Jameela Jamil, who is most known for her role in The Good Place, has been making waves in the news recently. Aiming many critiques at her fellow celebs and social media, Jamil is speaking out in a way that many people have never seen from a celebrity before.
Jamil has spoken against the frequently Instagram promoted product fitness teas many times. Several different brands of this tea claim to suppress appetite and help the user lose weight, and Jamil has been candid about the side effects of such products. They can cause severe diarrhea, and only cause water weight to be lost, so as soon as the drinker stops using the product, they gain weight back. They are not a safe or healthy way to lose weight.
Instagram style bloggers and even celebrities like the Kardashians promote fitness teas on their pages, and Jamil is not shy to call them out. Celebs like the Kardashians have defended their promotions of these companies saying it’s easy money, and Jamil called them out for this too. Why do the Kardashians need to make easy money off an Instagram post that can be potentially harmful to their impressionable fans? Jamil says that she has been given the same opportunities to promote these products, but she chooses not to, despite the fact that she makes far less income than the Kardashian family.
Fitness teas are not the only thing that Jamil has spoken out against recently. She has said that she wants her fans to know that the reason celebrities look so good has to do with money and money alone. If the average person could afford to spend the same amount on nutritionists, trainers, makeup artists, stylists, and cosmetic procedures as a celebrity, they could achieve the same look, but they cannot achieve that look without the money. Jameela Jamil wants her fans to stop worrying about looking like a celebrity and to start trying to look like themselves. She would rather them look healthy than look like what is shown on a magazine. She even releases many unedited and makeupless selfies of herself, with stretchmarks present, to remind her young fans that without a team behind her, she looks just like they do.
With Jameela Jamil easily voicing her opinions on these issues, people are beginning to wonder why other celebrities haven’t been doing this. Why is Jamil the first celebrity to mention the consequences of fit teas, when regular people have been talking about them for years? If celebrities have the power to use their voices to expose the toxic side of their lifestyle, why don’t they? Many celebrities are supporting Jamil as she continues to speak out, but she has also been attacked by others.
If celebrities are going to ignore the undeniable side effects of their promotions in a world where social media is increasingly profitized, we need more celebrities like Jameela Jamil who will tell the truth to their fans. Regulations for social media sponsorships have been tightened, but it is still difficult for fans to separated advertisements from regular content when the only different is a hashtag. Jameela Jamil wants to make sure that young fans who look up to celebrities are getting all the information, and other celebrities should be following in her footsteps.