Shedding flab an 'in thing' for weddings

Harbani Kaur was never a vain woman. Her clothes were attractive, with ‘functional’ being the key word, her makeup barely entailed anything beyond a cursory touch of kajal and well-applied lip balm.
She loved her muffin-top figure. But three months after getting engaged to her fiance, Karan, things changed. “I was never like this,” she moans, “I was sorted and never shallow.All I know now is that I have to look good in my wedding pictures. I will be wearing a midriff-baring lehenga for the pheras, so this must go,” she says, pointing at her love handles. Her fiance, on the other hand, cannot come to terms with his bride’s new obsession. “She is perfect the way she is, all this crash-dieting is unnecessary,” he says.
Natasha Rastogi*, a media professional, says, “My best friend got married in February. She was a decent 55 kilos, but just before her wedding, she got this odd notion in her head that she was fat. She went on a crazy diet, which, during the stress of all the wedding preparations took a toll on her and she had to be hospitalized and was forced to eat healthy. She kept crying that she would look hideous in the pictures that would stay with her for life. It took a lot of cajoling from her family and fiance to convince her that she looked great and didn’t need to lose any weight.”
These women aren’t the only ones desperate to lose weight before their wedding. The phenomenon has come to be known as ‘Brideorexia’, and is defined as when brides go overboard trying to get skinny for their wedding day. Kate Middleton famously went on a diet to drop pounds before getting hitched to William. Hollywood television actor Sara Rue shed 50 pounds before tying the knot with her fiance.
Following her drastic, and admittedly healthy victory in the ‘battle of the bulge’, she is all set to host the reality show – “Shedding for the Wedding”. The show will feature overweight couples wanting to drop pounds before their big day.
The pressure to be a beautiful bride has always been high, but brides are setting the bar higher than ever before. A prominent slimming centre offers a helping hand to the desperate brides. Says the spokesperson, “Our bridal package comprises special and customized figure correction programmes. The programme promises weight loss and inch loss treatment per session.” Though the centre was unwilling to reveal the number of takers for their bridal package, a regular client revealed (on the condition of anonymity), that the first time she went for her fat reduction treatment, the first question she was asked was if she was getting married any time soon.
It isn’t just the brides who start dieting before their wedding. Relatives and friends have also jumped on the bandwagon. Says Kamna Saxena*, who works in a publishing house, “I have told all my friends and cousins to give me a 6-month heads-up before they get married, so that I have enough time to lose weight.”
(*Some names have been changed on request)