Jessica Simpson put on a few pounds.. weight and Egyptian women

Apparently this lady has put on some weight and its BIG news (pun intended!)

As she says "people focus on things that are completely pointless".

check the story here

Now here's some photos of her and she looks completely stunning!

For me, one of the great things about living here in Egypt is seeing how many very overweight women are in positions of relative authority (professors, doctors, etc) and no one thinks anything of it.

(By the way don't misinterpret to mean that I think its great that women are really overweight. My comment is about how it is just one aspect of them and doesn't overshadow everything else. Female obesity is an issue in Egypt article about obesity in Egyptian women and a report published 15-20 years ago found that Egyptian women had the highest incidence of national obesity in the world. Here's a google search link if you want to find out more.)

In the UK it seems to me that very overweight women are rarely found high up the career trees, rarely pushing themselves forward for higher status positions preferring to stay out of the limelight. It doesn't help that the typical image of women 'breaking the glass ceiling' in the UK is of slim, beautiful 30 year olds in power suits.

On those occasions when I return to the UK, I am struck by the rows upon rows of 'celebrity', 'gossip' and women's magazines which are utterly obsessed with weight. In Britain, girls grow up thinking the only way to get rich and famous is to become known for constantly putting on or losing a few pounds or shagging a footballer. Problem is, they're right! Never mind how many A* GCSEs you manage to get - what counts is being famous for being famous. The crap that passeth all understanding in the form of "X factor" "Celebrity this or that" "Pop Idol"...

In Egypt, there is an almost complete absence of these kind of magazines. Yes, there are a few lifestyle magazines - but to me they seemed designed more to appeal to relatively wealthy metropolitans. Long may it stay that way.