Jen’s just perfect as a role model

Jennifer Lawrence might be the star of the Hunger Games movies, but there’s no way she’ll be starving herself in order to conform to the insane ‘size zero’ trend in Hollywood.

When she bounded into the room in the posh London hotel for our interview last week, I was struck by her gorgeous skin, shining eyes and glowing health.

She is probably a size 10-12, which I think is actually rather small, but by LA standards is verging on massive.

It’s bonkers that this lovely young woman has had criticism for not being skinny enough, when she’s so tiny and beautiful.

Jennifer is lucky. Unlike a lot of wannabes, she is very smart and incredibly talented. She doesn’t have to go on endless diets and make herself ill in order to secure roles, unlike less talented actresses.

She also realises how dangerous it is to promote that sort of ultra-thin body image.

By taking on the role of Katniss Everdeen in the franchise, Jennifer is a role model to a vast army of young women.

The latest film, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is out now and is even better than the original, and it will bring Jennifer a lot more attention.

It’s clear she realises that she has a responsibility to her young fans. That’s why she spoke out about body image and the cult of thinness that has become acceptable in Hollywood movies.

I was watching All About Eve, one of my all time favourite black and white movies, again this week and couldn’t help noticing how normal all the women looked.

They weren’t overweight, but they had boobs and bottoms. A young Marilyn Monroe had a cameo and was exquisite.

But all of them would have been told to lose pounds if this movie were being made now, although I would have paid real money to watch anyone tell Bette Davis to drop a dress size!

Sadly, it has become acceptable now for our screens to be dominated by starving looking women, unless they happen to be taking on “comedy” roles where their size is treated as a joke.

It shows what a skewed world we live in where a stunning woman like Jennifer feels she has to make such a statement about not constantly dieting.

She is a rare breed. She is funny, self deprecating and has none of the aloofness of a hot new A-lister in La La Land. She takes it all in her stride, managing to laugh off wardrobe malfunctions and tripping up over her posh frock and working with legends like Robert De Niro.

She winces at all the attention that goes with being an actress, but she has a pretty low-key life when she isn’t acting or promoting her movies.

I hope she can hang on to that freshness and she never succumbs to the bullying used to keep other actresses desperate to look too thin and too young.