There’s nothing quite like some unsolicited tabloid commentary about a woman’s body to get you raging in the morning, but unfortunately, it’s hardly a rare occurrence.

The latest target of said commentary is none other than Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, whose decision to upload a simple post-workout selfie to her Instagram stories has attracted a variety of unnecessary headlines.

The picture – which saw the actor wearing a black Nike sports bra and Adidas leggings – was accompanied by the comment: “If I ever get up to exercise before work, I do feel like I deserve a special medal and that is just the truth.” 

You’d think something so simple would be fairly unnewsworthy – after all, it was just a funny in-the-moment snap Coughlan shared with her followers. But despite this, Coughlan’s upload quickly became the subject of numerous tabloid stories, all of which focused on one specific thing: her body.

Suddenly, Coughlan’s post-workout selfie was an opportunity to “flaunt her body transformation” and “stun fans” with her “trim new look”, despite the original post referencing nothing to do with any weight loss or a bid to “transform” her body.

Besides being completely unnecessary, can we not just let a woman work out in peace? The framing of Coughlan’s selfie as a ‘body transformation’ is particularly problematic, especially when combined with the ‘side-by-side’ images some tabloids used to compare her ‘new body’ to how she looked in the past. 

By suggesting that Coughlan has ‘transformed’ her body – and positioning that transformation as something exciting that needs to be ‘unveiled’ – these articles reinforce the message that a woman’s body is something that needs to be worked on and improved in order to possess value.

They also assume that Coughlan’s decision to work out is purely motivated by a desire to ‘transform’ her look – despite the fact that exercise offers a myriad of benefits completely unrelated to weight loss.

The headlines are particularly frustrating when you consider that Coughlan previously asked her fans to stop sharing their opinions of her body with her. 

“So just a thing – if you have an opinion about my body please, please don’t share it with me,” she wrote in a caption on Instagram back in January.

“Most people are being nice and not trying to be offensive but I am just one real-life human being and it’s really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.”

To make a long story short, all of this is really bloody tiring. You’d think that, in 2022, the tabloids might have grasped the idea that a woman is more than her body. But if the response to Coughlan is anything to go by, it seems they still have a lot to learn. 

Images: Getty