Is Dieting Anti-Feminist?

By Ariel M. Stallings, Sirens Magazine. Posted November 1, 2006.

I grew up without a scale in the house. My mother threw it away when I was 8 years old because she didn't want me to become a slave to it like she had as a teen. I also didn't have any Barbies growing up because my mom didn't want me to have a distorted body image. Hey, makes sense to me: I got My Little Ponies instead ... they have stumpy legs and plump bubble butts and are probably a much better body model for little girls. As a result, I grew up with a solid, healthy body image and a body to match: I'm totally average -- thick, but not fat; strong, not skinny.

However, six-plus years of working as a writer/sedentary lump accelerated my metabolism's natural decline. Despite a daily yoga practice, I've never been an especially active person and having a sit-in-a-chair career is without a doubt my biggest health liability.

I eat healthy foods. My diet is mostly vegetarian (I eat fish a few times a week), and I eat a lot of vegan food (thanks to a strict-vegan husband). I rarely touch fast food, rarely drink alcohol/soda/Starbucks, and my main vices have been sweets, nuts, and oily ethnic foods like Thai and Indian. My diet is infinitely healthier than the Standard American Diet of deep fried everything with a bucket-sized side of carbonated sugar. Despite all that, though, I'd steadily gained weight for the last five years ... three or four pounds a year. I wasn't terribly overweight, but I could already see how my lifestyle and eating habits had become the most unhealthy part of my life. And, well, my chin was starting to disappear into my neck.

I started wrestling with myself: I felt unhealthy -- and then felt guilty for feeling that way. Was I a victim of the patriarchal societal pressures my mother tried so hard to shield me from? Then again, does fighting the patriarchy mean stuffing myself? Was I buying into some clucky NOT ME style national weight obsession by feeling like I wasn't eating right? Then again, since when is eating healthier a national obsession? Americans eat terribly!

I knew that I was eating more food than I needed to, but the mere idea of portion control brought up an enormous set of issues for me. As the feminist daughter of a feminist mother, I've always felt like it was my duty not to think about food. Not only a duty -- it was something I owed to my best friend who'd suffered through anorexia and bulimia in high school, complete with a month of hospitalization. It was my job to be the one who held down the fort of healthy eating, setting a good example for women who were crushed under the thumb of eating disorders and weight issues.

In my mind, the only way to fight eating disorders and the all-too-common feminine weight neurosis was not to think about food or weight at all ... I ate HEALTHY food, but the thought "maybe I should eat less" always felt like it was just around the corner from some sort of Karen Carpenter nightmare, where I suddenly became a neurotic starving skeleton with amenorrhea. But still, I desperately wanted to loose the extra poundage, at least so I'd feel as healthy as I was supposedly being.

I tried various exercise regimes to try to balance my sedentary routine, but because I'm so solidly muscular, the effect was that I just got bigger. I ran stairs for six months and my ass grew (harder, but bigger!). I lifted weights for almost a year and the result was that my T-shirt sleeves stopped fitting.

Then someone recommended Weight Watchers. I know, right? Fucking Weight Watchers? A pay-for-play diet program? Not only was it the feminist in me that balked, but it was also the conscious consumer. Not only was I a victim of the patriarchy, I'd be a victim of consumer fitness culture! You can't pay someone to fix your bad habits! I can't deal with the "bad food/food bad" issues that many chronic dieters seem to embody. I think too many women spend their days connecting food with negativity, and it's just not healthy! Food is good; food nourishes us! Now, is there food that's healthier? Yes. Is there food that you should eat less of? Sure! But is there bad food? No! Then I talked to a woman I respected and she explained, "It's not really a diet -- it's a training for how to eat and cook for the rest of your life and not hate it." Oh, you mean it's not about special foods you can or can't eat? It's just about figuring out how much you can eat in balance with your lifestyle? About being more mindful of the foods you eat and the quantities that you eat them, as it compares with your activity level? Huh. That all made perfect sense. Still, I felt like a traitor to my sex, just a little.

See more stories tagged with: health, feminism, body image, dieting

Ariel M. Stallings is a working wordsmith living in Seattle. Her first book, Offbeat Bride, hits bookstores in January. Read more of Ariel's musings on food, feminism and oddball observations on her blog.

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