Entertainment

Lena Dunham hits back at magazine over her appearance on slimmed-down star cover

The multi-talented star is fed up with being used as a motivational tool for weight loss and dieting.
The multi-talented star is fed up with being used as a motivational tool for weight loss and dieting. The multi-talented star is fed up with being used as a motivational tool for weight loss and dieting.

Lena Dunham has hit back with a withering retaliation after a magazine used her as an example of a slimmed-down star on its cover.

She posted a snapshot of herself on Instagram next to the unidentified magazine’s headline “20 slimdown diet tips the stars are using” along with a list of her own tips, comprised of tongue-in-cheek reasons and a litany of her pre-existing health issues.

The 30-year-old Girls writer and actress also said her recent weight loss is “not an achievement” and that her being used as an example for such an article is “not a compliment”.

In a lengthy post shared with her 3.2 million followers, her “diet tips” included references to her “anxiety disorder” and “resultant constant nausea”, as well as symptoms associated with her endometriosis.

“Abdominal adhesions pinning ovary below uterus,” she wrote.

She also listed “bladder spasms, urinary frequency and urgency” and “sleeping 19 hours a day”.

Other reasons were political and societal, as she wrote “an election that reveals the true depths of American misogyny”, “watching institutions you love from Planned Parenthood to PBS be threatened by cartoon moustache-twirling villains” and “worrying ceaselessly about the health and safety of women you know and women you don’t” on her list.

Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham in 2014 (Philip Toscano/PA)

“Having your phone number leaked and violent images texted to your phone by randos under names like VERYFATCHUCKYBOY@creepz.com,” she added.

Lena added a few light-hearted reasons, one of which read: “Having to switch from Uber to Lyft (lots of calories burned trying to understand a new app, then even more trying to understand if the conflict was resolved).”

She signed off her post: “I have no tips I give no tips I don’t want to be on this cover cuz it’s diametrically opposed to everything I’ve fought my whole career for and it’s not a compliment to me because it’s not an achievement thanx.”

Last week, Lena was taken to hospital after attending the Met Gala in New York due to complications that had arisen from her recent endometriosis surgery.

Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham (Aurore Marechal/PA)

Endometriosis is a condition in which endometrial tissue – the inner womb lining – also grows outside the womb, causing painful symptoms.

Lena has been outspoken about her health issues and earlier this year criticised the focus around her figure after she made several headlines because of her weight loss.