Author: Jawdah Hannad Basara

When an actress’s body changes in any noticeable way, a certain kind of cruelty that exists in celebrity gossip forums tends to come to light the quickest. Sometime in 2023, Elisabeth Moss discovered that when pictures of her wearing black sweatpants and an oversized gray T-shirt went viral online, the criticism started almost immediately. There was conjecture everywhere. She revealed she was expecting her first child during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live a few months later. That provided a respectful response to the question that no one had really asked. The way that sequence played out is worth pausing…

A famous actress standing in front of a magazine and bluntly stating that she is the heaviest she has ever been is disarming. No breakdown with tears. Not a big reveal. It’s just a quiet, slightly irritated honesty that most women in their forties will likely recognize right away. Because of this characteristic, Rebekah Elmaloglou’s remarks regarding her weight gain stood out from the typical celebrity body narrative. Elmaloglou had been portraying Terese Willis, a powerful businesswoman on Neighbours, for four years when she spoke with New Idea in 2017. Moving from Sydney to Melbourne with her husband Kane and…

Between the last bell and the first chippy order, Paddy Pimblett transitions from being a UFC fighter to a Liverpool boy who genuinely enjoys eating. The change is not subtle. The 155-pound lightweight, who just spent weeks living on self-control and calorie restriction, is eating his way through Merseyside within days of weigh-in, acting like a man who has been informed that the world is ending and that the only remedy is a Coca-Cola and a full English. Because Paddy Pimblett’s weight gain is so freely and joyfully acknowledged, it has become one of the more talked-about topics in the…

The way reality TV shapes viewers’ expectations of a woman’s body and what happens when she dares to let it change is strangely illuminating. Millie Court, who co-won Love Island in 2021 with Liam Reardon, has been dealing with that tension for a significant portion of the time since the show. Her experience isn’t dramatic in the manufactured sense. It’s more sincere and quieter than that. Millie claimed to be a happy size 10 before she ever entered the villa. She was not giving dress sizes much thought. Something changed during the weeks of preparation leading up to filming. She…

This year, Perrie Edwards made a comeback to the spotlight with a new song, an appearance on a podcast, and the quiet confidence that comes from someone who has truly experienced it. She had a nice appearance. She had a sharp voice. And almost instantly, the topic of discussion changed from her music to her body. Even though this pattern is so well-known that it hardly qualifies as news anymore, here we are. Perrie felt compelled to directly address the rumors surrounding her appearance on the We Need to Talk podcast, especially the notion that any noticeable weight change must…

The moment you open a refrigerator and see a half-eaten pack of crumpets and realize they’ve already gone soft and suspicious around the edges is one type of British frustration that doesn’t get discussed enough. It occurs more frequently than anyone wants to acknowledge. They are finished by Tuesday if you buy them on a Saturday, eat three of them, and forget about the rest. Despite their dependability and satisfying weight in your hand, Warburtons crumpets have a shelf life that seems almost purposefully inconvenient. Because of this, the issue of freezing them is more important than it first appears.…

Every Sunday morning, over 150 parking lots in Britain participate in a specific kind of ritual. Before the doors have even opened, a line forms, families cram themselves out of hatchbacks, and someone invariably forgets the baby wipes. The goal is to pile a plate as high as dignity, and a serving spoon will permit, and the destination is Toby Carvery. However, the question is surprisingly reasonable for people who have never been or who have wondered what the real fuss is about. What does a Toby Carvery roast dinner actually contain? Before most people have had their morning coffee,…

Bisto gravy has an almost ceremonial quality. It’s more of a cultural event than a condiment, as evidenced by the way it pools around roast potatoes and settles at the edges of Yorkshire pudding, or how it smells when it hits a jug on a chilly Sunday afternoon. It hardly merits a second thought for the majority of British households. However, the question of whether Bisto gravy is truly vegetarian has become surprisingly worthwhile given the rising number of people following vegetarian diets. In a nutshell, some of it is, and some of it isn’t. The longer answer includes manufacturing…

The most routine decisions can become unexpectedly difficult during pregnancy. A cheese slice on a cracker. A hot bowl of pasta. A cheese board during a get-together with family. Things that never merited a second thought suddenly become real causes for concern. Wensleydale, that mild, crumbly, and distinctively English cheese that became well-known in the Yorkshire Dales long before Wallace and Gromit got involved, appears more frequently than you might think. For those who are currently craving a wedge of it, the good news is simple: Wensleydale cheese is safe to eat while pregnant. Rather than accepting the verdict at…

A Greggs steak bake has an almost sacred quality. Anyone who has spent enough time or grown up in Britain is familiar with the custom. For a few minutes, everything seems perfect as you wait in line at the counter and receive the pastry in a paper bag. It is still warm and smells like a flaky, buttery crust and beef. However, it becomes more difficult to decide what to do with a leftover one. In particular, is it possible to microwave a Greggs steak bake? In a technical sense, yes. Do you want to? That’s a whole other discussion.…