Posts filed under 'dieting'
The Devil Wears Prada meets a drill sergeant in this best-selling diet book, Skinny Bitch. Does that recipe sound unappealing to you, too?
Blech. It smacks of chick-lit friendly marketing with that totally hip touch of sass (read: swearing). So what is it really? A vegan diet book. Apparently it’s light on the recipes because it’s chock full of “tough-love for savvy girls”. Huh?
Look, I’m cool with veganism. And I’m all about eating less-processed foods. But it is a bald-faced lie to tell people that veganism will make everyone—no matter their body type or genetic profile—skinny. There can be health benefits that come along with cutting out meat and dairy, but that does not automatically result in elongated torsos, designer sunglasses, and a Hollywood-ready little black dress (right, front cover?).
Also, reading the title feels like chewing on tinfoil to me. There’s a lame smugness to it—it assumes that all non-skinny women are jealous of skinny ones, that all skinny women are bitches, that becoming skinny automatically lends you an air of superiority. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It’s dumb female-to-female hostility dressed up as faux empowerment, and to me, that goes down worse than last night’s barbecued seitan.
-A.I.
March 25th, 2008
I was Google-chatting with my good friend Rebecca the other day and we were rambling on about the Oscars. You know — our favorite dresses, favorite speeches, and so on. Out of the blue, she asks “Did you hear about Emma Thompson?” Apparently, Emma Thompson laid it down to the producers of her new movie Cassandra’s Dream when they asked Hayley Atwell to trim down her physique. Ms. Thompson used her leverage as a two-time Oscar winner and told the producers she would “resign from the film if they forced Atwell to lose weight.” Wow!
We’re hoping this story is true. Either way, we hope other high-powered celebrities heed this example of awesome-ship (of course, in an ideal world, this would never be an issue). After all, movies are supposed to be part of self-expression. When did this type of expression result in controlling women’s bodies?
–A.J.
February 26th, 2008
My eyes are rolling so much I’m about to lose my balance. WeightWatchers takes the friendly route with their new campaign. (Warning: This link will take you to the WeightWatchers web site. Enter at your own risk.) Their web site is mosaic-ed with positive messages for women like, “Diets are mean!”, “Di*t”, “Make the New Year’s resolution to not go on a diet,” and there’s a short video montage of all the messages we are bombarded with every day at the grocery checkout counter, in magazines, on TV.
The only problem? Um, WeightWatchers is a diet. Secret’s out, guys. The definition of “diet” is “a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one’s weight” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition). They’re called “WeightWatchers.” They sell a specialized weight-loss program. Their system assigns a points system to all types of foods, based on a Core Plan or a Flex Plan. I’ve seen women dragging their WeightWatchers points booklet around with them at every meal, doing mental math to see which foods are in their points range. Sounds like a diet, huh?
The difference between WeightWatchers and other diets is that it does not restrict which foods may be eaten, only when and how much. However, it does assign food types subjective values, and sets people down a disordered path of thinking—one that makes food morally good or bad.
How about this? Let’s do as they say and not as they do. Let’s stop dieting, start living, and take action when we see WeightWatchers’ ads. Yeesh.
– A. I.
January 22nd, 2008
