Oh Reeg
Donna writes, on the Facebook group wall:
I watched Regis & Kelly yesterday. They are putting some of their staff on a diet. “Every few years we like to lighten the load around here”. They showed the people who were on the diet 3 years ago, their starting weights and end weights. Then, their starting weights NOW (because, naturally, they’ve gained it back!) This program started a month ago, I guess, so they were weighing everyone in yesterday. The first girl to weigh in? 118 pounds was her starting weight!! ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN POUNDS!! She stepped on the scale. 117 pounds. She lost a pound. “Oh, you know what they say,” says Kelly, “slow and steady!” She’s ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN FRICKIN’ POUNDS!! Why do they have her on a DIET!??!!??!!
Good question. I had to check it out for myself to believe it. I couldn’t figure out a way to embed this video but zone out through the advertisement and then pay close attention around the 1:10 minute mark. My heart breaks when Laurie weighs in and makes a little squinchy face when she learns that she’s only lost a pound plus change.
Sanity check? Can we get a sanity check in aisle 12? Thanks.
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118 pounds and they want her to lose weight? What? Is she four feet tall? That’s insane!
*runs screaming*
What’s even worse is that when she lost weight in their previous challenge, she got down to 116.8. This means that she gained maybe 2 lbs in between. Hardly anyone’s idea of a tragedy.
It’s so frustrating.
I totally think you should start up a big fat bigot award for all these offenders…. why not… it would be good for these people to get bad press. shame on them!
So anyone who wants to weigh less than 118 pounds is crazy? Put me in the crazy category, then, I guess!
I watched the video, and the woman in question appears to me, like me, very petite. I’m 5’2″ and feel happiest, healthiest and most energetic when I’m around 105 pounds. Right now, I’m at about 120, and as a runner, those extra pounds take a toll on my joints. And I have to wear a D-cup bra, which I hate (the selection is way less appealing than for C-cups). I don’t think I’m fat or anything, but I also think it’s entirely rational for me to make efforts to lose weight. And from Laurie’s blog, it looks like she is following a reasonable diet and exercise plan.
This issue has come up before here, when Mo wrote something about Trista Rehn’s efforts to lose baby weight. I think she’s also 5’2″ and wanted to get down to 105 and people were calling her crazy and anorexic. I would never call someone who weighed 500 pounds and was happy with herself “crazy,” and I hope the same courtesy would be extended to me for being 120 pounds and feeling that there is some room for improvement.
Wow, could Regis BE any more obnoxious and condescending? I had to stop the video lest I smash through the monitor and try to punch him in the mouth.
Wade, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I know Kelly and Regis are short people and Laurie looks much more petite than they are. My visceral reaction came from the fact that she made the little disappointed face and then got the ‘tude from the hosts for not having lost more weight. I would have liked to have seen more attention paid to the fact that she’s decreased the amount of body fat (and presumably gained muscle) rather than looking at the scale as the only measure of success.
I suppose what is “normal” to you tends to skew how you think of other people. At 5’4″, 165 is about perfect for me. I haven’t been below 150 since I was about 11, and I’m not a very round person. I would tend to look at 120 and go “good gods, is that even possible?” where others who are lighter than me would see it as more normal.
But no, I see no point in being on a diet when you are that small, personally. (or when I am this large, for that matter) And I will never understand where the loss of gain of 5 lbs here and there is a big deal or why anyone cares. Want me to loose 5 lbs? give me an hour and a newspaper. No big deal. Weight fluctuates and it is silly to get hung up over it.
La Wade,
There’s a significant difference between a thin woman (you or that woman) wanting to go on a diet to lose five pounds and that same person appearing on a television show to lose the same two pounds for the second time.
When a television show features a thin woman dieting, that show (and the culture that produced it) tacitly approves of both yo-yo dieting and the public humiliation of women who diet and, no surprise, fail to lose or keep off the weight.
The collective dismay of fat acceptance and HAES activists has more to do with that very public aspect of the irrational, ritualistic display of body hatred than with that any one woman’s individual body or behavior.
And if that distinction doesn’t make sense to you, then you probably need to spend more time reading up on FA and HAES and the role of the media in perpetuating fat hatred.
Holy moley! I am shocked by this. What if this girl is being forced into it and she’s perfectly happy at 118 lbs, but feels pressured because Kelly is what? 99 lbs even? 89, maybe? It’s just something to think about.
Not that La Wade needs anyone sticking up for her, but I can personally vouch for the fact that she is exceptionally supportive of being healthy at any size and has done a lot of reading on the issues surrounding weight from both a media and medical perspective. I’m sure that she’ll have more to say about it, though!
Miriam, I totally agree that the premise of the segment is stupid. Of course, I would also argue that if you don’t want to do stupid shit on television for your job, you should probably do something other than work for Regis & Kelly. Anyway, what I object to is comments like “She’s ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN FRICKIN’ POUNDS!! Why do they have her on a DIET!??!!??!!” and “118 pounds and they want her to lose weight? What? Is she four feet tall? That’s insane!”
And of course, seeing that it February is National Eating Disorders Month, I bet Kelly and Regis have some kind of segment highlighting the dangers of eating disorders planned for this month.
Oh, the irony.
I have a good friend who’s extremely petite. She’s 4’10″ and looks her best when she’s about 98 lbs, which seems crazy to me, but when you look at her, and look at her health, she was overweight at 120 lbs (where she was a few years ago). At 5’5″, I’m struggling to get below 150 lbs, so I do understand it. I look much lighter than I am, by about 15 lbs or so, and so I understand this girl wanting to lose the weight. Even if she looks tiny, we don’t know her height or medical history.
When I lose a pound in a month, I’m sure I’m making one of those faces. When I have my last 15 to lose, I want to work I’m doing to show, both in my body and on the scale.
This just in — people are still telling others whether they are allowed to want to lose weight or not! People are still making judgment calls about whether other people NEED to lose weight or not! People are still making determinations of others’ health and lifestyle choices based on a number on a scale!
If you feel better at a lower weight than a higher one, it’s because of exercise and eating well. The number itself is incidental and doesn’t mean anything in itself.
As for Regis, there are at least two issues here as I see it. First, they are advocating *dieting*. Now, if someone wants to do something hurtful to her body for whatever purpose, that’s her business. But if she’s going to trot that out publicly as a good thing for people to admire and emulate, it’s completely appropriate for people to speak out against it. Second, they are behaving as if a number on a scale is some objective standard that ought to be reached. That’s ridiculous. Again, the focus should be on exercise and eating well. That might actually not result in weight *loss*. Then again, it might. But does it really matter, if the whole point is to be healthy? Then why the emphasis on the scale?
Because it’s *not* about being healthy. It’s about achieving a certain look, and it’s about competition.
I completely agree, Linda. Why do these shows so rarely check a person’s cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate, aerobic endurance, bone density, etc., if it’s really about health?
To quote the great Kate Harding:
*headdesk*
I admit I had a knee-jerk reaction to this, too, thinking “117! That’s tiny! Models are 117!” Forgetting entirely that models are tall. For a petite person (like Angela Kinsey, say, who recently broke 100 pounds for the first time in her life due to being pregnant) maybe that would be overweight. I was being shortist!
Me too, I was being shortist! It was my first reaction to scream “OMG!!! Insanity!!” but it’s true, that no one should be telling anyone else whether they should or should NOT be losing weight. It’s just… God… several of the staff look to be in great shape and they are making it about the scale… if it’s about overall health and fitness improvement, then test their progress in a different way.
Also consider this: How much pressure do you think show employees were under to “volunteer” for this diet experiment?
That’s what I was trying to get to, Rachel, I’m so glad someone else saw that, too!
It’s at this moment when I miss Kathie Lee and her sweatshops.
The fact that all the participants are still working for the show in 2008 after having done the same challenge in 2005, makes it seem less likely that any of them did it under significant duress.
“If you feel better at a lower weight than a higher one, it’s because of exercise and eating well. ”
I don’t entirely agree with this. When I was substantially overweight my feet, ankles and knees hurt. Due to pregnancy, I’ve put on a chunk of weight again and guess what, my feet, ankles and knees hurt again. The extra weight is tough on my joints regardless of my eating and exercise habits.
There are other ways in which people “feel better” that aren’t an issue of structural stress. But some of the joint and cardiovascular issues do come because your underlying body structure is having trouble coping with a certain mass.
But that mass is not 118 pounds. I have to agree that while some people may feel good at a smaller weight, that it’s not a stress on anyone’s joints, heart or lungs. Pure poppycock that they’re doing a feature prodding this poor girl to lose weight.
I maybe thought that she was really short and 118 was a lot for her body type. The video doesnt work for me so I still cant tell for myself.
Wow…only one man. Prime example that ladies are always put on the spot about their weight (losing it and gaining it). I see nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy because healthy leads to happiness. But the media’s love of always pointing the finger at women and telling us that we need to lose weight is just too much. That’s where I draw the line. Laurie and those other staffers should just tell Regis and Kelly to shove it and go do things their own way.
If they really wanted to lighten the load around there, they could get rid of Regis. I can’t stand him.
That segment was appalling and almost horrifying. For a host of reasons.
For what it’s worth, I’m 5’2″. When I was 104 pounds I was skeletal/scrawny. When I was later 114 I was still too skinny. There were at least two women on that segment who didn’t look like they had a spare ounce on their slim, fit bodies.
But regardless, the whole thing is disgusting.
It’s even more disgusting that they are flat-out promoting yo-yo dieting, as these people all gained the weight back (even if it was a mere two pounds, which can be accounted for by a good bowel movement.) Their starting weights were pretty much the same as their *prior* starting weights. Regis and his very skinny co-host can bite me. Hard.
“If they really wanted to lighten the load around there, they could get rid of Regis.”
*rofl*
I’m 5′ 2″ and I’m currently wearing size 6 jeans (that are rather loose) and I weigh close to a hundred fifty pounds. The point is that there is more to body mass than fat. I’m certain there are women my height and mass that are wider and others that are narrower. We’re all different. I still find that being weighed on National television is embarrassing and I wouldn’t do it.