people are crazy with their low-carbing.
Sep. 12th, 2005 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keryxFriday night I went to see Pilobolus, and the scene in the audience was... intriguing. Large groups of college women, couples and groups of women in their 60s or older, and a surprising number of pairs of slightly butch middle aged women. And a smattering of other people of various ages and genders, obviously.
...Intriguing thing #1:
At every break in the performance (and it's prop-heavy modern dance, so there are a lot of breaks), the group behind me expounds at length upon their low-carb dieting. Whatever. I mean, if you're a thin woman in your fifties who wants to lose some weight, thus putting yourself in an underweight range and doubling your risk of osteoporosis and cancer, that is 100% your business - hey, I smoke, who am I to talk?
But then it just gets crazy funny, in a way that highlights for me how little the average person - even the average theoretically nutrition-focused dieter - knows about physiology and food. The women behind me started speculating about whether the dancers do low-carb. Really! Like they'd be able to accomplish their feats of balance, twitching, leaping & jumping without eating bread (or some bread equivalent - for all I know, they're all allergic to gluten). I suspect these women would have been horrified to weigh as much as any of the dancers, too - they were hardly sylphlike; their bodies oozed function over form.
The group behind me may have been all-female, but I don't think this behavior has much to do with gender (anymore - it might have 5 years ago). We're just that goofy with diet information; we accept whatever diet stuff that's presented to us without trying to understand it.
...Intriguing thing #2:
Later that night, a woman stopped me in the parking lot to tell me she'd seen me and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
riotkat dancing at Saks last winter, and we were the best, coolest thing ever.
I just laughed. I don't recall ever feeling quite so much like an exploited tool of The Man as when that store used our dancing to sell perfume; really, I should have gotten a "tool of the patriarchy" t-shirt for that gig. And our interactions with the Saks clerks were quite an experiment in social class, which I should have blogged at the time.
...Intriguing thing #1:
At every break in the performance (and it's prop-heavy modern dance, so there are a lot of breaks), the group behind me expounds at length upon their low-carb dieting. Whatever. I mean, if you're a thin woman in your fifties who wants to lose some weight, thus putting yourself in an underweight range and doubling your risk of osteoporosis and cancer, that is 100% your business - hey, I smoke, who am I to talk?
But then it just gets crazy funny, in a way that highlights for me how little the average person - even the average theoretically nutrition-focused dieter - knows about physiology and food. The women behind me started speculating about whether the dancers do low-carb. Really! Like they'd be able to accomplish their feats of balance, twitching, leaping & jumping without eating bread (or some bread equivalent - for all I know, they're all allergic to gluten). I suspect these women would have been horrified to weigh as much as any of the dancers, too - they were hardly sylphlike; their bodies oozed function over form.
The group behind me may have been all-female, but I don't think this behavior has much to do with gender (anymore - it might have 5 years ago). We're just that goofy with diet information; we accept whatever diet stuff that's presented to us without trying to understand it.
...Intriguing thing #2:
Later that night, a woman stopped me in the parking lot to tell me she'd seen me and
riotkat dancing at Saks last winter, and we were the best, coolest thing ever. I just laughed. I don't recall ever feeling quite so much like an exploited tool of The Man as when that store used our dancing to sell perfume; really, I should have gotten a "tool of the patriarchy" t-shirt for that gig. And our interactions with the Saks clerks were quite an experiment in social class, which I should have blogged at the time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-12 01:37 pm (UTC)Just added you to my Friends list subgroup *sheepish grin*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-12 05:50 pm (UTC)(And yeah, I had to look it up)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-12 05:55 pm (UTC). . . Perhaps you could belatedly blog it now?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 04:50 am (UTC)A couple of years ago at a Women's Retreat in the WV mountains some of my 'low carb' friends went on a mountain climb. 20 minutes in another friend was forcing them to eat crackers so they'd be able to continue.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 06:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 07:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 07:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 07:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 08:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 09:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-13 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-14 08:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-14 10:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-15 12:53 pm (UTC)