health

What’s worse: diets or obesity?

It will be no surprise to anyone to learn that I don’t believe magazines should promote diets. Particularly magazines for young girls and young women.

But a fiesty debate has broken out over at glossy magazine blog, Girl With A Satchel over Erica Bartle’s criticism of Dolly for its latest cover story: “Is your family making you FAT?”.…

As Erica explains….

The story the coverline refers to is ‘No More Excuses: warning! Lame
cop-outs ahead!’, which breaks down into three excuses girls use to
avoid getting “healthy”.

The first is “I’m scared of the doctor”
(advice: “Google can’t make a diagnosis and it can’t examine you!”);
the second is “I’m hopeless at sport”, which suggests you make physical
activity fun by being social while also proferring the glossy standard
advice “take the stairs instead of the lift”. So far, so okay.

The
third excuse is “My family is unhealthy” which contains tips to get you
“healthier than green tea in no time”. Dietician Sharon Natoli
recommends you tell your family you’d like to adopt healthy habits and
encourage them to take on the challenge, too. “Start small, such as a
weekly trip to the supermarket to buy healthy food. Lead by example!”


But Erica is conflicted about the line between promoting ‘healthy eating’ and encouraging food obsessive and poor body image. On her award-winning blog, Erica writes…..

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 “….it’s this sort of ostensibly innocuous dietary advice – coupled with the negative implication that not being “healthy” is a “lame cop-out” – which has the potential to turn teen girls into oppressive and obsessive (not to mention annoying) food nazis who won’t eat what they’re told to because there’s not enough protein in the meal.

Yes, I’m aware that we have a major issue with obesity in this country – but surely the responsibility to “lead by example” should rest with parents and educators. As if teen girls don’t have enough to fret over what with school exams, boys and finding the perfect formal dress without weighing them down with the job of monitoring family meal time.

Most eating disorders start with the adoption of “healthy” eating practises that turn into ultimately debilitating dietary restriction. Granted, a single magazine story does not an eating disorder make, but, going by my own experience, advice like Dolly’s, coupled with the cumulative messages girls are being fed via the pop culture machine (The Biggest Loser, celebrity weight loss stories on every glossip cover, hot young things on cinema screens) doesn’t make things any easier for girls with the potential to go down that path (and with so many girls reporting low self-esteem and poor body image, there are many).

My six-year-old niece is already scarily well-versed in the culture of diet, making references to “getting her exercise” and “eating junk” when Barbies, school and playing should really be her only concerns. I am hyper-aware of the influence I have on her, making sure to be as ‘normal’ as I can about food around her, creating Pita Pizzas for food fun on a recent sleepover, while encouraging her to see herself as creative, smart and capable, in addition to adorable.

Because once you’re indoctrinated into the world of obsessive dieting, it’s hard to get back the free, flexible and fun relationship you once had with food.

Today, more than ever, girls feel an immense amount of pressure to fit into society’s expectations of them, and often obsessive-compulsive behaviour around food and/or exercise is the way they attempt to manifest some sort of control. If I had a dollar for every restrictive food idea I’d learned, and put into practice, via a glossy magazine, I’d be giving Bill Gates a run for his dosh – these stories are “enablers” for anyone looking to feel empowered by subjecting their bodies to apparently new and improved regimes promising to keep you healthy AND thin.

I think she makes some extremely valid points. I think magazines need to take a long hard look at the role they play in making girls and women OF ALL AGES feel inadequate. About our bodies, our faces, our relationships, our homes…..everything.

But on this particular subject – weight and dieting – some people believe that it’s entirely appropriate to encourage ‘healthy eating’ and that that’s the only way we’ll reverse the trend towards obesity (which the media tend to get fairly hysterical about). While others worry that ‘healthy eating’ is just a euphemism for dieting. And that all this focus on food will cause some vulnerable girls to spiral into a dangerous obsession or just a pit of self-loathing.

So where do we draw the line? Should magazines aimed at teens and young women just ignore the pink elephant in the corner and not discuss dieting or food at all? Is it realistically possible to promote sensible eating without pushing them towards an obsession?

And does banning diets from magazines encourage obesity? I find this a pretty long bow to draw.

I believe there is no place for diets in magazines but I do believe in educating about nutrition. And there’s a difference. What do you think?


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