Ioana Spangengerg, model with 20-inch waist, loves her snacks

BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT'S FUNNY

“I eat three big meals a day and I snack on chocolate and crisps all the time,” Ioana Spangengerg insists. “I just have a small stomach.”

Mm hm. Like 20 inches small.

The Romanian born model has caused a stir on the web when photos of her and her startlingly small waist went viral.

Ms. Spangenberg she insists she does not diet to keep her 32-20-32 measurements. Perhaps she follows the principles of “mindful eating”. Mindful eating is a way of eating food carefully and slowly so as to enjoy the food, experience it fully, and feel sated with less. It takes its principles from Buddhist teachings, which encourages meditative ways of walking and breathing, and extends those ideas to food so that you eat in a meditative fashion. Basically, you slow down and enjoy your food, instead of stuffing your face with a Big ‘N Toasty while you drive your car to work in the fast lane and talk on your hands-free with your mouth full.

Whatever her secret, Ms. Spangenberg is getting a lot of attention. We’re a nation obsessed with size. Babies that are 15 pounds, waists that are 20 inches. Normal is so last generation.

We’ve seen super thin models before, but what makes this different, in my mind, is that her waist is so thin. Has she not heard of belly fat?

Belly fat is the new cellulite. When I was in my 20s, nobody had belly fat. We all had cellulite. And we ate grapefruit and used bumpy rubber massage things in the shower and drank a lot of water. We agreed that cellulite wasn’t the same as regular fat, it was special fat that was trapped in weird lumps because of toxins or water or bad habits. I’m pretty sure I was guilty of all three, and I had cellulite.

I don’t have cellulite anymore. Last year my husband took a picture of me from behind while I was playing with the kids at the beach. I experienced some alarm at seeing the size of my butt, yet, I must say, my skin was smooth. We don’t take the camera to the beach anymore.

I do have belly fat. So do most people I see, even teenagers. We might be a size six, we might have slim thighs, but we have handfuls of squishy fat hanging over our jeans. What has happened to stomachs?

We agree that belly fat is not the same as regular fat, but we still can’t figure out how to get rid of it. I don’t know when we went from a nation of bumpy-thighs to a nation of doughy midriffs, but we did. It might be the cell phones. When I was in my 20s, we didn’t have cellphones, and we didn’t have belly fat. It’s as good a reason as any.

Ms. Spangenberg has a video of herself wearing a tight corset under her tight dress, which further plays up her freakish shape. She has been dubbed “the human hourglass” by a British tabloid.

Looks more like half an hour to me.

Pam Lobley writes the “Now That’s Funny” column. Follow her on twitter @plobley.