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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

slimming clubs and feminisim

38 replies

upsydaisysexstylist · 09/02/2011 08:46

Posting on here because I have done some self analyis on why I am becoming demotivated and uneasy at slimming world and it seems to be the corporate branding and competitive element. I've lost 3 stone about half of what I thought I would like to lose, but my list of reasons for losing weight can mainly be ticked off. Get clothes in standard shops, have enough confidence to go swimming with kids, have more energy, run round after kids, be healthy role model. Now eating plan is sensible and fits in with making meals for decidedly on skinny side toddler and I can mainly stick to it long term, but and it's an increasingly bigger but getting a certificate for loosing more weight last mnth than the other members of the group makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not in competition with a pensioner with arthritis and she is going to struggle to lose weight at the same rate as me, who is able to exercise and breast feeding 2.

Basically it's a few years since I read fat is a feminist issue and I saw a great link to a blog on this board by someone who works in fat studies, but I can't remember the topic. Am also wondering if I have never liked high heels, don't buy womens mags or desire to dye my hair, what exactly I aspire to body shape wise. If you got to the end of this mammoth op thanks

OP posts:
sakura · 09/02/2011 08:55

hi, really interesting point you made there about them getting you to "compete" with a pensioner with arthritis

It would do women a huge favour if culturally, they were to reconnect with food, and it may be that feminism could help them do that. Our connection to food has been severed by industrial revolution and mutli-national corporations.
Germaine Greer has a chapter on food in The Whole Woman that's well worth reading Smile

alexpolismum · 09/02/2011 09:05

I don't think that high heels, dyed hair and body weight are necessarily related.

I think that if you are really overweight, then it is sensible, whether a woman or a man, to lose some weight, for your health. I do agree that you should not be compared to a much older person with arthritis.

If you are not happy at slimming world, then don't go there. Try just eating sensibly at home, without trying out any silly fashionable diets, and doing some exercise. I walk everywhere and don't drive at all. It helps to keep me fit, I enjoy walking, and gives ample opportunities to point things out to the children (look, there's a pine tree, why don't you pick up the pine cone/ let's smell these roses/ etc). Plus, of course, it can help you to lose weight.

If you are breastfeeding two, do you not find it helps to keep the weight off? I put on a lot of weight during pregnancy, but it all came off again with breastfeeding, without me actively trying, in fact I ate loads more than usual while I was tandem feeding.

Excessive and obsessive dieting and worrying about fat is a feminist issue, I think, because of the way it is pushed on us by the media. But I believe that sensible dieting, combined with exercise is a health issue. For example, my mother improved her diabetes by losing weight, and you say you want to have more energy (although with 2 young children you'll probably still be tired all the time anyway!) Why not take up brisk walking? You can start with 20 mins, or whatever you are comfortable with, and gradually increase.

alexpolismum · 09/02/2011 09:06

Sakura - can I just ask what you mean by 'connect with food'?

NacMacFeegle · 09/02/2011 09:34

I went to slimmming world twice, I got SO cross I never went back.

It was for people who are obsessed with food and hate themselves, well, that was the overwhelming feeling I got. A whole table covered in wrappers and packets, obsessive talking about what they could/ couldn't have... I got SO angry. Didn't say anything, but wanted to. The corporate thing made me crazy too. I know it works for some people, I used WW myself just after I had DD - BUT I was applauded etc for losing weight very quickly (more than 2 1/2 stone in 2 months) when in fact I was in the grip of PND and didn't eat.

I went in July last year, when I was my aabsolute heaviest. I did not get inspired, other than in self-loathing.

Trouble is, in common with many people with weight problems my age, I have been yoyoing and fannying about with food since I was about 12. I no longer have normal hunger signals, I do not believe I process food properly. And if I am told (even by myself) that I can't have something, then I will probably have 3.

So now, I eat what I want, when I want it, after a quick psychological check through (do I want it because I am sad/ bored/ cold/ tired, am I thirsty?) and if I still want it, then I have it. I'm almost 2 stone down since last July, slow loss due to massive blip at Xmas! But I am happy with that, because I hope it means I am re-educating my body.

I hope.

Men are rarer at these groups, and the ones I've seen have been fawned over and celebrated, it's quite bizaare.

Whole diet issue is a fuck up, IMO.

sakura · 09/02/2011 09:36

well.. umm, for example, women produce over 90% of the world's food: they plant and harvest it, but the profiteers of this work are men. Then women have to use their paltry wage to buy back food in processed cheap forms by the very corporations that exploit them in the first place.

In the west, many women don't even know what raw food looks like: never shelled a pea, never descaled a fish...
OUr connection to be food has been wrested from us.

Look at the symbolism of a witch's cauldron. A cauldron is simply a large soup pot you heat over the fire. Women would have used it to feed lots of people, family or friends, because of its large size, but something that was nurturing and female and connected to food now has monstrous connotations

The diet industry, all the slimming yoghurts and other products.. it's all there to make a profit out of women

Not sure what the answer is, but I think women need to reclaim food.

Original poster
upsydaisysexstylist · 09/02/2011 10:11

Alex, I am already walking everywhere as we do not need a car where we live and whilst tandem feeding is helping my weight loss, ds2 is 7mnths now and this is the time I put weight back on with ds1 as I did not adjust my intake. I lost weight after ds2's birth before going to the group but my energy levels were very up and down, following a plan has helped me sort this out and therefore given me the confidence that I can continue to eat in this way long term.

I could have sorted this out on my own I quess, but the structure helped at a time when I was getting very little sleep and I am shallow enough that being weighed every week keeps me focused. I agree that being fat is a health issue and am determined to lose the next 18lbs to become merely overweight.

I have also decided to opt out of the competions if I decided to continue going, and to stay to less of the image therapy. Which was not what I was expecting, being the parroting of the same phases every week.

However if losing weight were as simple as you made it sound there would not be so many people struggling with it.

OP posts:
sakura · 09/02/2011 10:16

upsydaisy, I hope I'm not overstepping the mark here YOu're intelligent, articulate, but you seem really overly focused on this. It's such a waste of your energy and it's a real fucking shame that society conspires against women to keep them focused on their body
I wonder if forgetting about your weight and losing weight would help. Find something totally unrelated to throw yourself into (how about feminism Wink ) and I reckon the weight will drop off

sakura · 09/02/2011 10:18

sorry, I really hope that didn't sound like I thought you were being neurotic. I don't think that at all. I think that women worrying about your weight is a natural consequence of the messages our culture rams down their throats
I mean, try to take a step back from it all and focus on something else. it's so overwhelming

NacMacFeegle · 09/02/2011 10:26

Sakura, one of the things I find sad about what I have done to myself is that I will never be able to forget about it. Because I have wrecked my natural regulators. It's rubbish, and the thought of spending the next x number of years constantly planning is horrible - but better than having x number of years reduced through weight related illness.

alexpolismum · 09/02/2011 10:35

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound really simple. I realise a lot of people struggle with these issues. I just suggested walking as it's something generally easy to take up and can be quite enjoyable.

Sakura - you make some very good points. Are there really people out there who don't eat any fresh food? Not so much as an apple? Or a potato? Apart from packets of pasta and digestive biscuits, I don't think we get much ready made stuff. But then both dh and I enjoy cooking. And I am lucky in that my PILs grow lots of veg in their garden, so there is always plenty.

I think your point about the cauldron is interesting, I had never considered it that way before.

Re women doing all the work - My Dh's uncle and aunt ran a vegetable farm, growing tomatoes, courgettes, carrots, potatoes, that sort of thing. His aunt worked all day long, and now (years later) has back problems related to her hard work. Yet she never got any of the money - it all went to her husband. Not only that, but it was all done in his name, so she is not even entitled to a pension in her own right. She was uneducated (only completed a few years of primary school before she was made to stop, as it was unnecessary for a girl), barely literate and could not read the paperwork involved in paying insurance, etc. Her husband just used to tell her he was taking care of it. No officials ever queried it. And this is in a Western country!

dittany · 09/02/2011 10:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sakura · 09/02/2011 11:58

alexpolis that is absolutely shocking about your aunt. That's what the global food production system is like ,just on a larger scale.

I think the womenon MN are probably more connected to food than the general population, through the luck of being members of a particular socio-economic group. There's even a friggin chicken-keeping topic! (which actually sounds quite fascinating). BUt to keep chickens you need land, quite a bit I should imagine...

But it doesn't keep women away from the persistent messages to buy crap food.

sakura · 09/02/2011 11:58

your dh's aunt, sorry

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 09/02/2011 13:51

Hi OP

I have felt tempted to go to those groups at times, to be honest I think nearly all women feel overweight, and that weight is the be all and end all. What I have done instead is start going to the gym (might be easier said than done for you, depending on circumstances) and although I have actually put ON weight, I have certainly become stronger and people have commented that I look fitter/slimmer, which I find weird. Last time I took up the gym, I was put off by the weight gain, but have been lucky enough to find a place where the woman who runs the place thinks that the whole idea of weight as a measure of health is pretty fucked up, and has got my doing proper exercise, not girly/"toning" exercises which basically don't work and ensure you will be struggling for ever. Have had some interesting chats with her about why women should be encouraged to do exercises that don't make us any stronger for god's sake. What's wrong with women being strong? It's not like we're going to turn into Mr Universe overnight.

Sorry got to run but interested in this discussion so will be back later.

love the cauldron thing btw Sakura! Did you think of that, or read it somewhere (in which case, I want that book!)?

TeiTetua · 09/02/2011 13:55

It's nice to talk about a "connection with food" in pre-industrial times, but for most people back then, the issue was whether they'd get enough of it. Malnutrition, or outright starvation, was very familiar. And the notion of women as the farmers may apply in Africa or North America (before Europeans arrived) but we know it's not true in Europe or most of Asia. Working the land was men's work and still is, but if women got involved (as with that poor woman digging vegetables) you can be sure they wouldn't get much credit for it.

The Chinese symbol for "man" literally means "field-strength". You can look it up.

HerBeX · 09/02/2011 14:45

Food and fat is a massive feminist issue. For so many women it is so bound up with guilt. Guilt about enjoying food - look at the language used, "I was naughty, I had a cake", then guilt about not finishing it (in the words of John Lennon "they're starving back in China, so finish what you've got") - our whole culture unremittingly tries to force us to forego all the sensual pleasure of food and martyr ourselves to the guilt of it. A bit like we were supposed to do with sex a hundred years ago. Anything that's actually enjoyable and fulfilling, we're supposed to feel guilt about.

Dieting clubs buy into that and re-inforce it because they make money from it. Look at the language one of them uses - you can have sins (sins FFS!) as part of the diet - they're using religious guilt language about something as basic as eating, but hey, Catherine of Siena would have recognised the concept. And the idea that you have to live on low fat shit for the rest of your life and carefully measure out your portions, returning to the club every now and then and paying out good money for that, is so profitable for them.

And so disempowering for women. Because if you have to measure it out, it means you can't trust your own body, your own appetite, to tell you when you have had enough.

NacMcfeegle, you can retrain yourself to re-acquaint yourself with your real appetite - you don't have to be reliant on corporate giants telling you how much to eat and when, you do have the power to re-discover your inner regulators. It takes time, practice and determination, but it can be done. But often, just as the success stories with slimming clubs are, success with re-discovering your natural appetite, co-incides with other achievements/ breakthroughs in your life.

HerBeX · 09/02/2011 14:45

Sorry about the ranting essay...

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 09/02/2011 14:54

But just because men are associated with doing the outside work etc, doesn't mean they were the only ones doing it. FWIW I'm sure most Indian farmers are men if you look on a list of who owns what, but go out into the fields and it's mixed, mainly women, doing the backbreaking work. It has always been the assumption until very recently that if you hired a man, you got his wife thrown in to work for free, and that goes for all kinds of work areas (vicars for instance).

SuchProspects · 09/02/2011 15:49

I was a very active as a kid and young adult, but started to put on weight when I started working (in common with many). But I didn't pay much attention to it because my (feminist) view was that I (and other people) shouldn't be so concerned with how I looked.

It was only in my 30s when I heard a female DR. talking about how being obese was generally much further form the healthy norm than being a catwalk model that I (very suddenly) realised I had been hiding behind feminism to avoid eating sensibly and taking responsibility for my body and health. Like NacMacFeegle I'd also managed to screw up my natural regulators (helped by a childhood being admonished to clear my plate). So a structured approach was good for me too and I think slimming clubs can be good for some people. When I stopped (in order to have kids) I started eating far more than was good for me again. I'm only just getting back to a sensible place now.

I personally found the consumption culture (larger and larger portions, buy what you want when you want in order to feel good, etc.) to be more of a problem than the women must look thin meme (which I had considered to be the root of all eating disorders before).

vesuvia · 09/02/2011 16:23

ElephantsAndMiasmas wrote - "doing proper exercise, not girly/"toning" exercises".

What are the proper exercises that you are you doing?

Katiekitty · 09/02/2011 19:00

MacNacFeegle excellent post you made about slimming clubs and the world of food/self hate

BelleCurve · 09/02/2011 19:12

I think this is a really interesting topic and whilst I have been doing WW for over a year, I am finding it increasingly at odds with my feminist views. Why should I have to limit my food intake to look a certain way? Why is there a general assumption that all women at all times should be on a diet?
Why is weight-loss considered to be such an achievement in our society? More people congratulated me on that than my masters degree!

everythingchangeseverything · 09/02/2011 19:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TotalChaos · 09/02/2011 20:14

Tried out ww a few years ago, not keen at all, you end up shelling out a lot of money for a public weigh in and diet advice from people with limited training. Found a session with gp practice nurse far more inspiring.