Valerie Bertinelli made a powerful statement when she wore an outfit that was once intended to shame her.
“I found the clothes I wore in my very first before picture for Jenny Craig,” the Food Network star said in a video posted to her Instagram account on Tuesday.
In her video, Bertinelli wears a pink button-down blouse and jeans that were featured in a 2009 commercial for the diet company. That same year, Bertinelli also posed alongside the photo in a bikini during a cover shoot for People magazine.
But according to Bertinelli’s Instagram video on Tuesday, losing weight hasn’t had a positive impact on her life.
“I did so much emotional and mental work to recover from the years of pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t,” Bertinelli says in the video. “Health is not height. Health is not a number you see on a scale. Your worth as a human being is not determined by your body.”
In the 2009 Jenny Craig commercial, Bertinelli wears a swimsuit and a towel around her waist. As she speaks into the camera, the photo of her in the pink blouse and jeans appears to her right. Below the photo are the words, “Lost 40 pounds.” Below those words, in smaller and fainter text, is the ridiculously telling line: “Results not typical.”
“With the help of my Jenny Craig advisor Kathy, I lost 40 pounds and gained confidence!” Bertinelli says in the ad as she takes off her towel as her “before” photo fades.
In Bertinelli’s Instagram video, she seems frustrated with the mentality she had while filming the Jenny Craig commercial.
“The last time I wore these clothes I thought I was fat,” she says with a sigh. Then Bertinelli takes a long pause as she looks at herself in the mirror.
“I’ve never felt more beautiful, more peaceful, more mentally and emotionally stable than I do today, wearing my ‘fat clothes.’ That sucks,” she says, laughing.
Although Bertinelli’s body acceptance message will likely resonate with many, her statement that she thought she was fat the last time she wore the outfit still sends the message that being fat is a bad thing.
Aubrey Gordon — an activist, author and podcaster who uses the word “fat” to describe her own body — suggested on NPR’s “All Things Considered” in January that people who are straight sizes (i.e. not plus sizes ) wear, use more specific language when they “feel” fat. She argued that this removes the negative connotation of the word “fat” and helps people better understand what they really feel.
“Fat isn’t really a feeling, is it? Fat is a body type. And fat people’s bodies are not metaphors for days of low self-esteem or poor body image,” Gordon said. “It’s really disheartening that when people want to talk about feeling the worst about their bodies, the description they reach for is a description of my body.” They say, “I feel terrible today,” which means, “I feel like I look like you,” which feels terrible to me as a fat person, right? The more people can talk about reality, the more accurately you will receive help and support from your friends.”
And if, like Bertinelli, you’re still struggling with all those tricky body image issues, Gordon revealed what helps her.
“For me, I have to say that the thing that will get my relationship with my body back on track is actually pulling back the curtain and clarifying where a number of our most reductive beliefs about body size come from. And the vast majority come from really unreliable sources,” Gordon said, mentioning “companies looking to profit from our poor body image” like Jenny Craig.
“All of these things come from people who don’t want the best for most of us… They want to make money,” Gordon said. “It’s really liberating to realize that we’ve been led down the wrong path, so to speak. And once you see where this garden path goes and where it comes from, it became a lot easier for me in that respect.”