The Problem With Lady Gaga's Weight Loss

Lady Gaga is getting back to basics quite a bit lately. Her most recent nude venture is her series of covers for V Magazine, where she posed for four different covers that encapsulate four different phases of her life. Shot by photographers Inez and Vinoodh, the racy photos vary in degrees of nudeness. A few of the shots show the ARTPOP singer totally nude with black paint smeared strategically over her breasts and slicked back platinum hair, while one of the covers shows Gaga in a red sequined blazer with nothing underneath, baring her stomach. You can see the photos here.

While I applaud the "Applause" singer for her bravery and candor in posing nude, something about the photoshoot strikes me as strange after Gaga admitted last year that she has struggled with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia since she was 15. Last fall, she started a section of her fansite LittleMonsters.com called "Body Revolution," where she posted photos of herself in just a bra and underwear and encouraged her fans to discuss and begin to heal from their body image issues and eating disorder struggles. "Body Revolution" was a beautiful idea and a graceful response from Gaga to the constant media barrage against her weight gain.

But now Gaga is posing in V Magazine noticeably thinner and says in the interview, "I don't eat breakfast," she says. "I drink Pellegrino, I'm a good Italian girl. I have Pellegrino with lime and a smoke."

Look, there's nothing wrong with not eating breakfast. Hell, most days I don't eat breakfast either. But I'm also not a pop superstar with a section of my website dedicated to promoting body positivity. And I'm also not insinuating that there's anything wrong with Gaga's new thin body. But I do believe that for a singer striving to be a role model for her young fans that also struggle with body image, she seems to be awfully focussed on how her own body looks. Which is understandable in industry obsessed with the physical. I don't know exactly what to make of Gaga's photos in V Magazine, but I do know they strike me as bizarre.