*!$%&£! oppressive diet culture

[ajva]

Im very confussed about something, I dont eat alot, or on a regular basis, but when I do eat I get all the essitials...well atleast try to, I dont eat chips, or big out on bon bons or anything, But I just cant lose weight if anything ive packed it on more then lost it, I dont know If its all the caffine I drink thru out the day, ive heard thats a bad thing, or if im just naturally fat, how can my eating help me lose weight, and is the caffine im drinking a bigger issure then the food im eating?
-Dallas

An average comment from caloriecounter.co.uk, also the site of gems like this one:

I hate myself so much. I weigh 140 Lbs. and I am 5'5" I just started not Eating anything, because nothing else works. I have tryed everything and nothing will work, so this is my only option. I don't even care if I die, I would rather be dead than continue life fat. Seriouslly, I hate myself so much. I don't think about anything except for how fat I am. I can't take it anymore. Please help me.

and this:

Recent studies show that fasting can be really good for you in moderation and it doesn't neccasseraly mean no food at all, it can mean just liquids so that you can have soups and things. Fasting should not be 10 days at a time if your nat experienced. Try 1-2 days a week for a while. If you fast not only does it give your organs a little break it also flushes your body out of all toxins and impurities as well as burning off excess fat.

TIPS FOR FASTING-
1) Drink plenty of water do prevent dehydration.
2) boil veg and drink the broth so that you still get essential vitamins.
3) take calcium supplements.
4) meditate and keep your self busy.
5) dont eat loads after ending a fast, slowly re-introduce fruit and fibre first and then the rest a few days later

I HATE THIS FUCKING INJUSTICE!!!!!!!!! IT'S A FUCKING SCANDAL TO BRING UP LITTLE GIRLS TO BELIEVE THAT IF THEY EAT A CERTAIN AMOUNT, AND EXERCISE A CERTAIN AMOUNT, THEN THEY WILL ACHIEVE THE IDEAL WEIGHT AND IF THEY DO NOT IT IS BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!!!!! IT'S A FUCKING LIE!!!! I WOULD NEVER LOOK SLIM UNLESS I WERE DYING!!! AND IT'S SO ALL-PREVALENT AND ACCEPTED AND INSIDIOUS THAT EVERYBODY BELIEVES IT, EVEN A LITTLE BIT!!! SO LET'S GO OVER THAT AGAIN, AND ASK YOURSELVES THIS TIME HOW MUCH YOU AGREE WITH WHAT I SAID "I WOULD NEVER LOOK SLIM UNLESS I WERE DYING". NO - YOU DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT, DO YOU - A PART OF YOU THINKS THAT IF I DIETED AND EXERCISED ENOUGH I WOULD BECAUSE ISN'T THAT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD? BUT NO IT FUCKING ISN'T BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE WAY THE HUMAN BODY OR THE NORMAL DISTRIBUTION WORK!!!! SO IF EVEN YOU LIBERALS THINK LIKE THIS, AND IF EVEN DOCTORS THINK LIKE THIS THEN WHAT FUCKING HOPE IS THERE THAT WE WILL EVER BE FREE? AAAAAAARGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!! IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comments

[duranorak.livejournal.com]

This just made me cry. In a good way, though.
Thank you.

E.
x

[trishpiglet.livejournal.com]

I didn't expect the Calorie Counter site to be that bad. Not like the mad live journal community I showed you, where I would expect stuff like that.

I don't see how fasting can be healthy. I did a day of not eating at all and then a day where I ate one thing right at the end (because I was depressed and too much of a zombie to eat or sleep) and I felt totally spaced and unreal like I was on some drugs that weren’t being particularly helpful. It makes me upset that someone could do that to themselves deliberately because they feel they should.

Anti-crash diet activism? Campaigns against body fascism in the media?

There appear to be a few of us on LJ who feel strongly about this. (And yes, I know I thought fairly recently that I should be on a diet, but my head being ok is more important to me than attempting to look stereotypically attractive) Maybe we can join forces and do more activist things around it? I’m up for that.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

http://www.calorie-counter-chart.com

is quite insidious, though. Sure, it's a handy resource for knowing the calorie-counts of basic foods, but click on a few of the links and see the products and crash diets it's selling.

Lost 10lb in 2 days? The only way you can do that, short of cutting off a limb, is by dehydrating yourself, or fasting and using laxatives or something, which will make you very sick indeed.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Fat activism is in the doldrums in the UK at present. Shelley Bovey who was one of the leaders of "the movement" has been on an extremely restrictive diet for over a year.

I dont think fat activism has any chance of changing attitudes on a grand scale. The slimming industry and the health lobby are just too huge and powerful, and ultimately the vast majority of women care far more about pleasing their partners and being liked and accepted than about politics, whatever statements they may make to the contrary.

Having been harassed and tormented about my size by family, friends, lovers and total strangers for as long as I can remember, I would certainly take a pill which made me slim overnight rather than campaign for a lifetime, so I include myself in the "vast majority" of women I talk about above. I was a size 14 and weighed 10 stone at the age of 14 - even today unlikely to be classified as obese. I spent my teens, twenties and early thirties on every kind of diet. I frequently "suceeded" in losing weight but always regained all the weight I had lost and more. I believe this is why I became diabetic.

I dont "diet" any more, because I believe the only way I will lose any noticeable amount of weight and keep it off is to severely restrict my food intake and combine this with rigorous exercise for the rest of my life. Even then I dont think I would ever be "acceptably" slim. Note however that I am not saying I will never diet again, because the pressure really is too great for me to ever have confidence that I could say this and mean it.

If you do decide to get some kind of activism together then good luck, but I note that every woman who has commented here is either on a diet or thinks she should be, with the exception of Anne.

yes

[ajva.livejournal.com]

A very eloquent summary of the problem. I'd also note, though, that women tend to want to be slimmer than their male partners want them to be, so there has to be something else going on here. I sometimes wonder if the dieting impulse is a fundamental in some primitive way that is obscured by the fact it is hyped up sociologically by ideas of patriarchy, health, feminism, class politics etc. Maybe the problem goes deeper.

I am something of a natural optimist and would like to think that every social problem can be solved in the long run, but it is difficult to see the solution here, I admit. I wish I understood entirely what the problem was.

Re: yes

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I was careful to say "partners" rather than male partners, and to add the issue of wanting to be accepted and liked generally,not just by partners. There probably is a lot of complex murky pyschological stuff going on in addition to what I specify.

Re: yes

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

For example, we learn to associate food with love or at least parental(and still more often than not this means maternal) approval while still non verbal. For some babies being fed might be the only time they get any sort of physical affection. For some toddlers they may only get a smile when they "eat it all up like a good girl/boy". Even in cases not as extreme as this, children learn to use "the food weapon" on their parents, refusing to eat to get attention, agreeing to eat only certain foods to get attention - and parents use it on their children, rewarding "good" behaviour with food as treat, often "unhealthy " food, such as ice cream for being quiet in a supermarket for example.

So there is a complex series of associations set up at an early age between punishment, reward,mother love, joy , sorrow and food at a very early age. When does body image/awareness come into the mix? Who knows, but a mother putting a six year old child on a diet is clearly gonna have a hell of an impact....and I have not even got onto sexual awareness yet!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Re: yes

[jhg.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if the dieting impulse is a fundamental in some primitive way that is obscured by the fact it is hyped up sociologically by ideas of patriarchy, health, feminism, class politics etc. Maybe the problem goes deeper.

Yes, the available evidence certainly points towards that conclusion.

I wonder what Mr. Romana would have to say about that?


J

[trishpiglet.livejournal.com]

I note that every woman who has commented here is either on a diet or thinks she should be, with the exception of Anne.


I'm not on a diet. A while ago I thought I should be. I don't now. And I'm not Anne.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Ok, more accurately that should be "has very recently said that she thought she should be thinner/should be on a diet".

[trishpiglet.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I feel included now.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I note that every woman who has commented here is either on a diet or thinks she should be, with the exception of Anne.

It's true I'm trying to lose weight at the moment, but that's my choice, and I have three good reasons for it.

1. I'm unhappy with my body image. I'd like to be physically stronger, and have more energy.
2. I know from my family history that the women in my family (father's side) have a tendency to become unhealthily overweight in their mid- to late-20s, and also that their is a history of heart problems and high blood pressure in my family
3. If my weight is stable, and I remain active, it's easier for me to keep an eye on my thyroid levels and know if I need to visit the doctor for tests, since signs of deficiency include lethargy and weight gain.

I'm not dieting to lose huge amounts of weight. I wouldn't be unhappy to shed a couple of stone, it's true, but if my weight stabilises at a bit more than that, I'm not going to be too upset.
Point being, this is my body, and these are my choices. They're rational and valid.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

This is exactly it, Karen. This is exactly the problem. There is no need to get defensive here - nobody's blaming you for diet oppression or insisting you become all militant and deliberately become very obese to make a political point. I'm not going to criticise you for wanting to lose weight. I'm criticising the culture. But you say it is a "valid choice" for you to do so. this is true to the extent that you are free to do as you please IMO, but it is untrue in the very crucial sense that you, as well as other women, have no choice whatsoever in this matter. If you were truly free to make a decision you would not consider yourself excessively overweight. You would like your body and not feel pressure to get smaller. Who told you you should be smaller? The oppressive, profit-making diet culture. Is it right? No. Is it your fault that you want to lose weight anyway? No. Do you need to lose weight? No. Is this a valid, freely-informed choice? No. You choose to diet much as a lab rat chooses to scarper round a maze in a laboratory.

This is exactly the problem, Karen. Your reasons make sense on the surface but dieting won't help with them. You are made a victim by this and it isn't your fault, but please don't think you are free in your making of choices because none of us is. I am not blaming you. I am blaming the pressure. Please don't take offence here. I understand the urge to diet as I've felt it myself.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

It's true I'm trying to lose weight at the moment, but that's my choice, and I have three good reasons for it.

1. I'm unhappy with my body image. I'd like to be physically stronger, and have more energy.

I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of 'freedom of choice', and the rights and wrongs of these things. Plenty of time for that in September, and I wouldn't dare interfere.

I would, however point out that while being 'unhappy with my body image' is a valid (but not necessarily good) reason to diet, being 'physically stronger and [having] more energy' is not.

Dieting* will not make you physically stronger - potentially the reverse! Exercise, and ensuring you eat enough protien, calcium etc. will; dieting will not.

Again dieting* will not give you more energy - it is hard to see how restricting your energy source will do this. Exercise, enough vitamins, and cutting out nicotine and caffeine will, however.

I'm pretty sure that at least some doctors & nutritionists will support me here.


J

*I take this to mean restricting your food intake in some way - as is traditionally used in an attempt to lose weight. As opposed to (say) ensuring you get plenty of vitamins, minerals, protien etc. in order to stay healthy.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Well said babe.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

The other thing is, this really is largely a gender issue. Yes there are fat men, but what I'm talking about here is the impulse to diet which all women discover at a certain age (I did it in my teens; I was lucky enough to have my Damascene moment in a bookshop in 1994, aged 20). Now my concern is genuinely with health. Thus I try to get enough exercise and at the moment I am trying to eat like an athlete, with exactly the nutrients required to fuel what I happen to be doing. Now the thing is, when I was 15 I would have said something similar, no doubt. I would have said "I'm not dieting - I'm going on a healthy eating programme", or some such rubbish. But it was all cover. Really I would rejoice whenever I managed to eat only 450 calories in a day (which wasn't very often, I hasten to add). Women dieting lie about health. They lie both to themselves and others because to shout health is to give a good excuse for the torture and suffering they're putting themselves through. They also lie about other things: "Oh no, I'm not hungry.", "Oh, no. I don't like cheese.", "Oh no, I only eat at mealtimes." etc. etc.

The first effect this has is isolating for individual women. That time when I was 15 and I ate a whole packet of biscuits - or my habit of eating several packets of crisps at a time - I thought that nobody else in the world did such a thing. I thought I was a greedy freak. I didn't realise that everybody (well, many people) did, but in secret, because they felt exactly the same as I did.

And the other effect this has is to leave our male friends completely bamboozled once they start going out with women (if they're into women, of course). I was in my early twenties when it suddenly struck me just how totally unaware most men were of the sheer agonised tormented hell suffered by their female friends/lovers over something which, to them, was a relatively minor consideration in life. Most men do not understand what it is to feel the dieting impulse and all that comes with it. In fact, most men are utterly confused as to why women worry about it so much, and they have no insight into the tears, the misery, the hunger, the self-hatred, the guilt and the physical pain. And the emotional torment of isolation. They hear about it and intellectually appreciate it and believe it, but they don't KNOW it. If they did, they would never pass comments about womens' appearance. They would never say they like this or that. They would never criticise or make comments about our eating habits. At all. Ever. But the fact that men I know and have known comment freely about this kind of thing just as they do about everything else shows how little they understand it. Guys - would you go up to a person in a wheelchair and wax lyrical about the joy and wonder and sexiness of salsa dancing?

Thought not.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I would just add that I have certainly found women, whether lovers,family, friends or strangers, can cause just as much pain and apply just as much if not more pressure than men on this issue, albeit often in a more insidious way. The really crude, vicious and/or unthinking stuff tends to come from men though.

[djm4]

Guys - would you go up to a person in a wheelchair and wax lyrical about the joy and wonder and sexiness of salsa dancing?

Quite possibly, if I thought the person in question liked salsa dancing. It can piss people in wheelchairs off something chronic if everyone treads on eggshells when choosing conversation topics around them.

Point taken otherwise, though. Mind you, I'm notoriously bad at noticing appearance. Jill one asked me (after having been on a diet) 'Am I looking thinner?' to which I replied 'Than what?' I am so not the right person to ask that question of; be what weight you choose, but don't expect me to get excited about it. I'll care that you're happy or unhappy, but that's it.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Jill one asked me (after having been on a diet) 'Am I looking thinner?' to which I replied 'Than what?'

Chuckle.

'Does my bum look big in this?' - 'No, you've just got a big bum...'

I'll care that you're happy or unhappy, but that's it.

Good, good.


J

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Well, given how much exercise you've done over the last six months, and how careful you've been about what you eat - well, duh!

You are, however, much healthier and fitter - more so than me, probably.


J

[ajva.livejournal.com]

What do you mean probably?!!

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Cheek!

I've given up smoking, eaten more healthily (hardly any take-aways/crisps/sweets - lots of fantastic Soph cooking instead), and started exercising regularly - cycling and swimming.

So I'm healthier too!

Race you to the bus stop on Sunday if you don't believe me.

OTOH, you'd probably beat me in a weightlifting contest - so it just shows how stupid these generic health measurements are.


J

challenge

[ajva.livejournal.com]

How about you come to my gym and we both go on the cross-trainer until one of us falls off?

I should point out there is no bar/lounge in my gym. It's got a nice lagoon-like pool, though.

[memevector.livejournal.com]

hi people

I wrote a thing last year, "A short ramble around Western culture's body size obsession" (http://www.uncharted-worlds.org/bodypolitics/bodintro.htm) (comments welcome).

I've been thinking recently about doing another similar page more about nutrition. The possible contents of that would more nearly touch on what's come up in this discussion (though I've only just read this page so I haven't seen the posts that were already deleted). I mean the stuff about metabolism and how the body deals with food - e.g. ways in which foods of equal calorie value may be inequivalent in how a body uses (or can't use) those calories. (glycaemic index, anyone?) Mind you I'm sure there's a lot I don't know - I didn't know the thing that you were saying there about losing muscle when you diet and regaining fat.

People loving their bodies is one of my favourite things, and western culture is deeply insane in its obsession with thinness, and if anyone's gonna do some activism, I might wanna play.

It's tricky, though (as is evident here), because there are so many different strands of body politics and some of them don't mesh easily. A friend of mine not long ago wrote an essay "Fat and not proud" - she knows all the feminist/fat-political reasons why she's "supposed to be" happy to be fat, and this was a response to people who were turning "Fat & proud" into the "New correct way to be". Like, "yeah, but what if you're not proud?" That essay might go up on my site at some point as well.

Anyway... I can't possibly fit I would like to say on this subject into the space of a LJ comment. enough for now.
& thanks ajva for a worthwhile rant.