I’m a Skinny Bitch. Or at least I was. You see, a couple of years ago I read Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman’s book Skinny Bitch and I totally loved it. I thought the crass language was shocking good fun and was enthused that these two women were supporting a vegan diet. A VEGAN DIET! Veganism is one of my passions and to see a book supporting it seemed utterly fabulous at the time.
Now though, after digging into Amy Erdman Farrell’s Fat Shame, I feel a bit shamed myself: did I honestly fall into their phony empowerment spiel? Farrell exposes the core problems with the book’s set up: Describing fat as “lumpy shit”, they promise to “empower” readers with the food knowledge necessary to become a “skinny bitch” (said with endearment and envy) in a “perfect, skinny world” (16).
Looking at their rhetoric with new eyes it’s pretty clear to me that using such a “marketing ploy” really undermines their attempt at encouraging healthy, happy women (16). I find the “perfect, skinny world” line particularly disturbing, because perfection and thinness are not one and the same. In fact, a perfect world would instead be comprised of people who were not only healthy –let’s just say that means a body free of disease or at least full of vim and vigor—but also content with their body image. Also, saying the shocking title was merely a “marketing ploy” is disappointing in that it plays to the system that undermines people’s self-confidence and ultimately their health. The authors’ willingness to use such a ploy also shows that maybe health is not their major concern, but is instead monetary gain.
I will say this though, in defense of Skinny Bitches everywhere, the book makes some great points. I have to get on my vegan pedestal here for a moment and just tout that I do believe eliminating animal’s from the human diet is about the best thing a person can do for mind, body, and earth. The fact that Barnouin and Freedman recognize and promote this shared belief with such passion makes their book good in my book.
Going off of this veganism theme, Farrell also mentions the animal rights organization PETA and their ad that links vegetarianism to never being fat (15). PETA is an interesting beast. It has a great message (no meat!) but they don’t always go about presenting their message in the best manner. Using fat stigma to get across a message of animal love isn’t exactly compatible. PETA also likes to create ads that objectify women’s bodies in order to put a stop to meat eating. Yuck. Interestingly, another of PETA's ad's that glorifies fat stigma disturbingly mirrors the postcards of fat traveling women that Farrell mentions. Not cool PETA, not cool. As a vegan, I don't want to be associated with such blatant sizeism.
I think my main idea here is that a powerful message for the greater good can be distorted by a fall back on negative stereotypes. For the most part, Skinny Bitch isn’t about being skinny; it’s about eating a diet that is good for the body and the planet. And for the most part PETA is working to encourage an awakening to the fact that animals deserve fair treatment. Both have worthy messages, and if both discontinue the use of fat stigma their message can be that much more powerful and uplifting.
I don't want to be a part of the Skinny Bitch movement anymore. One day maybe I'll stumble upon a vegan power book that is inclusive to all. That would be truly bitchin'.
Wow, I've never really noticed how effective promises of weight loss are in selling a product or way of life. This reminds me of my sophomore year of high school when I was two years into being a vegan, and some girls I sat down at lunch with that day were fascinated with the way I ate. They had mainly two questions for me: "Isn't that so hard though?" and "How much weight did you lose?"
ReplyDeleteIt always surprised me that many people that I talked to about my veganism were fixated on the diet aspect of it, rather than the ideological. But after looking into issues of fatness and our society's greatly negative views on body image such as this I understand it much much more.
I remember as a child being confused by the word “diet.” I always associated it with purposes of weight loss but then I heard it in a context where it was related to simply the type of food a person regularly eats- even if it is not consciously controlled. In fact, it still sounds strange to me when I’m at doctor’s appointments and they ask me how my diet “is.” What they really want to know if what types of foods I am eating. But what I initially think they mean is what weight loss program (diet) am I on.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an example of how the weight loss industry has hijacked the word “diet.” Looking up the word in the dictionary the first definition I received was “what a person of animal eats.” It doesn’t say “the weight loss diet a person or animal is on.”
I guess maybe one reason this happened to this word is that changing what one eats is usually done for the purposes of losing weight. For some reason, people are much more likely to change their eating habits if their physical appearance might benefit from the change. This can also be seen with nutritional supplements. I’ve seen a lot of vitamins advertised not just for their health benefits, but for the physical enhancements a person may get. This is also noticeable in magazines where the separate topics of health and beauty are combined into the same section titled “Healthy and Beauty.” Is this simply because being healthy makes you beautiful? Or is it because being beautiful is a reason to become healthy?
Examples of vitamins:
http://www.health-goji-juice.com/images/lookingyoung_big.jpg
http://images.bizrate.com/resize?sq=500&uid=1911147968
The entire time I was reading this I kept thinking of the movie Food,Inc. I remember the first time I watched I literally thought my mind would never be the same! Although I've never read Skinny Bitch, I feel as though, by what you've described, that it holds a similar message to Food, Inc. which was basically: eat healthy, stop eating factory farm meat (or meat in general) and then not only will the environment benefit, but our bodies will as well by being the thin!
ReplyDeleteWell, I had a similar kind of eye-opening experience while reading Fat Shame. In it Farrell describes the way in which many movements have used fat as a way to further their own message, and this movie was no different. While I am definitely an advocate of eating healthy food that leaves less of an impact on the environment, I realized that the whole idea of using fat to gain advances for the organic food industry was wrong. In a sense, the people who, like in the movie, push for healthier, organic food, use the obesity epidemic to kind of say, "Well, if you bought organic food you wouldn't be fat, which means society would be better!"
It's depressing to see that I, too, bought into such a shameless marketing ploy. Though I suppose I'm glad that I realized the fault behind the ploy instead of continuing to believe it wholeheartedly.
It isn't shameless to market health when it comes to organic/local food. It's very smart actually, and there IS truth behind it. Eating these foods can make you feel better, stronger, more energetic, etc. No gimicks there.
ReplyDeleteObviously body image and assumptions on what fat is, is the problem. A lot of us have a problem with calling people fat since its been a taboo word for so long. Defining and redefining fat is important, so is the food we eat.