Cut the crap!

Cerise writes:

I have recently noticed an alarming trend in our language.  It is a specific form of negative body-talk.  So many articles, ads, and women use very violent imagery when discussing parts of their bodies.  Think about it:  banish your butt, burn fat, carve off your curves, destroy your belly, slice your flab, melt your belly, dump your gut, kill your cravings, blast your thighs.  Is this a nice way to talk about yourself?  What would you say to a product that promises to destroy women's bodies?  Doesn't sound so nice now, does it?  What about slicing, cutting, burning?  Why is it okay to use language like this?

I can't decide where this language comes from.  Does it spring from our acceptance of violence against women in popular culture?  Does it come from our habit of insulting overweight people (and, for that matter, not-so-over-weight celebrities?)  Is it just an expression of the very real loathing some women feel for parts of their bodies?  

Well, stop it!  I don't care where it comes from.  It is not okay to talk about yourself or anyone else this way.  Don't buy products that promise to act out violence on your body.  Don't accept this sort of language.

When I took a college course on propaganda (very cool course, by the way), we discussed the insidious impact of propaganda.  Even if you are a very smart, educated person, it seeps into your thinking.  Even if you know it is propaganda, if it is repeated often enough, it soaks into your head.  Even if it is clumsy, stupid propaganda, if it is not contradicted, it is hard to resist.  Advertising is perhaps the most pervasive form of propaganda in our society.  Don't say it is trivial, it is not.  Don't think you can ignore it, you cannot.  But do not accept it.  Do not let it go unchallenged.  The best way to combat propaganda is to recognize it for what it is and to actively disagree with it.

Not interested in a diet, thanks.

Cerise writes: 

Actually, I don’t want to lose weight, thanks.  Yes, I have noticed that I am fat, but I’m okay with that.  I am not on a diet, I don’t want to hear about the latest fad diet, and I don’t hate the way I look.  For me, at least, there are two ways to deal with the way I feel about my body:  accept it or hate it. I would rather not hate my body and try to starve it into submission. 

I tried that, when I was younger.  I was anorexic.  I was five foot eight and I weighed less than 100 pounds.  Actually, I sometimes weighed less than 90 pounds.  At 100 pounds, my body mass index would have been 14.8.  At 90 pounds, it would be 13.3  The lowest healthy body mass index for women is 18.5.  By the way, the online BMI calculator I just used told me that 90 pounds for a height of 5’8” was “healthy.”  Apparently it is not aware that a BMI below 17.5 is one of the criteria for anorexia. 

And I thought about food all the time.  I was always hungry.  Did you know that if you are hungry enough you get a buzz?  Sort of like a runner’s high.  I was addicted to that high.  Of course, I was still not happy with the way I looked.  I thought I was fat.  I despaired because my ribs and hip bones were so huge and stuck out so far that I could never be truly skinny.  I was just big boned, so I would never be as thin as I wanted to be.  That kind of thinking seemed normal to me.  Perhaps because it was reinforced by so many voices around me:  my mother, other girls, advertising, even the textbooks in school.  Thinner was better, they said.  Having a healthy appetite was unfeminine.  Being beautiful meant being skinny.  Always being on a diet was normal.  I didn’t come up with those disordered thoughts on my own, I learned them from the society around me. 

I hope you all realize how ridiculous this weight-loss ad image really is.  

Like many teenagers, I was shy.  I didn’t want to attract attention.  The thinner I got, the less space I took up, the closer I got to being invisible.  I wanted to disappear, and I got as close as I could.  Those of you who know I studied ballet might think that part of the problem was the cult of thinness in the dance world.  For me, at least, that wasn’t the source of the problem.  My dance teachers were pretty healthy in their attitude towards weight.  They urged us not to eat junk, but to choose real food.  And they also told me to gain weight, that I was too thin, that I would have more stamina if I wasn’t so skinny.  They are not to blame for my anorexia. 

When I look at photos of myself back then, I am horrified at how thin I was.  I looked awful, not beautiful.  I looked like I had some sort of disease.  I did, anorexia is a disease.  It is not a choice, it is not normal, and it can kill you.  Why didn’t anyone notice I was starving myself?  Well, I was very good at pretending to eat.  And my parents were pretty busy living their own lives.  I ate breakfast alone, and I literally took two bites of cereal and threw the rest away.  I often skipped lunch, unless my best friend could convince me to eat something.  She knew something was wrong, she was worried about me.  I did eat an almost normal dinner, because my parents were watching.  They were firm believers in family dinner time.  But I got really good at pushing food around on my plate, hiding food in my napkin or my pocket, and just pretending to eat. 

I think that I sort of wanted someone to notice, to tell me to stop starving myself.  But no one did.  In fact, I got a lot of positive feedback for being so thin.  Other girls were jealous.  And my mother made me beautiful clothes, elaborate things like prom dresses.  She dressed me like a Barbie doll.  When I got to a normal weight, she pretty much stopped sewing things for me.  I guess it wasn’t any fun to dress me when I didn’t look like a mannequin any more.  I suppose it just goes to show that fashionable clothes are made for unnaturally skinny people, not for normal-sized folks. 

It is very odd to me that my current state of obesity inspires total strangers to tell me to eat less.  It makes friends and co-workers tell me about this great new diet.  It makes my mother give me diet books for Christmas.  But why didn’t my pathological skinniness make people speak up?  Did they, like me, believe girls should look like Barbie dolls?  (I admit, I’ve never had Barbie’s breasts.  But then, again, who does?)

Notice Barbie's shrinking swimwear!

Future topic:  how did I claw my way up from self starvation to fat acceptance?  

Mind Your Own Business!

Cerise writes:

            Several recent events have made me realize that some people need a reminder:  not everything in the whole wide world is your damn business.  And not everyone needs to hear your opinion.  But am I not just spouting my own opinions, here on this blog?  Perhaps a few examples will clarify what I mean:

            A friend of mine is deaf and has two small children.  Because she is deaf, she is eligible for a handicapped parking permit.  (This depends on the state.) Yes, that’s right.  It is dangerous for a deaf person to navigate a parking lot on foot when everyone else assumes they can hear.  If you can’t hear a car horn or even an idling engine, then you can’t get out of the way.  (Deaf people get killed and injured in parking lots all the time.)  And, as anyone with small children knows, your eyes simply cannot be everywhere at once.  My friend refused to use the handicapped parking permit for which she was eligible until she had two young kids to look after.  Then she admitted it would be safer for them if she didn’t have to try to watch them, hold on to them, and watch every car in sight while she crossed a parking lot.  Now she can park close to the door and keep her children safe.  But one day someone she had never seen before saw her parking (with her valid handicapped permit), hauling her kids out of the car, and heading into the building.  This total stranger took it upon herself to assume that my friend MUST be abusing the system since she didn’t LOOK like a stereotypical disabled person.  And then the stranger also took it upon herself to confront my friend and start scolding her.  My friend is pretty good at lip reading, but it is a difficult skill, made more difficult when you are startled, have no context for what the other person is saying, don’t know the person, or are trying to lip read someone who is yelling at you.  So she didn’t catch every word the stranger was spouting, but she is pretty sure some of the words were not suitable for her children’s ears (they can both hear.)  Then her adorable son burst in, “Stop!” he said, holding up his hand like a tiny policeman directing traffic.  “My momma is DEAF and you leave her alone!”  Well said, young man!  If you don’t know the situation, don’t assume.  And don’t butt in without enough information. 

            Perhaps not surprisingly, similar things have happened to friends of mine with heart trouble and myasthenia gravis.  There are plenty of serious disabilities that some ignorant stranger can’t see.  Don’t assume you know everything!  Better yet, don’t assume anything. 

            Maybe a better way to describe this admonition isn’t “Mind your own Business” but rather “Don’t Judge.”  Even judges and juries don’t make decisions without all the information.  And if they don’t have enough information, then they don’t make a decision at all.  What a great idea for the rest of us!

            Another, less extreme example, comes from my own personal experience.  I was eating at Wendy’s.  Not the pinnacle of healthy cuisine, I know.  But there I was, with my lunch.  I had two $1 hamburgers and an iced tea.  This lunch, by the way, is under 600 calories.  Not a huge meal, it could certainly be a part of a healthy diet.  But, I should add, I am fat.  Overweight.  Obese.  And all that fat is there for the whole word to see.  And so was the food on my tray.  I had not yet taken my first bite when a total stranger started to scold me.  Yes, an adult human being was being scolded by someone they didn’t know about what they were eating.  I was, honestly, totally flummoxed.  This stranger told me I had no business eating that much, that I was fat, that I was making it worse, and that it was my own fault.  I believe my response was something along the lines of a bewildered, “HUH?”  I might have also managed to say “Do I know you?”  The nosy stranger then started to tell me about her personal quest for fitness and weight loss with some herbal supplement that had changed her life.  Ah, I understood now:  this was all about her.  It wasn’t really about her desire to help me, to educate me, it was about her chance to show off, to feel superior to me. 

            Did she really think I hadn’t noticed I was fat?  That I needed someone to tell me?  Someone wrote into Miss Manners with a similar question, something along the lines of “My cousin used to be a very attractive, pretty girl.  But she has let herself go and has gained twenty pounds.  Should I tell her?  How can I tell her to get it together and lose weight?”  Miss Manners was, I have to say, a bit taken aback.  She asked if the reader really thought the cousin would say “Oh, my!  You’re absolutely right.  I hadn’t even noticed!  Thank you so much for pointing it out to me!”  Could anybody really expect that?  I can’t decide if anyone could be that stupid or if they really just want to feel superior to the fat person. 

            So the question is:  stupid or mean?  Maybe they just didn’t think.  I do believe there is an epidemic of speaking without thinking.  If you doubt me, take a look around this Internet here.  Plenty of writing without thinking, no?  So, please, the next time you want to judge, to criticize, to tell someone else how to live their life. . .  Stop!  Think:  do I have all the information?  Is my comment really going to be helpful?  Or am I just mouthing off for my own benefit? 

            I would like to clarify that this post is not meant to contradict another author’s post, “Speak Up for Your Own Good.”  Speaking out to help someone, to offer support is totally different.  In fact, speaking up to someone who insults or offends you might be the only solution to those people who speak without thinking first.  Like the little boy who had to say “Stop!  Leave my momma alone!”  Out of the mouths of babes?