A Curious Girl: Why I hate dieting

I'm rather painfully aware that the rant you're about to read may come across as atrociously insensitive. I know that many people (both men and women) who may read this are on diets, including my wonderful sister. Please don't any of you look on this as a personal attack - it isn't. Like most of my rants, it's about something that has painfully affected me (you may see some of my entries on my food anxieties on these pages) that I want to help and encourage others about, whilst venting some of my anger at society...

I read a poem today called simply 'Against dieting', by Blake Morrison. In the book sampler in which I read it, A Survival Kit for Modern Life - 101 poems to get you through the day (and night) (edited by Daisy Goodwin) I discovered that in a recent survey it was revealed that 80% of British women were on a diet and 79% of those said that after dieting, they regained all the weight (plus more) that they had lost within six months. It makes you wonder what the point of it all is.

Please, darling, no more diets.
I've heard the talk on why it's
good for one's esteem. I've watched you
jogging lanes and pounding treadmills.
I've even shed two kilos of my own.
But enough. What are love-handles
between friends? For half a stone
it isn't worth the sweat.
I've had it up to here with crispbread.
I doubt the premise too.
Try to see it from my point of view.
I want not less but more of you.

Weight loss techniques are alarmingly big business. It has yielded slimming clubs, calorie dictionaries, pills, lotions (supposed to get rid of cellulite, apparently), low fat, healthy options, Be good to yourself and Go ahead. And a vast ocean of books each claiming to hold the solution. We are told 'it's not what you eat, it's how much you eat', 'it's not how much you eat but what you eat' and 'it's not your fault, it's your metabolism', not to mention 'it's all your fault, you're greedy.' It's a scientific mystery with huge public interest. Everything from Weight Watcher's points ('No Food's a Sin!') to Slimfast shakes ('One for breakfast, one for lunch and a sensible dinner...). We are promised we can lose so much in so many days.

This obsession is most alarming for the fact that the overall success rate, as we see by the above figures, is alarmingly low. Yo-yo dieting is the trend. Dieting fads are one thing, but even 'sensible' diets are not easily sustained because of the limitations they put on us. We are required to be stringent, calorie count, leave off certain foods or follow a set foodplan. The slavish dedication to the rules incites rebellion in us once we are freed from them. Eating healthily is something for a lifetime, not a regimented all-too-'healthy' pattern for a period before we can go back to eating 'normally'.

Self-esteem is a powerful issue here. I believe that 'slimming' is ultimately harmful to self-esteem. It provides a tentative, insecure ghost of self-esteem that vanishes as soon as the scales start to go up again. It tells us not to accept ourselves as we are, and whilst I'm all for self-improvement, why should appearance be so high on our lists like society dictates? Not to mention that beauty standards can be very misleading - ever heard 'Fat Bottomed Girls' by Queen? Marilyn Monroe would be too large for a leading role in Hollywood nowadays. We're taught that we can't find ourselves attractive until our weight is down.

Dieting can also be biologically harmful. Our bodies have a natural weight regulation mechanism - if in most circumstances, we eat when we're hungry and stop when we're not, the occasional extra snack, big dinner or missed breakfast won't make a difference. Our bodies can sort it out. Dieting can damage this natural weight regulation, and we do actually need some fat. Starving makes our bodies hold onto calories (skipping breakfast is not a good dieting move, therefore). Claire Beeken, author of 'My Body, My Enemy', was briefly a stone over her normal weight when healthy during her recovery from anorexia. Her body preserved every calorie it could get.

Dieting and weight loss can limit us. The message is that smaller is better. I have a picture on my desk taken for a photoshoot for a newspaper for a concert I helped put on with the four other girls who were Brigaders with me in the Girls' Brigade (one of them being Christina. At the time the photo was taken, I remember being put in the front along with Claire, shuffled along and made to kneel, and found myself feeling too big, too obtrusive. Society's demand for smaller people (particularly smaller women) halts our self-expression. We're encouraged to conform to one ideal, and not celebrate our diversity. We're all different body shapes.

ectomorph - An individual having a lean, slightly muscular body build in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate.

mesomorph - An individual with a robust, muscular body build developed from the embryonic mesodermal layer.

endomorph - An individual characterized by relative prominence of the abdomen and other soft body parts developed from the embryonic endodermal layer.

We're all different sizes. We're meant to be that way. Should that matter?

I've seen the preceding arguments put forth convincingly by many different people. In debate someone will usually respond 'but being overweight is bad for our health'.

Indeed, being seriously overweight is bad for our health. Eating vast quantities of fatty food is bad for our health. But dieting, weight loss programmes, and even gyms are not really products of our desire to stay in good health. Are people so vigilant over alcohol? Smoking? Genetically modified foods, mobile phones, ultra-violet rays, repetitive strain injury from using computers, stress? Why take it out on chocolate and chips? Health is not really the issue in dieting. We must be healthy, but weight is mostly a health scape-goat.

I believe that the real argument for dieting, shocking as it sounds, is 'the fatter I am, the uglier I am'. it's the entire subconscious hinge on which dieting is based, and it's also wrong, a ridiculous generalisation. 'Fatter' or 'thinner' people are beautiful when they're full of life, happy, healthy, and wearing clothes that suit them and also fit.

I want to encourage you - don't be ashamed of your clothing size! In the UK, size 14 is average for women (not sure what that is in USA sizes, sorry). I personally tend towards size 16, and although I should probably be fitter, I like the clothes I wear and I like how I look in them. I admit I squirm sometimes, taking the larger sizes off of the shelf, but it shouldn't be that way. Different people are also suited to different styles. If something is uncomfortable and frumpy but looks great on your friend, let your friend have it and buy something else. Incidentally, I know some great dressers of all sizes, I know two girls at work, one who is large and one tiny, and they both successfully manage to turn up looking gorgeous in their own way. Why be gorgeous in anyone else's way? Be who you are from the inside out.

I am angered by weightloss culture, because its ideals are restrictive, judgemental and entirely false. Body Mass Index is not the be-all and end-all of life and society's idea of beauty is bunk. Just think what we could be doing with the time we spend worrying about our looks! We're unique, we're God's creations (let's not insult his work!) and we all have talents, ideas and gifts. Respect yourself for who you are, and not just how curvy, muscly, fat or thin you might be. We need to dare to dream dreams bigger than how slim we can be. Instead of running on treadmills, how about running down the road to see someone? Let's enjoy a whole range of food - that's what healthy eating is. And let's appreciate life in all its fullness.

Some recommended reading - Vipe.org and Adios Barbie as always. My Body, My Enemy by Claire Beeken, and the truly awesome book that changed my whole attitude to these things, Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach.

Random word for today: cellulite

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