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It's called 'Getting Healthy'
Apr. 16th, 2009 12:57 pmI hate ads like this one:
I HATE them. 'I lost 20 pounds in two weeks'?! You know what you should read there, f-listies?
'I did a horrible, horrible thing to my body for two weeks, in which I shut everything else down and forced my body into starvation mode. I will have to spend the next six months recovering and will almost certainly end up putting on more weight than I lost within that time.'
Whatever the adverts tell you. Whatever the faddy diets and the faux-gurus try to sell to you to make a quick buck off your hopes and your dreams and, crucially, your insecurities - the bottom line is that it is not healthy to lose that much weight that quickly.
It just isn't. It never will be. The only time you should lose weight that quickly is if you suddenly encounter a famine and your body is forced to burn up all your reserves - and famines are not good things. You lose energy, you lose focus, you're hungry all the time, you crave every food but that which is available to you (what you 'should' be eating according to the diet) and your body is FUCKED the hell up because you're not MEANT to exist purely on just one type of food or tiny amounts of food. You just aren't.
What's even MORE galling about this ad is that the woman pictured DID NOT NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. LOOK at her, for God's sake - she looks FINE in the 'before' picture. In all honesty, I think she looks BETTER. (Maybe just personal taste - I like hips and boobs on a woman). And if she WANTED to lose weight or get fitter - fine! But do it by joining a gym! Cut out fried and high-sugar foods from your diet and jog five evenings a weeks. Sure the process will be slower but it will be HEALTHY and you're much more likely to reach a sustainable, natural weight that work your body and your life style that way, than in forcing it all off all at once and shrinking down to something you can't sustain. She essentially did something incredibly unhealthy to herself for a pre-imposed aesthetic that very few people can truly live by in a healthy, happy way and yet millions of women make themselves miserable striving for it every day.
It makes me SO ANGRY.
And just read the statistics on 'diets', I mean - seriously. 98% of all people who try to diet put ALL the weight they lose back on within the first year after the diet. 98%, people. That's not about getting healthy - that's about a pointlessly painful exercise in futility. And all of that dieting CAN have serious long-term health implications. You lose too much weight too quickly you can also lose muscle mass, weaken your vital organs including your heart, fuck up your fertility because of all those random hormones the starvation sets off flying round your body - it's horrible and it's not something people should be doing to themselves.
I hate that the media and the cosmetics and health industires all try to take advantage of a woman's anxieties about the way she looks to flog something that is not only causing unnecissary strife but actually physically harmful to the women who try. I'm trying hard right now to make the changes to my life that will allow me to get healthy - mentally and physically - and be happier and more content in myself and the way I look. It's about serious, long term change and it's going to take work - it's already taking work. But I never go hungry. It's about preserving my health, not sacrificing it so that I can look a certain way. Why should I be made to feel like I'm failing because I've only lost a few pounds in a few months - without suffering, without being unhealthy, without making myself miserable? Because I'm being sensible and careful and because I'm still in the process of resetting the bad habits of a lifetime - how DARE people play on my insecurities about the way I look? My impatience? How dare they exploit women like that? Play on us like that?
It's sexist, it's exploitative, it's depressing and it's dangerous and it makes me SO ANGRY.
I HATE them. 'I lost 20 pounds in two weeks'?! You know what you should read there, f-listies?
'I did a horrible, horrible thing to my body for two weeks, in which I shut everything else down and forced my body into starvation mode. I will have to spend the next six months recovering and will almost certainly end up putting on more weight than I lost within that time.'
Whatever the adverts tell you. Whatever the faddy diets and the faux-gurus try to sell to you to make a quick buck off your hopes and your dreams and, crucially, your insecurities - the bottom line is that it is not healthy to lose that much weight that quickly.
It just isn't. It never will be. The only time you should lose weight that quickly is if you suddenly encounter a famine and your body is forced to burn up all your reserves - and famines are not good things. You lose energy, you lose focus, you're hungry all the time, you crave every food but that which is available to you (what you 'should' be eating according to the diet) and your body is FUCKED the hell up because you're not MEANT to exist purely on just one type of food or tiny amounts of food. You just aren't.
What's even MORE galling about this ad is that the woman pictured DID NOT NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. LOOK at her, for God's sake - she looks FINE in the 'before' picture. In all honesty, I think she looks BETTER. (Maybe just personal taste - I like hips and boobs on a woman). And if she WANTED to lose weight or get fitter - fine! But do it by joining a gym! Cut out fried and high-sugar foods from your diet and jog five evenings a weeks. Sure the process will be slower but it will be HEALTHY and you're much more likely to reach a sustainable, natural weight that work your body and your life style that way, than in forcing it all off all at once and shrinking down to something you can't sustain. She essentially did something incredibly unhealthy to herself for a pre-imposed aesthetic that very few people can truly live by in a healthy, happy way and yet millions of women make themselves miserable striving for it every day.
It makes me SO ANGRY.
And just read the statistics on 'diets', I mean - seriously. 98% of all people who try to diet put ALL the weight they lose back on within the first year after the diet. 98%, people. That's not about getting healthy - that's about a pointlessly painful exercise in futility. And all of that dieting CAN have serious long-term health implications. You lose too much weight too quickly you can also lose muscle mass, weaken your vital organs including your heart, fuck up your fertility because of all those random hormones the starvation sets off flying round your body - it's horrible and it's not something people should be doing to themselves.
I hate that the media and the cosmetics and health industires all try to take advantage of a woman's anxieties about the way she looks to flog something that is not only causing unnecissary strife but actually physically harmful to the women who try. I'm trying hard right now to make the changes to my life that will allow me to get healthy - mentally and physically - and be happier and more content in myself and the way I look. It's about serious, long term change and it's going to take work - it's already taking work. But I never go hungry. It's about preserving my health, not sacrificing it so that I can look a certain way. Why should I be made to feel like I'm failing because I've only lost a few pounds in a few months - without suffering, without being unhealthy, without making myself miserable? Because I'm being sensible and careful and because I'm still in the process of resetting the bad habits of a lifetime - how DARE people play on my insecurities about the way I look? My impatience? How dare they exploit women like that? Play on us like that?
It's sexist, it's exploitative, it's depressing and it's dangerous and it makes me SO ANGRY.
