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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2001-01-12 - 4:26 pm� Okay, seeing as I promised this a few days ago, and also because Sarah asked for it, today's entry will be a rant on Woman's World magazine irresponsible "reporting" of diets/weight loss. There is much that I could rant about from Woman's World. I could write a 50 page essay on all of the patriarchal ideologies that the magazine promotes and perpetuates. There is just so darn much great material to pick apart! Maybe this rant will become one in a series of feminist rants about Woman's World. My mom has been buying the magazine since I was in high school. She has always maintained that she buys it because it is much cheaper than most magazines, and because she enjoys reading the "happy ending" articles (usually stories about women who have given birth despite difficult pregnancies). She admits that all my complaints/comments/rants about the magazine are warranted, but she continues to buy it week after week. I don't mind having this magazine in my house. In fact, I enjoy reading it. It's so very easy to deconstruct and analyse. It's like a fun game. When I was taking my women's studies class, and my pop culture media class at University, I used to gather up all the Woman's Worlds I could find and use them to test my skill at picking up the new theories and ideas I'd learned in class. This magazine is just that ripe for the picking. My favourite problem with the magazine is the ever present MIRACLE WEIGHT LOSS feature. Ever single issue contains some sort of diet, exercise regime, or other "miracle" that has led to weight loss. The format is always the same: an article about someone who has lost a large amount of weight, followed by instructions on how you too can achieve this weight loss. This "miracle" is usually the cover story, as it was in the issue that Sarah noticed, the Carnie Wilson's "MIRACLE WEIGHT LOSS-- She lost 150 lbs!" issue. Sarah commented on how she found the magazine's promotion of the medical procedure that led to Carnie's weight loss was irresponsible. None of the risks of the procedure were listed in the magazine. The only quasi-medical information presented was how the procedure was done, and a list of criteria for readers to see if they would be suitable candidates for the procedure, and whether or not their insurance would pay for it. I read this article, and the medical irresponsibility (which is a major issue) barely registered with me. After all, this magazine has, in the past year, had a cover story about "crash diets that really work!" Health risks don't seem to matter too much to this publication. Being thin is the most important thing. What I first took offence with in regards to the Carnie Wilson story was the same issue that I usually take offence with: the thin equals happiness ideology. While it does mention that Carnie went through with the gastric bypass surgery because of health concerns, the real push of the article is that Carnie was miserable when she was overweight, and that she is overwhelmingly happy now that she is thin. The article is peppered with sensationalistic exclamations like: "I felt like a prisoner in my own body." "Now I cry tears of joy almost every day!" "'Every day, it's like I'm discovering parts of myself that were lost." Lost of years and years under hundreds of pounds of fat." [After the surgery]"Now I was never hungry. It was the most fantastic experience!" I'm not trying to say that she shouldn't be happy now that she is thin. I certainly believe that she is happy with new figure. It cannot have been easy to be "the fat one" in Wilson Phillips. I'm glad that she is happy with the results of her surgery. My problem is that she, and the magazine, believe that the self image problems she had with herself when she was fat have miraculously disappeared along with all those lost pounds. This is the norm with these articles. I can't count the number of times I've read the following phrase (or a variation on it) in Woman's World "'No one could ever love me when I look like this,' she sobbed." I'm not kidding. And after the weight is lost, and the featured woman is reflecting back to her former figure, words like "admit" and "confess" are used to describe her former size/eating habits. The same issue featuring Carnie Wilson's story has an additional feature about three women who lost weight using diet pills (yet another potential dangerous "miracle" weight loss aid). Here are a couple of "confessions" from these women: "'I used to wear a size 22, and I got up to 230 pounds,' she admits." "At our last reunion, I was the one taking the pictures. I would never let myself be in any of them because I was so ashamed of the way I looked." The words are chosen specifically to highlight the shame and guilt that a overweight woman is supposed to feel because she is not thin. These woman felt ashamed of their fat bodies, shouldn't you feel ashamed of yours? Aren't you miserable just like they were? And just to hit you right over the head with the idea that you too could be happy and thin, there is usually a tagline along the lines of "She lost 75 pound-- and you can too with this easy to follow diet plan! It really works!" There are almost always easy to follow diet plans included alongside of the article. Every month there is a new easy to follow miracle meal plan. I have to question just how well these easy to follow miracle diets actually work if there is a new one in every issue. If each diet was so easy, so miraculous, why the hell would anyone need another one to try next week? So my thought is that these miracle weight losses are not so miraculous. They require the same hard work, dedication, and will power that any successful weight loss plan requires. By not telling its readers that real weight loss takes time and dedication, and still may not give the dieter the results that she wants, Woman's World helps to perpetuate the idea that if you are fat, you are a failure. Yes, there are medical benefits to having a low body fat count, but when is it enough? I wish, just for once, I could read an article in Woman's World, or another of those insulting women's magazines, about a woman who decided that she was happy with her full figured self. I wish that women's acceptance of our bodies, regardless of size, was not treated as some sort of radical feminist fringe belief (I put feminist in italics there, because in such context, "feminist" is usually treated as a dirty word). Why can't I live a full, happy life at my current weight? Why can't Carnie be happy with new weight of 150 pounds (the article mentions that she is still planning to lose more weight)? Why does thin automatically equal happiness and fat equal misery and failure? We need to ask ourselves these questions. We need to be active consumers of the media, and think about the messages being given, and decide for ourselves whether or not these messages are right for us. We need a change of priorities. We should be trying hard to lose these hurtful ideologies, and stop worrying about losing the fat.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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