Friday, June 29, 2007

"Who *doesn't* want to lose 20 pounds?"

That's what ex-supermodel Rachel Hunter said in New York magazine about her new gig as spokeswoman for Slim-Fast. She was admitting that she'd never tried it.

This kind of fat trash talk is my least favorite. It's the equivalent of the air kiss, the baring of the throat by the subordinate animal. It's a social custom denoting (supposedly) good taste and submissive femininity. The words themselves aren't the point; it's the intention behind them. And the intension is to erase the self, to make yourself as small and thin and weak as possible.

20 pounds = the weight of 7 brains
20 pounds = the weight of my older daughter at age 11 months
20 pounds = the number of pounds I lost on my first diet, age 15
20 pounds = the number of pounds I lost on my last diet, age 29
20 pounds = the amount of weight lost by my mother in law in the month before she died of cancer

But who doesn't want to lose 20 pounds?

**Thanks to Maggie! for sending this item my way

6 comments:

samsi77 said...

No kidding, this is the kind of stuff that contributes to the minimization of eating disorders. There is obviously something wrong with our society when our youth are suffering more and more from intense emotion regulation issues, eating disorders, alcohol and other drug problems and dependency and self injurious acts. I have been contacted by an alarming number of parents of younger adolescents, which on one hand is good in the sense that theres increased ED awareness, early detection and intervention but sad that these youngsters are suffering so much and time and time again faced with the fact that media and dieting alone DO NOT cause eating disorders however most individuals indicate that their ED started off with seeking to "lose a few pounds" and media plays a role. I know that we can only do so much but still.......

Anonymous said...

So much for what some people thought was a positive move when Slimfast started the "find your slim" campaign. I never bought it cuz it's all the same and the message that you need to change your body and buy their product to do so. Not to mention the many other problems with that statement.

Now this statement...yeah, it is exactly about erasing yourself. It's still unbelievable that people say stuff like this...it amazes me. Who doesn't want to lose 20 pounds, oh, well starving people who can't afford nutrition, for one. Me, for two. I want to send her a card that says so. Maybe it'll make a good awareness shirt.

Thanks for posting this.
Withoutscene

Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz said...

Well said, Harriet. I'm printing this one out.

Rachel said...

Aside from the ethical question of a spokesmodel hawking a product she's never even tried...

The entire "Find Your Slim" campaign is a move to try and help women feel better about themselves - if only they lost a little weight, of course.

Anonymous said...

It's kinda sad that women (and even men) are wanting to do anything to be thin while there are starving kids all over the world who would do anything to have the amount of nutrition that we have.

littlem said...

It's a fairly frequent rant of mine that the culture-wide lack of critical thinking will, in the end, be the death of American (oh, hell, "first world" Western) society.

Because the question that I can screamingly hear NOT being asked is "WHY everyone allegedly wants, so desperately, to lose those 20 pounds?"

Seems no one -- at least, Ms. Hunter's type of no one -- really wants to deal with that question.