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Jennifer Love Hewitt blogs back

Say you went on a Hawaiian vacation with your sweetie to celebrate your recent engagement. And say you got into the water to splash about. And say you then logged on to your computer and found that photos of you splashing about were all over the Internet. And say the things people were saying about how you looked like while splashing about weren’t all that nice. What would you do? Well, if you were Jennifer Love Hewitt, you would blog back.

The Ghost Whisperer star shot back last week at catty comments made about her bikini-clad body. At particular issue was a photo from behind that had some of the literary geniuses of the blogosphere tossing around words like fat and ass. Google it if you must, since I won’t post that shot here, but rest assured she was neither. And after seeing what she looked like from the front, worrying about what she looked like from the back was the last thing on my mind.

Love’s response on her MySpace blog was emphatic:

“I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image. A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful.”

She went on to say:

“What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.”

And she finishes with a call to bikini arms:

“To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.”

If I were the kind of person who could pull off saying, “You go, girl!” with an accompanying sassy head snap, I would do that here. But since I’m not, I’ll just say, “It’s about time.” It’s about time we stopped simply letting our culture get away with its unchecked critiquing of women’s bodies. Because I am beyond fed up. In a world where Jack Black and Seth Rogen have become perfectly acceptable romantic leading men, it’s beyond ludicrous to call Jennifer Love Hewitt overweight.

Now, I do wish Love had left out her defensive clothing size reveal in the post. A ton of sizes above a size 2 are not fat either. But I understand where she is coming from. In fact, I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman who does not understand the reflexive need to confirm her own attractiveness. Like when we ask, “Does this make me look fat?” all we really want to hear is, “No, you look hot.”

So, what do you think of Love’s response? And are you as tired as I am of all the mean-spirited, bitchy and crude comments you read every single day online about who is fat, ugly or whatever? While I’m going to stop short of putting on a bikini (dude, it’s December), I have every intention of staying strong. How about you?

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