Some Dumb Diet Books
NPR did a story recently about diet books, and there were at least three things that struck me as worth talking about!
1. In the “no duh” category, diet books offer “too good to be true” promises that suck people in over and over again.
“The diet category offers a tremendous amount of repeat business,” says Ash-Milby. People “hook into one diet, [and it] doesn’t work so well for them … and they find there is another diet that sounds more interesting.”
2. Julia Cameron (who wrote The Artists Way) has come up with something called “the writing diet.” Here is an excerpt (most annoying parts bolded, by me):
Laura, a kindergarten teacher, began her creative unblocking, frankly, overweight.
A tall, still-beautiful blonde, she carried an extra forty pounds on her frame. She dressed in slimming black, but the illusion that she was thin was unconvincing. Laura was the kind of woman of whom it was routinely said, “It’s a shame she’s so heavy. She has such a pretty face.”
The survivor of a violent childhood home, Laura had learned early to block her feelings with food. Writing her daily Morning Pages, she began to face her turbulent feelings. As she did, the urge to block her emotions with food began to melt away. The pounds prologue melted away too, and Laura emerged from a twelve-week course a far slimmer swan of a woman.
3. I first learned about this article when someone sent me the link to this excerpt of The Big Skinny, a diet comic. I assumed it was a parody of a woman on a ridiculous, super-obsessive diet. Actually… it’s a weight-loss success story! Oh dear.
The Big Skinny… uses pictures to tell the story of her — ultimately successful — battle against the bulge. In the end, her path to losing weight — and keeping it off — was simple: “I had to keep track of my calories and make sure I exercised every day,” she says. “Because when I get into denial, not wanting to look at the numbers, I tend to slide down that slippery slope that is greased with fat and sugar.”
Seriously, go look at it; I swear I thought it was a joke. Thanks to aych for the link!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Art, Books, Cold Hard Cash, Weight Loss
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As a writer, #2 really makes me angry. I do believe in the transformative power of writing about traumatic personal experiences. Journaling and writing nonfiction about these kind of things is a proven psychological therapy.
To see that twisted and used for evil? Horrifying. Creative women shouldn’t be using their art for anything other than self expression, enjoyment (and a paycheck if they can manage it.) To suggest anything else is artistic blasphemy.
I took down The Writing Diet a couple of months ago, here. I read the whole book, just to satisfy my train-wreck curiosity about it, and believe me, you’re just getting started on the most annoying parts. (I don’t suggest reading the whole thing yourself unless you’re in a book-flinging mood.)
Oops, linky brokey.
http://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/how-many-calories-can-you-burn-jumping-the-shark/
Awesome, Meowser, can’t believe I missed that post the first time. Thanks for taking one for the team! Heh.
#3 is… horrifying! Um, hello, eating disorder.
#3 is horrifyingly familiar. I remember doing this. Only I would aim for 900 instead of 1350. Yeeaah.
I really wish this was a parody. Eating half a peice of fruit is something I often do, but I really doubt that the protagonist was stopping halfway because she didn’t want any more at the moment.
Thoughts while on a diet:
“a banana is 100 calories. I should eat that instead of the scrambled eggs I wanted. And then I’ll be good because I’m eating fresh fruit, and not as much as I want!”
Thoughts while not on a diet:
“mmm BANANA! NOM NOM NOM NOM.”
Laura emerged from a twelve-week course a far slimmer swan of a woman.
Why the heck would you want to be a swan? I’m aiming for a animal with a larger brain stem, myself. Something in the primate family perhaps. I’m not fond of this trend of likening women to animals that aren’t human. It’s hard enough to get people to think of women as human without that bs.
I like the “stick it in your ear” diet. There’s also the “urgh, I have the flu, I don’t even want to look at food” diet, I’m on that one right now. It kind of sucks I can’t even watch television without feeling woozy. I should write a book about it!
Gah. As someone who once considered herself a writer before starting graduate school (and hopes to be again upon finishing) I too find number 2 to be an absolute slap in the face of artistic expression.
Not only that, I find it highly reminiscent of how creative and talented women have been shoved into confining their creative expression to needlework and cooking in the past. Only now, instead of “no, no lady, you weave the tapestry, something that inherently is difficult and beautiful and to be celebrated but something we won’t see as art because only men create art and you should just leave it to men to paint the Sistine Chapel” it’s “Creative? Write yourself slim while your male peers are left to write the next great American novel”. Gah. The enduring patriarchy in the implication that you must use any talent or artistic inclination in order to just make yourself prettier already is disgusting.
The sad thing is, I really like a lot of Julia Cameron’s other work. I had read The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write and a lot of her other books, and loved them. There was no fatty-baiting in any of them.
And after this book, I went back and read her memoir, Floor Sample, which I found bracingly honest and gutsy — and interestingly enough, if anyone expressed concern for her weight in it, it was in the other direction, when (before pharmaceutical treatment for her mental-health issues) she went through periods when she didn’t eat and got “too skinny.” The Writing Diet kind of shocked me, actually, because I honestly didn’t think she was that kind of fat-hating asshole.
twisted and used for evil?
I totally agree that “The Writing Diet” is moronic, but since when did wanting to lose weight become “evil”?
#1 – No duh, indeed. In other news, water wet, sky blue.
#2 – So, Julia Cameron followed the usual diet advice, but wrote while she did it. And this is worth publishing a book about…why, exactly?
#3 – My eyes were filled with tears by the third frame. This is success? Cos it looks a lot like sickness to me.
You know, a lot of binge eaters (like me) eat when we’re unhappy. I’m really pleased that the woman in story #2 could manage to find a way out of that circle. I’m just sad that it instantly becomes equated with “weight loss” and “success” rather than “health” and “ability to enjoy eating”.
Also, if someone was actually shaped like a swan, they’d be very, very round, pointy at both ends and have tiny little legs and a tiny little head.
Swans are pretty, but they are MEAN!!!!
Huh.
Losing weight isn’t evil. This book, and the way she talks about her “students,” however, IS. Evil.
I think I’ll stick with Geneen Roth.
#3 was the saddest thing ever…
As a recovering bulimic, I’m following the “fuck all diet books because they all promise the same stupid unachievable thing”
Also: I think that comic is terrible. That kind of calorie counting reminds me way too much of eating disordered behaviour.
I agree, #3 is a tragic account of obsession and disordered eating. And the attempts at comedy are so not funny. Anyone who would slam the door in the face of George Clooney offering a beer clearly needs psychological help.
Swans are evil motherfuckers, man.
Ach, #3. It conveys pretty well the barely suppressed mania and obsessive fear of food I remember from eating disordered days. Not her intention, I feel.
I feel like stabbing my eyes out because this si so horrific!
#3 makes me want to cry. It just brings back all the times when I was younger and by god, I was gonna live on 1000 calories a day. And whether she intends it to or not, it really gives a good sense of how you think about nothing but food and calorie totals all day long when you’re on a diet, to the backdrop of your rumbling, starving tummy. Ick. My stomach hurts just thinking about it.
The arrogance of that novel also makes me pretty angry. Does the author think she’s the first special snowflake to ever come up with calorie restriction and exercise? She passes on her little tips on what to choose at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s like they’re priceless pearls of wisdom or something. Sure, the George Clooney joke is kind of funny (I guess) but it’s not enough to make up for the self-righteousness of the rest of it.
“She dressed in slimming black, but the illusion that she was thin was unconvincing. ”
O rly? Maybe she should have tried some squeezy death girdle, or or or vertical stripes! Anything but looking like a full figured girl with a pretty face! Maybe it was the illusion of self-confidence that was unconvincing.
Also swans are total d-bags. I got my ass kicked by a swan once.
I’ve always thought that swans were mean because they were HUNGRY!
And by the by…isn’t “dumb diet book” the ultimate redundancy?
I got to page 2 of her comic and when she said she “wrote down [her] weight to keep [herself] in reality” I closed the window.
To quote one of my heroes, Adam Savage, I reject your reality and substitute my own!
Black is slimming? What about the pink and black paisley print I’m wearing today, what’s that?
(other than awesome)
All I could think when #3 headed to the gym was, She’s there on only 420 calories? I would probably get a migraine and almost pass out if I went to the gym in the middle of the afternoon on that small amount of calories.
I actually do keep track of my calories because I’m kind of a numbers and lists type girl. But those comics scared me. I’ll have to make sure I do not become that.
A graphic novel about a diet? This is The. Most. Boring. Graphic. Novel. Ever.
I mean, really, not only obsessing over your exercise and food intake, but then obsessing over it by DRAWING it, and then expecting an audience to want to read it? The layers of this pathology are infinite.
Dammit, now I’m thinking of baklava. Luckily I am a Bad Fatty, so maybe someday this week I will have a nice little piece of baklava. I will not measure it. I will not draw it. I will savor it.
I have to admit, the graphic novel? Yeah, that’s me on a diet. Which is why I’m having a helluva time convincing myself to start that lifestyle again, to fit into those pants that stopped fitting 6 months ago.
To me, that *is* how one counts calories, to make sure I’m eating less than I’m burning. I may shift around the calories a little (way more in the morning – I need at least 1,000 by 2pm), but I’m still aiming for 1500/day.
I’ve looked back on my Weight watchers food journals from years back, and it looks like so little in retrospect. Her 1/4 cup of lemonade is a prime example. At the time it was enough satisfaction for few enough calories that it fit in my plan, and that was what mattered.
Is there really any better way? I want to fit into those pants again, I just don’t have the motivation to turn down George Clooney. Can you lose weight without the disordered eating? Or are the comments above about the way it’s presented in the cartoon, not the weight loss method itself?
Also swans are total d-bags. I got my ass kicked by a swan once.
Too funny!
Can you lose weight without the disordered eating?
Yes, you can. But this is hardly the forum to ask for weight loss advice.
i just checked out “the big skinny” reviews on amazon.com out of curiousity and the author apparently started out at 5’9″ 160 lbs and ended up at 125 lbs. that is shockingly thin for someone of her height and those numbers combined with the obsessiveness in the cartoon excerpt lead me to believe that she clearly has an eating disorder. i’m actually upset with NPR for even remotely premoting this.
Whoa, J, that is not cool. I was pretty creeped out by numerous parts of the excerpt, but especially the “malt ball nutrition information says it’s 20 calories, but I don’t believe it so I’ll call it 50” part. I won’t “diagnose” anyone over the internet (or anywhere else, since I am not a doctor, ha) but especially knowing her “before and after” weights, the whole thing just makes me really sad.
congratulations on being able to find the most annoying parts of julie cameron. so much to choose from with that one.