This is the complete opposite of a rah rah pick me up speech.
I do not condone castigating anyone for changing their body, or wanting to change it. Those are individual choices. But those individual choices form a whole that tends to come down to women vs. fat. So, when people make their personal choices, I want them to think very hard about some political things.
1. It is very, very hard to differentiate between what's actually healthy for you and what you need from a body size standpoint and what's been sold to you. So any time you make a choice like hey, let's go on Weight Watchers, you ought to seriously think about where it's coming from. Hatred of our bodies for fatness (real or perceived) which has been hammered into our heads as unhealthy is just as problematic as hating other people for the same fatness.
2. Reality is this: many people can't get thinner, no matter how purely and chastely they live. This is particularly true as people get older. So, you also have to accept that there's a good chance of failure, and that failure isn't a commentary on your value as a person. Moreover, any temporary diet measure (as most weight loss diets are) has about a 30-60% chance (depending on who you believe) of making you fatter within 1 year - partly because of your own controllable behavior, but partly because of the inherently problematic nature of weight loss dieting. If your diet is balanced, permanent, and accompanied by exercise, it still might not result in you getting thinner. But it WILL make you healthier, and that's a good thing. You can go into a healthy life hoping for thinness and still get the health benefits.
3. If anorexia is a feminist problem, why isn't weightloss dieting? We're concerned that women starve themselves if they ALREADY meet the definition of thinandhealthy in our view, but we encourage them to diet until they reach that definition. That seems inherently wrong. And it seems to me that, if you as an adult woman add your voice in support of dieting to the millions of other adult women doing this, that you're furthering the diet culture that turns 12 year olds into dieters and gets them hanging out on pro-ana websites.
It's a personal choice, but like many personal choices, it has political repercussions. And they're not just repercussions for you; they touch all the women around you. [Er, and by "you" in all of the above, I actually mean ANY of us.]
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Date: 2004-03-03 07:59 am (UTC)I do not condone castigating anyone for changing their body, or wanting to change it. Those are individual choices. But those individual choices form a whole that tends to come down to women vs. fat. So, when people make their personal choices, I want them to think very hard about some political things.
1. It is very, very hard to differentiate between what's actually healthy for you and what you need from a body size standpoint and what's been sold to you. So any time you make a choice like hey, let's go on Weight Watchers, you ought to seriously think about where it's coming from. Hatred of our bodies for fatness (real or perceived) which has been hammered into our heads as unhealthy is just as problematic as hating other people for the same fatness.
2. Reality is this: many people can't get thinner, no matter how purely and chastely they live. This is particularly true as people get older. So, you also have to accept that there's a good chance of failure, and that failure isn't a commentary on your value as a person. Moreover, any temporary diet measure (as most weight loss diets are) has about a 30-60% chance (depending on who you believe) of making you fatter within 1 year - partly because of your own controllable behavior, but partly because of the inherently problematic nature of weight loss dieting. If your diet is balanced, permanent, and accompanied by exercise, it still might not result in you getting thinner. But it WILL make you healthier, and that's a good thing. You can go into a healthy life hoping for thinness and still get the health benefits.
3. If anorexia is a feminist problem, why isn't weightloss dieting? We're concerned that women starve themselves if they ALREADY meet the definition of thinandhealthy in our view, but we encourage them to diet until they reach that definition. That seems inherently wrong. And it seems to me that, if you as an adult woman add your voice in support of dieting to the millions of other adult women doing this, that you're furthering the diet culture that turns 12 year olds into dieters and gets them hanging out on pro-ana websites.
It's a personal choice, but like many personal choices, it has political repercussions. And they're not just repercussions for you; they touch all the women around you. [Er, and by "you" in all of the above, I actually mean ANY of us.]