(CNN) -- Is it just me, or are we a little obsessed with how celebrities look after having babies? Sure, famous people are always fun to watch (especially when they do cool things like Mila Kunis and save lives), but could all this ogling their midsections, thighs, butts and boobs shortly after they've experienced one of the most natural and precious experiences of their lives be a little ... twisted?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes.
Kudos to Beyonce for looking like, well, Beyonce when she first stepped out post-baby in a hot red dress. You could almost hear champagne corks popping the world over in celebration of her knack for not making a total mess of her lovely body. And then there are the endless magazine covers showing awesome (airbrushed!) abs with headlines akin to "From baby to bikini in five minutes!"
And what's with the neonatal nastiness movement? Jessica Simpson was brutally mocked for the weight she gained during pregnancy. And you can bet photographers in Hollywood are champing at the bit to be the first to snap her re-emergence now that she's had the baby. Let's hope for her sake she escapes unscathed, unlike actress Bryce Dallas Howard. She got ripped apart by commenters on TMZ under paparazzi photographs taken over Mother's Day weekend (classy!) of her looking heavier than usual while in public with her 4-month-old daughter.
The latest victim is Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has been slammed in her native India for not having shed all the pregnancy pounds six months post-birth. There's even a snarky video report online that shows before and after pictures of the former Miss World to the sound of elephants trumpeting.
Couldn't these moms just be left alone? They're already battling a whole host of post-birth issues -- soreness, hormone hurricanes, and for the first-timers, a stunning reorganization of their self-identity.
And is the media's obsession with a star's ability (or inability) to downsize rapidly after having a baby creating anxiety in noncelebrity moms?
