Don't Hassle the Hoff's Plus-Sized Daughter

Who knew?

David Hasslehoff, he of "slow-motion-run-on-the-beach-with-Pam-Anderson" fame, has a daughter with body image issues (shocker). Or should I say "had" - His teenage daughter, Haley, is a plus-sized model. Ahem...she's not really plus-sized, and she admits it here, in this video on Access Hollywood, done in alliance with something called Access Hollywood Body Image Month, which I find endlessly amusing and oxymoronic. But at least they're trying.

In an interview from late last year, Nancy O'Dell asked the lil Hoff, “Did you feel the pressures of Hollywood where everybody has got to be stick thin?”

Haley: “No I have always been up and down in my weight. It has always gone — I have been on diets. I have probably tried every diet since I was like 10. So, I mean, I am not going to be a size 2 and I finally really looked at my body and I am comfortable with who I am.”

“Good for you,” O’Dell commended. (I wonder if she's being unintentionally condescending or secretly wishing being comfortable with who she is as is is something SHE wishes she had?)

Continued Haley, “I think that’s what plus-size models should be — you know, that is what they represent. They represent girls who are voluptuous and have beautiful bodies and who actually are confident."

Thoughts on not-plus plus-sized models? Think of some of the Torrid models, or Queen Latifah's recent signing-on to Jenny Craig.

Comments

LOVE Queen Latifah, but I find it weird she signed up with Jenny Craig. On her ad where she says, "I don't watch the scale, that's not my thing," half of me wants to applaud, but the other half of me is like, "Why are you endorsing a program where you have to pre-buy all your food?" To me, she seems more like a likely candidate to endorse Weight Watchers, a program where you eat "real world" food in reasonable amounts.

It also sort of reminds me of an America's Next Top Model where one of the judges said of the plus size model (around a size 8 or 10 I think), "She's not really plus size. She's just normal."

Nikki - I totally remember that comment! It was so true. And I think Nigel is the one who said it, which makes me swoon even harder for him. Yum.

I wish more plus-size clothing stores would use larger (and, in my dream world, shorter) models on their sites and in their ads, so I would actually have some idea of what the clothes would look like on *me*. Plus-size retailers have countered complaints like this with the assertion that the times that they actually have used larger models, their sales went down. Hm.

I had a friend in college who was a plus-size model. She was a size 8. It just goes to show that unrealistic images in fashion go across the board. Regular size models are a size 0 (if that), and some plus-size models are no where near plus-size at all.

Why do models have to be divided up anyhow? Why can't every catalog/website/ad campaign show a variety of women? I could handle a skinny-minny if she were flanked by a normal gal and a plus-size beauty. That's right - I said it - ALL together in the same ad! Wearing the same kind of clothes!

Actually the Torrid models all looked amply plus-sized to me but I just saw the one pic of them in lingerie on the home page. Am I right or have I just been so indoctrinated with our skinny culture that I can't spot a normal girl when I see one?

First let me say, The Hoff in a Speedo= YIKES!!!! My eyes!!!!!
Ahem. I'm OK.

Leslie, I totally agree; I fell in love with Nigel when he said that. And also when he traveled around the country doing a photo shoot of real women for "Womens' Health" magazine, and said he met "the most beautiful women," because beauty comes from strength and courage.

As far as models go, I'd like to see more over-tired, over-worked, late-30's mom-models with a bit of a belly, so I'll know how the clothes would look on me.

Queen Latifah is getting some flack due to the fact she is the voice of PIZZA HUT!!!! LOL. But I say Go Girl!!!

Susan

I have a friend in the plus modeling world and she told me that the desired size is a US size 10-12 with a trend leaning towards the 10 side. 12 was the highly desired size before, so as we can see the plus size reqs are shrinking as well.

But, I'm like "How on earth is a size 10-12 plus size!" That's totally ridiculous. What I find scary about the Haley story is that she is 15 and other teenagers or tweens will look at her and say I don't want to be plus sized like that when Haley doesn't look plus size to the majority of us. It's just twisting the perceptions of young girls, and that worries me.

Leslie,
She's not morbidly obese but she is plus size.