OK! magazine's Duchess of Cambridge 'baby weight loss' cover ...

Officially, I have no particular opinion about the Duchess of Cambridge. She seems like a nice enough person and I'm not interested either way in what she wears. I managed to catch a bit of television news (ie. all of it) that indicates the blanket coverage of the contents or otherwise of her uterus appears to have come to a conclusion that many, if not most, find satisfactory. Good for her.

You'd be tempted to think that given she has just pushed out a future head of state and leader of a church, the magazines might be inclined to cut the woman a bit of slack. But there's where you'd be wrong, because apparently OK! has seen fit to emblazon its cover with an appalling teaser promising "Kate's Post-Baby Weight Loss Regime" - just one day after she gave birth to Britain's heir. The online backlash at this crass cover, which presumes the Duchess needs some kind of public fitness advice, has unsurprisingly been huge.

I shudder at the thought that anyone less than 48 hours out from giving birth should want or have a 'regime' pertaining to weight loss at all, much less one endorsed by the weekly glossies. For goodness sake - the woman just stuffed her undercarriage into sheer tights, wedges, and a Jenny Packham dress to show us the baby yesterday. I can only imagine that at this point postpartum, that was probably a physical effort that took some hours to muster with her squat team. And it was all done to feed the endless sodding cameras, as well. This is a woman who clearly embraces duty like most of us embrace endless, pointless celeb gossip, so what more does she need to do?

_{Just hours after giving birth, the Duchess appeared primed for the cameras}

But it's not only OK! on her case already as well, as Twitter watchers of Sky reported one talking head (not Kay Burley) asking why, the day after giving north, Kate "still" had a bump - a "mummy tummy" as it's now being called by some media outlets. What an epic fail. Please, can someone find out who exactly is responsible for ensuring the quality of biology education in this country and slap them upside the head?

Do you think there is too much pressure on women to lose weight after giving birth?

Maybe it's me failing to check my American privilege. After all, my countrymen (a bunch of white guys in tights and wigs, sort of like an Enlightenment-themed panto) started a war to ensure I would not have to particularly care about the erstwhile Saxe-Coburg-Gothas again. Or Windsor, Wales, Cambridge or whatever branding they're using now. So being all wtf? at the random exhortations for some royal's wife to start doing crunches, stat, is kind of my birthright. That and the right to own enough guns to supply a small Central American revolution should I care to. And some mumbo-jumbo about free press and right to assemble, LOL.

When Hilary Mantel sparked a row earlier this year writing about Royal bodies including Anne Boleyn's and Kate Middleton's, she tapped into an endless well of concern for these women that entraps and much as adores them. Don't let's forget, when you put someone on a pedestal, it's very often preparation for knocking them off.

So now that I've picked up a British passport as a reward for putting up with border control for so long, I feel obliged to weigh in, even if it's only to say this: lay off Kate Middleton already. Whatever ridiculous expectations it is we have for women in the public eye, she appears to have fulfilled all of them with nary a frown or complaint. Now she has done precisely the job she signed up for, isn't it time to cut the lady a break? And not buy OK! magazine until the editor has had her head read and realised how this type of trash makes real women feel?