Kate Winslet Hates The Idea Of A Post-Baby Body

The only thing I dislike about Kate Winslet is that she's not married to her obvious soulmate, Leonardo Dicaprio. The 39-year old actress covers the March issue of Harper's Bazaar UK, talking about her experience raising children. Winslet had her third child, a son named Bear, in December of 2013 with her husband Ned Rocknroll and totally slams the idea of returning to a "pre-baby" weight in the magazine — a phenomenon that is not only dated and frustrating but blatantly sexist it's almost a little funny.

Winslet told Harper's Bazaar about realizing the impossible ideal of "getting your body back to normal" after having a baby:

There's a big part of me—now, more than ever before—that feels a sense of responsibility for how other women view themselves. Take having the baby, for instance. Have I actively been on a diet to lose my baby weight? No, I haven't. I genuinely bloody haven't. I so didn't want to be one of those, 'Oh, wow, she's back in shape after 12 weeks' women.

It's a strange facet of Hollywood culture that is so repulsed by female stars' post-baby bodies. When they are pregnant, stories revolve around their adorable baby bumps, their charming maternity style and whether it will be a boy or a girl (which we, too, are guilty of, most recently with Jessica Biel), and of course there is a flurry of excitement when another famous offspring bounds into the world. But interest soon wanes in the pregnancy and increases in wondering: "When will she look good again?"

How strange to idealize the idea of a pregnancy and splash photos of celebrities with buns in the ovens across magazine covers and then, as soon as they give birth, expect them to immediately spring back to however "fit" they were before the baby, an expectation that is totally ignorant of all the intense changes a woman's body goes through during pregnancy. And Winslet will have no part in contributing to that standard, as she said she felt responsible to set a healthy example for fans and audiences. Beyond that, she talks about just how, well, stupid she thinks it is to be focussing on losing baby weight. "Life is just too short to be spending time focusing on things like that. I want to keep my health and my sanity and be well fed and happy." Isn't that all any of us could ever want?

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