Brave Girl Eating

Of course the talk shows and magazines aim mainly at women, who make up the vast majority of those with weight issues. We’re socialized to fear our appetites, whether they’re for food or sex or power. We’re taught from birth to make ourselves small and dainty, to not take up room.

The cultural assumption seems to be that there’s something wrong with wanting to eat. Appetite is something to be fended off, with willpower or chemically. We’re locked in a war with our own hunger, which is the primal force that sustains us.

Because the worst thing you can be in this culture is fat.

I wonder what would happen if one of them said, “I like the way I look.” In today’s girl culture, would she lose status, become an outsider?

In the Middle Ages, the culture around not eating shifted from physiology to spirituality. Religious women like Catherine of Siena, Beatrice of Nazareth, and Margaret of Cortona became known for fasting or eating almost nothing for years; some undoubtedly died from malnutrition. Their behavior was seen as a holy endeavor, a kind of reaching toward a state that transcended the body.

it’s a fantasy weight-loss strategy; how many times have you heard (or said yourself) “Gee, I wouldn’t mind a little anorexia”?

If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL

I can’t think of a single woman friend who has never dieted, never deprived herself of food in the name of something bigger than appetite—health or fashion or sexual attractiveness.

Or maybe it’s my own obsession with food and being thin that’s infected her. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, to be a good role model for Kitty and Emma. I’ve tried never to make disparaging comments about my own body (or anyone else’s).