Diets, the weight loss industry and all that.

[GothAnneGeddes]

My Facebook is currently awash with the South Beach diet. Were my life to flash before my eyes, I'm sure there would be a surprisingly high amount spent listening to other people talk about diets.

It's shit. Self denial, foods being "naughty", eating being "bad", encouraging women to hate their bodies, crap science and it all seems to be more popular then ever and it fuels a billion pound industry.

And I think it's a massive example of the patriarchy at work and generally encouraging women to feel like lesser beings.

chicky - well, I'm sitting here and I've had a bowl of porridge and fruit for breakfast, two chicken breasts with salad and potatoes I'm still only halfway through what I'm meant to eat today. I'm going to have lamb chops and roasted veg and bread and some ice cream for dinner, and then I should be more or less on target.

I'm not joking, I have doubled the amount of meat I buy and I feel so much better.

I had no idea I ought to be eating that much and it feels fantastic. I used to almost skip lunch .. we don't need to be doing that. You can actually end up feeling worse if you don't eat enough.

I hate Jamies 5 minute meals. WHAT ABOUT THE WASHING UP AND CLEANING THE KITCHEN AFTER!? You've just used 8 thousand pans and plates there.

My point about the cost of diet products was that, you have women who can't afford healthy options, so technically speaking the diet industry isn't interested in this group of women anyway as they can't make much money from them. So your argument about it being a feminist issue because women are disportionately poor doesn't quite fit.

Its much more about selling status and convience to women and undermining their confidence in themselves and their parental decisions they make in feeding their children.

chub - oh, god no! I'm trying to argue against that ... I think that is the knee-jerk Guardian-reader response, which only works if one person (woman?!) has money and time to stay at home.

The real answer has to be to be on lots of levels, but one thing is, we have to make protein cheaper and we have to teach children how to cook, not just teach girls, and not just teach faddy diets (which is what I was taught at school).

Saying 'hmm, lots of food is expensive ... these poor people should really buy neck of lamb and stew it, here's my recipe with delicious single-estate olive oil and harissa' is patronizing bollocks.

hmm - I didn't say the diet industry was targeting poor women, though? I said I think that part of the demonization of cheap food by the diet industry is happening because they want to promote their own stuff, and it's more expensive.

The diet industry is unlikely to tell you to eat sprats baked with tinned tomato, because that is very cheap and very full of protein. However, the result of the diet industry sneering at cheap white bread is partly to prop up this stereotype that people who feed their kids cheap white bread and cheese are somehow bad people - and this ignores the costs of it all.

Oh I know that's not what you think, but some might see it as the solution. The sort who think barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen is prettying where women belong.

You have something of a point with that.

I love looking at something like sausage rolls in the supermarket.

The supermarket own ones, often have more crap in than the budget range which are famed for having poorer quality ingredients and they don't have a significantly better meat content.

They might taste better but not because they are better. They are just better marketed.

As for knowledge. Even if you are educated, then packaging still deliberately tries to confuse you.

Again sausage rolls. Some will say the amount of calories per roll. Some per packet. Some per 100g. Some per 'serving'.

Last night, I freely admit to being completely foiled by this and getting very annoyed about it when I realised.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, mainly because both dd (10) and ds (13) have raised the issue.

DD is well ahead of most of her classmates in terms of physical development. Tall, small but defined breasts, and general curves. She is also heavier than most of them. And she has had some comments about being fat. She isn't. She is a lovely shape and size. She is also a head & shoulders taller than most of them, and for her height, her weight is dead centre of 'ideal'. But she is not the stick-thin size and shape that seems to be the preferred norm. She has one friend (at 10!!!) already who talks about not eating to stay slim. :(

And ds has been going to the gym. Which is great as he's not Mr sporty. However, the machines are all set to show 'calories' lost, and he was reporting last night at how many he'd lost that session. Now ds is stick-thin. He is like me at that age - can eat like a horse, but looks all skin and bones.

They have also talked previously of good & bad foods, as discussed in schools.

I don't like the fact they are both being pushed along this route of thin = good, and foods being 'naughty' or 'bad'.

We have always, always worked on the premise of healthy eating = good. By healthy eating I mean a reasonable balance of food groups, in reasonable portions, pretty much with everything in moderation. Together with a reasonable amount of physical activity.

I am bigger now than I was 10 years ago, but even at my fittest, I was never smaller than a size 14 (am 5" 9).

There are different body shapes. There is no "one size fits all" shape perfection. And it makes me cross that the use, or misuse of words is so pervasive.

Diet should be a neutral word, simply meaning what we eat, but it is so, so loaded.

Sorry I have rambled, but I am so cross at how badly womens', and increasingly mens' body images are being so warped.

Well my calories haven't quickly added up and I'm not overweight. That is probably because it is the middle of the afternoon and I'm now consuming the first thing that has passed my lips today : a can of Rubicon.

I'm very sceptical about the idea that healthy weight people are healthy weight because they're eating properly.

You're right chub. And hmm. I just feel that this is such a huge, complicated issue ... so much of it comes down to guilt-tripping women. Women are guilt-tripped for being 'fat', whatever fat happens to mean, and they're also generally guilt-tripped for feeding their children food that contributes to this 'obesity epidemic'.

Sorry, I am sounding off like a leftie not a feminist here, but it really bothers me, all this. I think our attitudes towards food are so deeply messed up.

'I'm very sceptical about the idea that healthy weight people are healthy weight because they're eating properly.'

See, I want to re-punctuate this:

I'm very sceptical about the idea that "healthy weight" people are "healthy weight" because they're eating properly.

I am sure, as shirleyknot points out, that what is identified as 'healthy' can be very skewed. Someone who's eating properly should be a healthy weight. If 'healthy weight' has come to mean something else, that's not good enough.

Yes about the demonising women - the worst are the chin-stroking, concern-troll programmes that start off with the presenter on camera, head on one side, saying, "The Whatnots are all overweight. As such they are all at risk of diabetes, cancer, and maggots of the eyeball. OH NOES. We are going to investigate their diets and lifestyles for two weeks and pretend to care about them, while sniggering behind our hands as we offer up the sight of their lardy bodies, attempting to ride bicyles, and even, snurk, SWIM, for the amusement of the nation."

Typically the Whatnots are a family of four. THEY MUST CHANGE THEIR DIETS AND LIFESTYLES. So Mrs Whatnot - always the Mrs - is shown sweating in the kitchen, trying to reproduce some patently unrealistic "vegetable casserole" without any of the tricks that you learn to make low calorie food nice. Then she is humililated by being filmed presenting this to her family, who reject it, because it is just carrots swimming in a few tins of tomatoes. So the whole thing is her fault so many times over: she is crap for enlardulating herself (because women, more than anyone, are supposed to be beautiful); crap for enlardulating her family (whose diets are entirely her responsibility); crap for being a crap cook, making crap food they won't eat, and just allover crap really.

I went to a talk by Susie Orbach (of Fat is a Feminist Issue fame, she's written lots of other books too) and one of the things she said was that the healthiest BMI to have is actually around 27 which is technically overweight.

It's a freakin' minefield.

CaramelTree
Why only one drink so far today?
Hope you are Ok
If you don't mind me asking what is your Bmi or weight? Please don't starve yourself. I've seen awful things happen to people who get in to that difficult spiral.....
Hugs......

You got that perfectly vezzie .. that's what I was getting at but not managing to say it.

And what doesn't get taken it account is that Mrs Whatnot is probably working the night shift, and risking her health by doing so (which you do), and keeping herself awake by eating, as you do. And she has to decide how to fuel two (three?) shifts of work for herself - and basically you do that by eating. Instead of saying 'shit! She's working an appalling amount of hours and being blamed', we wonder why we're eating to keep ourselves awake.

LRD if I'm honest, I think its far more of a capitalist issue than a feminist one at its very heart for that reason.

It disportionately affects women, because they tend to take on the role of placer of food on the table, which is why they are targetted more by the advertisers. But I don't think its necessarily about oppressing women only as they are quite happy to exploit insecurity and fear in anyone who either buys food, makes food or just consumes food.

There wouldn't be a rising issue amongst men and boys and body image otherwise. YohoAhoy's comment about her son was interesting from that point of view and it fits with the culture in my husband's office (all men).

Chici, don't worry about me starving! I'm not particularly thin. I just have chaotic and unhealthy eating patterns.

hmm - I think very often there's a huge overlap between capitalism and the patriarchy, so we agree there.

But I would take issue with the statement that women 'tend to take on the role of placer of food on the table'. Do you think women take this role on voluntarily, with no outside pressure?

I don't see it that way.

I think very often the patriarchy is highly damaging to men - and dieting is a good case in point - but IMO there is a real problem with assuming women 'take on' this role of providing food.

Do they?

Fair point.

Well, obesity is being regarded as a major public health issue, and we're told that British people are the fattest in Europe, chasing the Americans as usual. Demonising women is wrong, but children with diabetes is wrong too. So someone needs to come up with a plan, whatever combination of food and exercise will work.

We all know the answer is "eat your veggies", and it happens to be pretty cheap too. Yes bloody carrots again, now shut up and eat them.

Ok Caramel tree, but look after yourself

So someone needs to come up with a plan, whatever combination of food and exercise will work.

Knowing I can look at a label and not be fooled by the way its presented in different ways would be a good start... I beleive there is discussion over that one at least though.

And education needs to change from "good and bad" to "moderation". Less guilt tripping involved in that one.

I think 'a plan ' is wrong.

We don't need 'a plan'.

We need to stop demonizing women. That would solve all of this, very simply.

I know it sounds too polemical but it's true.

Has anyone on this thread had a look at the EMTWL (eat more to weigh less) threads? They might not be your thing if you just don't want to engage with "dieting" at all, but if you want to eat healthily and LOTS and lose weight, it looks like a good plan.
(the principle - in a nutshell - is that repeated dieting, especially low fat, causes the metabolism to freak out and you put weight on and find it hard to lose no matter how little you eat and how hungry you are. It's a way of eating which is supposed to correct this)

That is not to say that anyone here needs to lose weight because I bet you are all gorgeous.

Oh, yes! I've seen those threads (the OP is especially lovely ). They're not quite right for me as I am trying to get away from the idea of wanting to weigh less, but the idea of eating plenty of good healthy fats and protein seems good to me since it is against the grain of what we're often told in the media.

My GP recommended my fitness pal as a way of keeping track and it did surprise me hugely that it was really very healthy for me to eat more. I don't think it's perfect as I think ideally we should have a better attitude towards food and should not need reminding to eat and enjoy more, but personally it did jolt me in the right direction.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1502438-Stopping-housing-benefit-for-young?pg=14&x=10&y=15