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.

We have been 'fed' a lot of hooey since the seventies, really, about what constitutes healthy eating. There is a lot of evidence now, for example, that saturated fats are not the demon they have been portrayed as.

I also disagree that if you are fat, you are just wearing clothes that are too small: actually, you can't touch your toes, run easily, you just feel more cumbersome and uncomfortable generally (I certainly do, anyway). It reduces your enjoyment of your physicality, in my experience.

I think Caitlin Moran made a good point when she said that cheap sweet food is the drug of choice for many women:

"then, by choosing food as your drug - sugar highs, or the deep, soporific calm of highs, the Valium of the working classes - you can still make the packed lunches, do the school run, look after the baby, pop in on your mum and then stay up all night with an ill five-year-old - something that is not an option if you?re caning off a gigantic bag of skunk, or regularly climbing into the cupboard under the stairs and knocking back quarts of Scotch. Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers, and that?s why it?s come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions. It?s still a way of fucking yourself up whilst still remaining fully functional, because you have to. Fat people aren?t indulging in the ?luxury? of their addiction making themselves useless, chaotic or a burden. Instead, they are slowly self-destructing in a way that doesn?t inconvenience anyone."

Yes BOF that passage rang very true with me too.

I looked at the BBC article about waist size, and I must be a medical marvel.
I have a 30 inch waist (so am "healthy")
But
I have a BMI of 34 (so am obese and "unhealthy")
Just highlighting some flaws in their "average person" methods of promoting healthy lifestyles.
I enjoy the food I eat, I enjoy exercise, but I am not, and never will be, average.