eye, any comment on her weight loss becomes objectifying. If it is celebrated, the message communicates that her body was socially unacceptable before, whereas now it is something to be applauded. Rather than scrutinising her physical changes, the focus should remain as Wilson originally assigned it, on her pursuit of a healthier lifestyle.

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