Photos Of Mariah Carey’s New Post-Baby Body! Let’s All Feel Craptastic We STILL Have Our Baby Weight!

Years ago when she had a new album out and was still in love with Jermaine Dupri and her brother Michael was still in the land of the living, I interviewed Janet Jackson for a feature story in Essence. On stage and in magazines she’s an absolute glamour doll but let me tell you this: in person, Janet, sans the stage make-up, perfectly-coiffed hair and uber sexy, body-skimming costume, is breathtakingly stunning. With a body that makes you want to quit food, eat air, buy lifetime stock in Spanx and spend every waking moment in somebody’s gym.

But by the second day of our interview—this time at her posh apartment overlooking Central Park—I confirmed what I’d always suspected about Janet and other celebrities famous not just for their talent but their beautiful bodies: They look the way they do—“perfect”—because they pay people to keep them that way. Sure, celebrities have to have some level of commitment in watching what they eat and exercising, but Janet admitted that she hated working out and employed a full-time trainer whose sole job it was to literally drag her out of bed and make her exercise. She acknowledged, too, that she had a nutritionist and chef on hand to design and prepare all her meals and snacks—a revelation punctuated by a dude who was on hand to personally give her milkshakes and vitamins practically every hour during our two-day interview.

Of course, most celebrities stay fit and thin because their jobs demand it and they want to stay off the National Inquirer’s weekly “Celebrity Cellulite: Whose Flabby Ass Is This?” cover stories. But we mere mortals often aren’t privy and have no access to the tricks and help celebrities employ to keep themselves slim and beautiful.

Which is why I’m always HIGHLY annoyed by the “how they lost the weight” stories that show celebrity moms two seconds after they dropped their babies posted up practically naked on magazine covers, looking like they didn’t just carry and push a human from their loins. The inference always seems to be, “Take note you fat, sloppy mothers in your mom jeans, beat up sneakers and baby food-stained sweatshirts: real moms look hot after giving birth, and they do it effortlessly.” Which of course makes me want to kick the celebrities and the dumb editors who push those stories dead in the back.

I say these things because yesterday, the internet was abuzz with a most scintillating piece of journalism—an Us Weekly cover story of Mariah Carey in hot pants, stilettos and a half shirt, with a headline screaming in neon yellow, “30 Lbs in 3 Months: I Got My Body Back!” Of course, the story wouldn’t be complete without a super sad-looking “before” picture of Mariah pregnant with twins—as if carrying two babies in her stomach and enough milk in her breasts to feed them was just downright slovenly of her. For kicks and giggles, they added, “Mariah’s easy day-by-day plan that you can do, too”—you know, so you can look like a hot MILF, too. Oh—and don’t forget to go out there and get on that Jenny Craig (Mariah is a spokeswoman. Surprise!)

And hot on the heels of the Mariah story was news that a very pregnant Jessica Simpson inked a $3 million deal with Weight Watchers to hit the treadmill as soon as she gets off the maternity ward. That would be the same Jessica Simpson who spent the last few years fighting back against Hollywood for making fun of her curves and even created a short-lived show, The Price of Beauty, to show that the definition of beauty is different all across the world and shouldn’t be dictated by a couple of movie producers and magazine editors in Hollywood. Now that Jessica’s crossing over to the dark side, surely there will be a magazine cover about how she’s lost all the weight and never felt better and a book detailing her step-by-step guide to losing the mommy weight, too.

Yeah.

Raise a church finger and give an “amen” if you’re tired of post-pregnant celebrity moms/diet company spokeswoman and the gossip wags that stalk follow them doing those tired “before and after” pregnancy weight stories. Really, they do nothing more than work overtime to convince new moms they suck because they carried a human in their stomachs for nine months and couldn’t lose the baby weight before the first post-pregnancy check-up. Like, how many moms are pressuring themselves to eat unhealthy and strain their bodies with unreasonable workouts so they can be “hot” like the Hollywood moms plastering the magazine rack at the grocery store check-out?

I promise you, with all the things moms juggle when a new baby is added into the mix, the last thing we need is the TV, magazines, newspapers and blogs screaming at us to look “effortlessly hot” two seconds after we drop our precious loads. Or a celebrity blog or book (Hello, Kourtney Kardashian!) finger-wagging at regular moms who don’t have nannies damn near wet nursing their children while some dude pulls them out of bed for exercise and shoves health shakes and gourmet meals in their faces at every turn.

I may not be a size two and I may still be carrying the residuals of my last pregnancy on my body here and there (yeah, I know I had my last baby nine years ago… so what’s your point?!) but dammit, I look good.

And so do you, and you and you, too. Kiss your pouch, touch those stretch marks, admire those not-so-perky-anymore breasts and those wide birthing hips and thick thighs and thank God for each of these things. After all, together, they worked a miracle—gave you the power to create, produce and sustain the most precious gift of all: human life.

Now somebody put that on the cover of a magazine.

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