pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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MARKETED CRAVINGS AND OTHER ADVERTISING BS, OR, RUN ME OVER WITH A MEAT TRUCK ALREADY

(No. 302 � Saturday � 4 March 2006) Attended a diva competition last night that was such a hoot and the post-performance gathering was also illuminating. See, several contestants were (slightly) overweight by today�s model standards, so as soon as the crowd was reduced to thin divas, the petty remarks began: "Did you see those flabby arms?" "Someone should have told her to dance with those ham hocks covered." "How many babies do you reckon she�s had anyway?" "Honey, if you can�t lose the stomach, at least hide it under a girdle." "Did you see those thunder thighs?"�thighs that were primarily on the luscious African-American and Hispanic contestants, who, to my eyes, had some might fine asses roo, unlike the blue-eyed, stick-thin, scrawny Nordic Barbie-doll clones that conform to our culture's standard of beauty).

I guess the worshippers of our country's thriving diet, exercise, fashion, beauty, cosmetic, and plastic-surgery industries don�t much like it when real live minority bodies (or dykes) present ourselves as divas though. Or maybe they just don�t want to acknowledge what the experts now know: evidence that weight loss improves survival is limited.

(And yes I do recognize that I am rationalizing my way into more acceptance of my flab, and thank you very fucking much for noticing.)

Being skinny does not ensure happiness though, and the pursuit of it harms many, many women both emotionally and physically.

I could not help but notice that most of the divas that were the subject of last night�s jokes were just what my grandmother called pleasantly plump�a size 14 (you know, like Marilyn Monroe).

Our culture and last night�s critics insist that skinny people are healthier and more beautiful though, despite solid evidence confirming that being moderately fat by today�s standards is not unfit.

So why can�t we quit making fun of and marginalizing size 14 people?

NOTE: Now before I receive a bunch of smart-ass messages, I want to make it perfectly clear that I know that I need to lose twenty pounds. I know that I am from a long blood line of people with diabetes and that losing weight will make a real difference in my health and decrease my risk factors. I also know from my karate and basketball days that I feel better at a lower weight, and so am REALLY not trying to refute the fact that I need to lose weight. I am, however, trying to point out a bias here, folks.

Studies indicate that flabby arms do not necessarily mean that someone is less healthy than the stick-thin diva dancing beside her, despite what the commercials and magazines and movies and comments of would-be divas in smoky bars would have us believe.

I could insert a joke here about the sad and seemingly-fit sorority sisters who ingest all those diet and fashion commercials instead of food or binge and then barf in an effort to fit society's unhealthy standards and outline the health consequences of such behavior, but I don't really find the fact that seven million girls and women in our country have an eating disorder amusing.

Women in our country spend $40 billion (billion, people!) annually on diets that cycle us through weight gain and weight loss like a bunch of freakin yo-yos�and that's hard on the body. We ingest those images and articles and commercials and petty comments that tell us we can only look and be one way and then feel inferior if we look in the mirror and our reflection does not look like some scrawny, anorexic movie star waiflet.

And I will remind myself of the secrets that those skinny divas and appearance industries don�t want us to acknowledge: thirty thousand thousand Americans die annually from being underweight, in part because we live at a time when fat is equated with unworthiness.

In 1995, 34 percent of high school-aged girls in the US thought they were overweight but, today, 90 percent do.

[And a survey of contemporary American parents confirmed that] one in ten would abort their child if they found out that he or she had a genetic tendency to be fat.

No surprise either that commercials feed us the lie that overweight people possess weak character. Read femmedykester Carol Guess�s Gaslight about the weight issues of this dyke dancer. Dykes typically have to reject their parents� and their church�s and their peers� and their cultures� ideals for them in order to live authentically but this weight criticism crosses those lines. It�s no surprise that so many dykes grow up depressed.

Do you find it alarming that a recent Ellegirl magazine poll of ten thousand readers found that 30 percent said they would rather be thin than healthy? That over half the young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five would prefer to be run over by a truck than to be fat? (No mention is made of the number of ads and articles in the issue of Ellegirl that reported this data, but let�s remember that

the single group of teenagers most likely to consider or attempt suicide is girls who worry that they are overweight. (Martin)

This is about appearance, people. Not substance, not soul. Appearance. How we believe we look through other people�s eyes.

Okay. I admit that I am no expert on health. I am coming at this late after receiving some medical test results that demand that I pay more attention. I have not measured out my behaviors in tedious little TS Eliot coffee cups up till now and did not grow up reading Cosmo or any of those other magazines that want me to believe that I am inferior and ugly because I reject their products and diets and lies. I live and thrive on the interior and have mostly never wanted to conform to the narrow standards of beauty that were handed to me. Guess I do need to measure out my food and exercise into little coffee cups, however�at least until doing so is such a part of my every-day life that I don't even notice it anymore.

I have been trying to find information that focuses on data instead of cultural bias and I have to say that it is damn hard to find. I am not interested in buying into a consumer standard of beauty; I am interested in being healthier. I am interested in optimizing my well being and not just my appearance. To me, a healthy life style does not entail punishing myself and focusing on what I lack but instead focuses on making these on-going life-style changes, eating moderate balanced meals and just plain moving a lot more, getting out of the office before I'm so exhausted that all I want to do is go home and have a glass of wine and sit in front my computer, dazed and trying to make sense of my days. If I can manage to move forward this way, then I believe that my life and self-acceptance (not my pants size or the firmness of my arms) will be healthy.

As J. Eric Oliver says in Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America�s Obesity Epidemic, �equating weight loss, instead of life style changes, with improved health is like saying �whiter teeth produced by the elimination of smoking reduces the incidence of lung cancer.��

I thought about the quote below this weekend and concluded that going on the Atkins diet is just continuing a yo-yo pattern that is not ultimately healthy. I think somewhere inside I wanted to take that route in response to Pottergrrrl's admonishment that I am not losing weight fast enough for her, but I don't have to meet her timeline. It's healthier to lose it slowly using the Weight Watchers' point system or my own measure, so I'm doing that instead.

Here's the quote:

It is not fat itself that is unhealthy, but our hypocritical attitudes and compulsive behaviors that are. We drive two blocks to the grocery store and then spend 20 minutes circling the parking lot so we can get a close spot. Once inside we load up our carts with low-fat, microwave meals and diet shakes filled with artificial everything. In the checkout line, we read about the latest fitness trend in Men's Health or Self, then get back into our cars, drive the two blocks home, and sit in front of the television all night eating Pizza Hut while drinking a liter of Diet Coke. We go to bed late, wake up early, head to work�in our cars, of course �where we will spend the next eight hours stationary and bored. Rinse. Repeat.

The messages are coming in loud and clear, and they are riddled with disempowering dichotomies�all or nothing, feast or famine, disgustingly fat or virtuously thin, deeply flawed or triumphantly perfect. There is no talk of what Buddhists describe as �the middle path,� no discussion of the pleasure of walking, eating homemade food, slowing down. There is no permission to say �no� sometimes and �yes� sometimes, and have those no's and yeses be simple answers, insignificant scores on a Scrabble board, representative of nothing more than a mood. Instead our yeses and no's signify our desirability, our life expectancy, our self-worth.

And that�s bullshit. Because, as Martin says, �It is not fat itself that is unhealthy, but our hypocritical attitudes and compulsive behaviors that are.�

�

And now it�s Sunday and I spent most of yesterday weeding my flowerbeds, planting creeping phlox, spreading mulch, and putting together a fancy weed-wacker. Gotta go back to Home Desperate today though because the strap was missing and I�d like to use the thing this afternoon.

I also had a long, long talk with my BFF Filmgrrl, who has been accepted into grad school for aesecond time. (Her last degree was in political science, which is perfect for a radical documentary filmmaker, but this time she�s studying studio art, which is also perfect for a radical documentary filmmaker whose latest award-winning films [the last one about Enron] were told through chalk drawings.)

She�ll be in NY for two weeks in May, so I�m going up for a brief visit before making plans to fly cross country sometime before school starts to see their new ranch and studio.

My agenda for the rest of the day: a good decaf latte, then a long walk to appreciate all these flowers that are bursting with blooms. Then I will feed the ducks. Then I may aerate my yard and, if my shoulder is not locking up and it�s still daylight, I may fertilize my yard. Then I guess I'll vacuum all the mulch out of my car. And then I'll repot a plant.

(Whee! These are the days of our lives.)

After dark, I would like to get the last of the wallpaper off the walls and, if Mr. Motorola is online, I'd like to investigate an acting camp for my niece.

And I need to track down Holly�s phone number because I heard through the grapevine that Tree�s first chemo went fine on Thursday, but that she couldn�t even sit up in bed on Friday. I want to check in on her, let her know I�m thinking about her and see how she�s faring today.

But now it�s time to get busy, so I�ll end with a quote:

People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

So said American University law professor James Ruskin in response to Christianist Sen. Nancy Jacobs� remarks about enforcing Biblical law during an argument about whether or not Maryland should ban same-sex marriage.

11:42 a.m. - 2006-03-05

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