Only now that I am pregnant do I realise how much – and how routinely - women are discouraged to eat!

I definitely feel that I am my mind, and my body is the thing that carries me around. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to look after it - even if it were possible to be a brain in a jar it doesn't sound like much fun. I want to look after my body because it allows my mind to do all the things that it wants to do.

noobydoo - I think it's more about the pressure to not eat much than to be thin.

Food is something some of my friends talk about a lot, others don't. i think anecdotally it's been demonstrated on this threas that a lot of women are on diets of one kind or another.

Thought I would throw in an interesting titbit of information (not quite sure what it means out there in the wild for individuals). I'm on the phone & can't link to the study, sorry.

Did you know that there are strong correlations between rates of obesity & depression? And which way do those correlations run?

The highest rates if depression are found in areas of the USA with the LOWEST rates of obesity.

I have been reading this thread with interest. Personally, I have only ever felt under pressure from one person to be thin and that was my dad (who had eating problems of his own).

I have not noticed this amazing amount of pressure to be thin. Personally, I think the pressure exists less in real life than people think. Of my previous boyfriends there were none that cared particularly whether I was a size 10 or 14 and DH certainly would not care unless he thought I was damaging my health. Within my circle of friends it is not something that we ever talk about.

The message for being thin is only really ever present in teenagers who think that boys care about size and who actually read trashy magazines and I assume that most teenagers who are stable grow out of this eventually anyway.

The messages I have had since being pregnant of how you should use this as the one time in your life you can eat what you like, have nothing to do with general discussions of healthy eating etc. As I and others have reported.

I think there is a very big difference to suggesting that some one lose weight because they are obese and damaging their health or commenting positively when they do nad the food of a perfectly healthy woman being restricted or them being encouraged to eat because in the eye of the beholder they are 'skinny'.

Even when you're aware of the pressures on women to eat less and be thin, it's very hard to escape them. I've spent most of my adult life being fighty about the idea that women shouldn't eat much - I remember having a pub lunch with a couple of female friends; we were all having fryups and chips and some random bloke at the next table leaned over and said something like, is this the Weight Watchers table? I think my reply was, no, we're the ones who eat healthily, which did effectively shut him up out of sheer confusion, but I rather wish I'd been much ruder.
But over the last couple of years, due to different work patterns, I've got thinner. And thinner. And I sometimes get a bit conflicted about the whole business: I eat a reasonably healthy diet because I cook for myself and DS therefore try to make sure there's plenty of veg and that meals are reasonably regular, but we have plenty of puddings and biscuits too, yeah blah whatever. But my weight loss gets commented on, and I get praised for it, which is annoying, so I bark at people, and then I find myself explaining that I've not been on a diet, that it's just down to the job, and then feeling almost guilty, as though I'm implying 'Hey lardarse, you too could be thin if you tried' which is not what I think at all.

ANd then it all boils down to the same old thing - what the fuck has it got to do with anyone else how much I eat and whether or not my trousers fit me?

Even if ppl don't say it directly to you, by talking excessively about their own weight and the weight of strangers in the street, celebrities it still reinforces the idea that women should be skinny. Women are congratulated and congratulate themselves for being 'good' ie eating foods they deem healthy, no fat, no sugar. Men however talk about their massive meals with pride and ppl talk about how men need meat and huge portions. The reason pregnancy is seen as a time too eat is because it is the only time when women are not seen as a sex object, she is going to become 'unattractive' in terms of western ideas of beauty anyway so why not eat what you like too, you are no longer desirable so being fat makes no difference. It is positive not to be seen as an object but negative that pregnancy is seen as so repulsive.

Oh don't apologise SH, it was ages ago.

Thanks Basil, and sorry for not realising it was in the book club section.

Seahorses - just for you

I'm about 14 weeks along with Dc2. What I noticed in both pregnancies was how I went, pre pg, from not too worried about how overweight I was to restricting my eating in a way I haven't done since I was a skinny teenager. Being violently sick and having real food aversions that have narrowed my food choices someone hasn't helped either. Being pregnant, both times, has been like a really good diet.

I'm aware this isn't healthy. I think it is my mind trying to take control over a body it hasn't control over any more. I think it is also duets my age, apart from my teenage years (which were kind to me in a patriarchaly acceptably way) my body hadn't changed so drastically before.

Going back to the OP I didn't find too much encouragement to eat from other women but I did get lots of pressure over having another a glass of wine or unpasturised Bree or whatever. It was like following the UKgovernment regs was an affront to these Aussie women who thought that not eating or drinking whatever was bloody precious.

There's so much historically about women being 'of the body' and men being 'of the spirit' - from Confucianism to western monotheism. Women are always in the double bind - damned if they do or don't.

On the one hand women must be ashamed of being 'of the body' - ashamed for eating, shitting, farting, sweating, burping, sneezing, menstruating, pissing, getting pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, having a vagina, having a sexual appetite, having any bodily odour, having body hair etc, etc. Continuous shame for being human is the woman's lot. Shamed for not being the virgin/goddess/mother, shamed for being 'real'... The strain of this shame of being human and keeping up the pretence of not being human (more a delicate-goddess- lady-thing) is pretty gruelling and time-consuming.

So because there is a double-bind, women are also shamed for not just being 'of the body' - that neat little misogynist, patriarchal box given to them: the are also shamed for speaking too much, having opinions, having too many feelings, showing anger, for laughing wrongly, for having ambition, etc, etc, etc.

That concerns me as well Chibi - that my daughter might feel the need to have cosmetic surgery.

I also found that mind/body split was something that didn't go away until I'd been pregnant, but of course DD might not want to have children, and I'd hope she doesn't go through that feeling at any point that her body isn't part of who she is, but some kind of other entity.

While food has never really been an issue for me (luckily) i only really identified with my body once i had been pregnant, gave birth and breastfed

before that, me and my body were almost 2 seperate entities, the body was almost just the vehicle that the real 'me' happened to be in

our culture fetishes this kind of mind body split

people who see their flesh as actually them would not cavalierly consider cosmetic surgery -lopping bits off/augmenting other parts- it would be almost mutilative to do that to healthy tissue

yes seahouses - I think many women find it difficult to be honest in front of partners or males generally about their appetite. I think this is partly responsible for the solitary biscuit binges in the kitchen late at night - yes I've been there

That has just reminded me of a meal we had as students, where when of my housemates invited some male students over. My female housemates ate very little and then when the men had left, they went into the kitchen declaring themselves ravenous and ate all the food the men hadn't eaten.

One of them told me she couldn't eat a full meal if men were around.