While some have criticized Kim Kardashian for
hawking (and using) diet pills, others say Kim's
mainstream popularity is sending a positive body image
message to curvier girls. (Photos/Kim Kardashian)
Kim Kardashian's astonishing mainstream popularity as a fitness role model has come under attack because she got liposuction and uses diet pills, but tabloid editors say Kim's icon status is actually helping curvy young women be more accepting of their bodies.
"Women are a little bit tired of the cookie-cutter Hollywood ideal," Shape editor-in-chief Valerie Latona tells CNN. "The fact that...Kim admits to having cellulite and she's curvy -- it resonates with women."
KIM CRITICIZED FOR USING DIET PILLS & LIPO
Ironically, Shape readers were among those who were outraged when Latona put a bikini-clad Kardashian on its June 2010 cover.
Below is a sampling of comments angry readers wrote on Shape's website:
I'm very disapointed you would put Kim Kardashian on the cover. She's notorious for having numerous plastic surgeries, endorses diet pills, and can be seen getting cellulite treatments on her show. She in NOT a celebrity, and she is definitely NOT a role model.
Kim is not a postitive role model for health and fitness with her promotion of Quick Trim diet pills and spraying Windex on food as a dieting tool.
Despite her many critics, Kim's popularity is at an all-time high, and her marketability is undeniable.
In addition to helping her sisters Kourtney and Khloe launch a spinoff reality tv show, Kim makes lots of money endorsing an array of products, and has her own fashion line and fragrance.
'LACK OF TALENT MAKES THEM RELATABLE'
Tabloid editors say the Kardashian girls -- none are of whom are not your average skinny, blonde, blue-eyed starlet -- can help impressionable young women become more accepting of their own imperfect bodies. 
"To be a successful cover star, particularly with body subjects, you have to be a likeable star, and they also have to have a body the readers want to attain," said Dan Wakeford, editor of Life & Style (which features the Kardashians every week). "Covers that feature quotes such as 'I have cellulite; so what?' are part of what makes the Kardashians relatable, and as a result, their physiques seem more attainable."
The fact that Kim and her sisters have no obvious talent, such as a great voice or acting skills, actually helps them be more likeable to the average tabloid reader, says Wakeford.
"They're not doing crazy, extreme diets and they're really, really likeable," he says. "The fact that they don't have a talent such as singing and acting per se helps, because the readers feel they can attain the level of fame and the glamorous life that these girls live."
MOVING PAST A SINGLE STANDARD OF BEAUTY
Kim's omnipresence in media is a foil for the longstanding beauty ideal of a tall skinny, blonde Barbie doll, observers insist.
"Beginning in the late 1960s, there was pervasively a single standard of beauty which was increasingly thin; that was the standard by which society judged beauty," says Tina Pieraccini, a communications professor at SUNY. "Even now, it's tall, thin, blond, [and] blue-eyed."
While some may argue that Kim's exaggerated body type, with its large breasts, small waist and ample backside is also unattainable, experts say it's important that more than one body type and look is considered beautiful.
"I like the fact that they're [the Kardashian sisters] more curvaceous and fuller-figured, but they need to be part of a balance and a mix," says Pieraccini.
Read more on Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian:
- Shape mag readers disgusted: 'Kim Kardashian is not a fitness role model'
- Kim Kardashian: I did not get breast implants or a nose job (photos)
- Cristiano Ronaldo dumps Kim Kardashian for hot Russian model
- Kim Kardashian is a plastic surgery and fame junkie, says ex
- Kim Kardashian: 'My ex beat me and forced me to get liposuction'
- Kim Kardashian is skinner than ever in new bikini photo
- Kim, Khloe Kardashian flaunt weight loss in new bikini photos
Comments
All I see in that top photo is the same Barbie-like flat belly (muscular, no less) and perfect bust that I see on every other Hollywood starlet. Most women don't have perfectly flat bellies with rippling muscles.
However, I do appreciate that she may be delivering the first blows to an iconic image of woman that more closely resembles an adolescent male. Thanks for the perspective.
I agree with the commenter below. Kim is just another plastic Barbie doll except shorter with dark hair. Her look still screams botox and plastic surgery. Of course the editors of these worthless tabloids like Life and Style will defend her - they make money off putting her in their magazine week after week. But who do we have to blame for Kim's popularity but ourselves, the public? If the demand for stories on her werent so high, the tabloids wouldnt write about her as much. Vicious circle.
She's a whore turned celebrity. Sad sad sad.
Her sister Kourtney is cute but her brother Khloe is hideous and has a nasty personality./
I don't find any of the Kardashians particularly likeable. They are all badly spoiled brats. Kim and Kourtney are quite attractive, however, particularly Kourtney in my book. It's unfair to pick on Khloe's looks, though. She got different genes than the other two.
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