Yahoo! Health recently posted a slideshow about celebrity weight change, 25 Shocking Celebrity Weight Changes.

The Health.com-licensed article notes that such drastic weight changes – whether quickly losing or gaining weight – can wreak havoc on a person’s health.

Some of the celebrities featured lost drastic amounts of weight for acting purposes or health or vanity reasons; others packed on the pounds for movie roles or because they – for whatever reason – couldn’t or didn’t keep off the weight they lost after dieting.

Among the 25 celebrities are Jennifer Hudson (one of Weight Watchers’s super successful spokespersons), Christian Bale (who got down to 122 pounds for his role as a chronic insomniac in The Machinist), Oprah Winfrey (whose decades-long tale of weight gain and loss ended in 2010 when she announced she’d never diet again), John Goodman (the former obese Roseanne star has lost more than 100 pounds and now works out six times a week), and Kevin Federline (the once super-fit backup dancer has struggled with weight gain for the past several years).

As you can see, the article represents all sorts of scenarios.

Regardless of the reasons, celebrity weight loss and gain affects some people. Not everyone, mind you – I get that there are folks out there who couldn’t care less about how much a famous person weighs, and that’s a good attitude to have.

However, some people are influenced. Some people feel they need to look like their favorite stars in order to be attractive; others are inspired by celebrity weight loss and use it as motivation to get healthier.

What about YOU, readers?

Have you ever been affected by an extreme celebrity weight loss or gain? Did you become insecure with your own body, or did it motivate you to become more fit? Overall, was the outcome a mentally and physically healthy or damaging one?

For more information about fostering a healthy body image despite the influence of celebrities and society in general, head over to Margarita Tartakovsky’s Weightless.

Image Source: Wikipedia

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    Last reviewed: 27 Feb 2012