to be sick of the way some women talk about diets..?

[IvantaOuiOui]

as part of my job (CM) I take children to playgroups, have been doing this for years. Every woman I meet seems to be on a diet and they all talk about "being good" and "being naughty", how many syns/sins are in everything and what they've eaten in the last 24 hours. Is this normal? I am no stranger to trying to lose weight but I don't want to talk about it all the time when I'm on a diet.

They are ghastly. Multi-million pound industries based on women's insecurities.

The worst offender is the DM which somehow manages to publish dozens of pages each day based on the evils of women. She's fat, she's thin, she's ugly, she doesn't smile, she's rich, she's thick, she's useless, she's lazy, she's on benefits...

lottie

oh, and I eat potatoes too. And drink wine! And sometimes both at the same time. And I don't think food is about sync or points or carbs or whatever. Enjoy your food people. Eat healthily. But if you fancy chocolate or wine or a hot cross bun because it's Easter... fucking eat it. Don't talk about it.

Do Slimming World classes really not talk about exercise?

My sister did Rosemary Conley classes and they did some exercise as part of each session and I suppose I assumed they were all like that, but then Rosemary Conley sells fitness stuff.

Gwan Lottie - let it out!

MrsDevere I'm really saddened and angry to read what you describe. Though not surprised. Just depressing isn't it.

I'd go so far as to say that these companies are about exploitation. In fact there ought to be a MN campaign, once we've done the current one.

All they do is take people's money for absolutely nothing.

It's a toss up between WeightWatchers and Build a Bear, in my personal line up of hate.

Hmm. I am sick of 'women talking about diets', but I am also sick of 'women talking about what other women talk about as though they were amongst a minority of Super Special Women who are superior to all those thicky women who talk about diets'. Also I recognise that diet talk comes from a patriachal system of judging women on their bodies rather than their intellect, so I don't feel the need to be dickish towards women who are sensitive to that pressure tbh.

SW do talk about exercise. Its called Body Magic and you can work towards various goals.

They also have set lowest target weights for each height. Mrs DeVere's WOULD have been too low for her height, and therefore should not have been allowed.

There's a load of total arse being peddled by some posters on this thread....

Build a Bear

I know I shouldnt laugh.....

Good point Wibbly. We're all victims of it, some more than others.

I suppose I just try to ignore that stuff and concentrate on the valid debate there is to be had on this issue.

erm, Cup, I hope you don't mean to suggest MrsDevere is making stuff up? Because I don't think she does that.

Maybe the meeting she mentioned was not being run according to proper protocol?

"They pretend to have an answer so complicated that you need 'expert' help to explain it to you. Its so complex that you need log books and rule books and passwords and special cookery books"

yup
Pro points is all complicated and its easier to just buy a WW crappy ready meal with the points on it already than to make something

they are ALL just low calorie plans. That is IT! they're just different more expensive way to make you eat less calories than you use, then you loose weight. the "new" PP plan does NOT encourage you to do what it claims to - have good fats and cut bad ones - nuts and other good fat foods are still dirty words!
SW is no different. green-red-fucking indigo over the course of a week it = lower cals than you use up

It takes away your control whilst at the same time giving you a wierd control fettish about food and scales.

its a terrible way to look at food. My friends who do these diets cannot hide their disgust in situations when they are under pressure to eat something that is not on their approved lists - like social meals etc - it's horrible to watch. They are bright beautiful women it's horrible to watch them being AFRAID of a plate of perfectly nutritious full fat cooked from scratch food, for god's sake ENJOY THE BLOODY MASHED POTATO without loosing concentration on the conversation while you work out how many bloomin exercise points you'll have to punish yourself with to make up for it

I am not lying, I have no reason to. You however seem to be pretty invested in the whole pay to get weighed concept.

Body Magic

FFS because 'exercise' is too complex for our little brains to comprehend.

Wibbly! it is important to talk about women (and the media) talking about diets, because now CHILDREN are talking about diets - its happening!

Nope, I firmly believe that incessant talk of dieting is not only excessively dull, but also very damaging to any children who happen to be within earshot. So I won't tolerate it, any more than I'll tolerate other irresponsible behaviour around children.

When i did my first stint at SW i went from 21 stone to 11 stone but according to their scales at the time i was 11 stone 2 or 11 stone 3 so their scales made damn sure i never got there. I almost developed an eating disorder and i seriously considered sticking my fingers down my throat. Im 5 foot 5 and an hourglass with a VERY small waist so skirts were falling off me. My boobs back then were a 34F. I was in a size 12. But i was made to feel a failure because i didnt get to "target" There was a another member who kept telling me i "should" be 10 and a half stone. That was in October 2004 so i walked.At the same time my mum was giving me size 10 skirts saying that a "should" slim into them. Apparently going from a size 28 to a size 12 wasnt good enough.

Not lying, I'm sure that was her experience.

It isn't my experience however, so to extrapolate about the entirety of SW/WW from one experience is simply nonsense...

I don't diet and I'm slim.

Mil avoids high calorie food at meals then eats biscuits. Just bizaare, just eat a filling meal ffs.

Thank you for the lovely comments on my post last night re: young girls and knowledge of weight loss strategies. I'm still writing up papers from my PhD and getting the knock back from the editors of medical/psychiatric journals who want to hear about 'PROPER' eating disorders (full blown, classically presenting anorexia and bulimia nervosa), not just the risky developmental context that girls today encounter

It is valuable to be reminded that it's worth carrying on fighting for girls' (and women's) toxic experiences of their own bodies and their nutritional needs to be recognised as important and unacceptable.
I've always loved the bit in Backlash (I think there's a similar section in The Beauty Myth) where it explains that there are enormous financial but also societal advantages inherent in keeping women occupied with their bodies. I'd never properly considered that there is something oppressive about the time, energy and money we spend on the pursuit of an unattainably thin, unrealistically proportioned ideal when we could be spending them on things of far greater benefit to ourselves (or at least, of less active harm).
Many people can and do have positive experiences of weight loss, and of this I'm exceedingly glad. I think, however, that the dangerous juxtaposition of our obesogenic culture with widespread thin ideal internalisation is very hard to deny.

WibblyBibble "Hmm. I am sick of 'women talking about diets', but I am also sick of 'women talking about what other women talk about as though they were amongst a minority of Super Special Women who are superior to all those thicky women who talk about diets'. "

Okay, I can see how my posts could come across like that. I should work on that. I don't think I'm superior. If I'm rawly, unbearably honest, it's more that I have different neuroses. Better?

Never ever ever do this but have not read a single post on this thread but want to say a big fat YANBU

YANBU in the slightest! I run a restaurant and it's so bloody depressing, especially when little girls are seeing their mothers pick at a salad while dad eats whatever he likes.

A mother came in tonight for ice cream and asked if we had any weight watchers options. She finally chose a child's portion and her 5 year old daughter immediately piped up "how many calories are in that Mummy?" She
shouldn't even bloody know what calories are!

(if that lady is reading this, please, please, please eat what you like, you are lovely)

Good meals and a treat on a Friday night, what's so wrong with that?!!!