Out of curiosity I opened the magazine and there was some article about how she got married and “let herself go” (blech). And also inside are the “shocking photos” of Mariah Carey looking… a little curvier than usual.

I didn’t keep reading to find the quote of some doctor talking about how 200 pounds will kill you immediately. But then again, I didn’t need to: we all remember that “200+ pounds = enormously fat and 300+ pounds = immediate explosion and death.”

It’s especially funny because BFD commenters have long since noticed a trend in how the tabloids deal with Mariah. Said RoseCampion back in 2008:

Mariah’s “new” body. I’ve noticed that every couple of years or so, Mimi gets a tiny bit chunkier- to the point where she’s curvy. She then proceeds to diet/exercise it off in some way until she’s on the skinnier side. The tabloids then go into orgasmic excitement about her “new” body and how great it it. I’d say she cycles losing or gaining only about 15 or 20 pounds, max.

So keep an eye out for the orgasmic excitement tabloid, coming soon to a newsstand near you.

Stars include J. Love, Ricki Lake, Kim Locke, Vanessa Williams, and multiple women (including Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling) whose “before” shots show them as pregnant. They are weight loss winners as they are no longer carrying developing human beings inside of them. Woo!

Some of the quotes are worth noting, too:

Mariah Carey: “I got tired of people telling me, ‘You need to lose weight.’”

Leann Rimes: “I’m constantly working out.”

Lauren Conrad: Before she lost weight, she went to the beach and felt really self-conscious. “I wore a one-piece bathing suit the entire time, with a wrap!” [Thank god she lost those six pounds. Woo!]

Hilary Duff: At the age of 15, press criticism drove the actress to drop an estimated 30 pounds on an extreme no-bread, no-sugar diet.

Really? “Press criticism”? Is that, like, criticism from magazines that publish judgmental articles about “weight winners,” there, Us Magazine? Is that the kind of press criticism that drives a 15-year-old girl to starve herself? I wonder. But hey, she looks great now, so everything is awesome and she’s a winner too! Woo!

Thanks to Eliza for the link!

At this point we’re used to magazines airbrushing or misrepresenting cover photos with ironically juxtaposed headlines. But that doesn’t mean we should stop pointing it out! This week’s victim is Mariah Carey, on the cover of Elle next to the headline, “Mariah! Her New Body.” Says Gawker:

“Her New Body,” exclaims the Elle cover line. It certainly is! It’s not even hers. Sure, she slimmed down—but not that much… Also: her head has been re-attached to her body crookedly, making her resemble a Bobblehead. Come on, Elle: it’s like you’re not even trying.

As Gawker points out, you have to wonder why magazines still try this, when it’s now become a matter of course for blogs to point it out and mock it. I’m glad, especially because teenage girls and young women can see with their own two eyes that the images they’re being fed on magazine covers aren’t just unrealistic, but impossible.