01.10.2008
Down with diets
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Slim down, skinny up, shed a few, drop some pounds, lose the lard, forget the fat.
So many ways to say it, so many ways to do it.
One of the fondest memories I have of my Grandpa Meier are his Slim-Fast shakes.
Grandpa played football in college and carried those pounds with him afterward. In his later years, he decided he wanted to lose some weight and thought Slim-Fast was the way to go.
As a 5-year-old, I watched Grandpa mix the shakes with ice cream and thought nothing of it.
Looking back, I realize why Grandpa never shook the extra pounds.
Besides, why did a 70-year-old man worry about weight? Sure, a heart attack eventually claimed his life, but it was a life that was rich and full, just like his Slim-Fast-with-ice-cream shakes.
There’s too much pressure to be thin. There’s even more pressure to be too thin.
A healthy diet and exercise are good for everybody, but no one benefits from the stress of having to look like a stick.
Or a beanpole. Or an hourglass. Or some other inanimate object people strive to emulate.
A new Slim-Fast commercial features women showing off their midriffs circled with measuring tape.
I’d say the women range from sizes 4-10, or about 25- to 30-inch waistlines.
These women want to lose weight, suggests the commercial, and have decided starving themselves is the best way to do it.
“Have a happy tummy, not a hungry one,” the commercial says. Slim-Fast curbs appetite by substituting the drink, snack, etc., for an entire meal.
Whose tummy is happy skipping a meal and consuming some faux-chocolate shake? My tummy would be pissed off.
In fact, if I gave my tummy some sort of meal replacement, it would crawl up my esophagus, out of my mouth and punch me in the face. Twice.
I question the responsibility of a company that suggests women (or men) sizes 4-10 (or any size) should stop eating.
In the end, these companies don’t care how happy your tummy is. They care how much revenue they generate so their CEOs can sit in their luxury apartments eating fried chicken and complex carbohydrates and laugh and point at the size 4-10 women who only get to eat a granola bar and Slim-Fast shake every day.
People get up in arms about the three-drug cocktail being cruel and unusual but don’t hesitate to starve themselves to drop a few because Paris Hilton weighs 90 pounds.
That’s just a piece of the tragic mosaic constructed by the fashion industry and the diet industry.
Used to be a size 14 was appetizing; now it’s frowned upon. We’ve gotten so obsessed with weight that they make a size 0 — actually, they make a size 00. Two zeros.
Only way to go from there is negative.
So on this slippery slope of declining self-image, health, well-being, etc., what’s the upside?
I say Grandpa did something right when he shook up the diet industry with some ice cream.