I didn't realize this when I was younger. I blame my friends from high school and college for not being people that perpetuated the social custom of women eating salads in public. We gorged on pizza or mexican food or some other delicious but less than healthy foods. It was glorious.
It was also terrible. It set me up to not fully exist in a society that expects (not an outright expectation, more like a clique that defines social norms) where I'm the odd duck out if I don't order a salad. I noticed this tonight at a board meeting at a restaurant. All of the women in attendance ordered salad. Would something have spontaneously erupted had someone ordered a sandwich instead? Doubt it, but by the third or fourth person had sat down with a salad a pattern had been established.
Now I legitimately wanted a salad- I think. What I really wanted pizza or a hamburger. But I was coming from the gym and I felt like I would be doing a disservice to my aching bones and digestive system that felt like it was about to no longer be in my body. Plus, people judge you if they see you in work-out cloths eating like crap. I don't have the hard numbers to back this up, but I know that people treat you differently based on your appearance, how much that appearance impacts them, and what they think you should be eating or drinking to conform to those expectations.
So I looked at the salad menu. Too many of them had nuts (good protein, but high fiber and calories). All had cheese (why do places market salads with cheese? I'm just going to ask for it to come off). Fruit- interesting addition depending on what kind of fruit. How many antioxidants do I still need? Are they dried? How many carbs? Is Arugala okay if they don't have spinach? What protein do I want? Shrimp- I think I want shrimp. So give me the arugala salad with the strange seeds, cranberries, grilled shrimp, and the cheese I forgot to ask off. No pecans and no dressing. No, no allergies. Do I want a different dressing? (secretly wondering which is the healthiest and provide the best taste if I only dip my fork in it) Yes, I'll take the basil vinaigrette on the side. Why are you even asking if I want something to drink? You know I'll just be drinking water.
And every girl there had some variation of this salad. Because no matter if we are dieting or trying to get in shape or actually just spending all day watching television, we want the world to think that we are eating healthy and trying to lose weight because we're girls and that's what girls are supposed to do. This is not a judgment on people who choose to eat healthy because it's better for you, or who genuinely like salads. Y'all rock on.
This is about the pressure to be healthy and by healthy I mean fit and by fit I mean skinny.
The world wants to believe that either fat people are actively engaging in a better lifestyle and their slight misery confirms that, or that they are happy in being overweight and won't even attempt to be healthier.
Both of these assumptions are dangerous. I'm sure that there are people who are entirely comfortable in who they are and don't care what others think and wouldn't dare to criticize someone else for having a different lifestyle.
But they are still pervasive.
They are still pervasive in those salads that we eat, not because we want them, but because we want others to think that we want them and that we want to conform to societal pressures.
Last week, the Biggest Loser caused quite a stir when its winner, Rachel, showed up at the finale weighing 105 pounds. She had essentially lost 50 pounds in the 6 weeks between filming and the reveal. My understanding is that losing that much weight off of a 150 pound frame in that short of the time is possible, if not advisable and potentially not healthy. The show has come under attack for promoting unsafe levels of weight-loss and creating an atmosphere so insulated against anything other than weight-loss that dramatic results happen. Quickly.
So of course someone is going to go to the extreme ($250,000 is the prize) and maybe practicing some less than safe weight-loss and lose enough weight that you're getting very close to being underweight.
But can you blame her? Can you blame someone who is at a healthy 145 pounds, size 6, slightly muscular and curvy, and still have people tell her that she would look great if she lost another 5-10 pounds? Is she going to eat something that is high in fat and calories when the eyes of everyone around her are on her, judging whatever goes into her mouth? Can you blame her when everyone tells her how great she looks despite the appearance that she's becoming bone thin?
So I actually don't blame Rachel and I don't blame the Biggest Loser. I don't blame the well-meaning people around her who encouraged her to transform from being morbidly obese to a healthier weight.
I blame those salads. I blame those expectations that my worth is quickly assessed by how small or big I am and that regardless, I should be dieting and eating a salad until society decides I've had enough and can have a hamburger. I blame those salads when I want something else. I blame myself for wanting those salads.
But the socially-accepted salad will live for another day.
It was also terrible. It set me up to not fully exist in a society that expects (not an outright expectation, more like a clique that defines social norms) where I'm the odd duck out if I don't order a salad. I noticed this tonight at a board meeting at a restaurant. All of the women in attendance ordered salad. Would something have spontaneously erupted had someone ordered a sandwich instead? Doubt it, but by the third or fourth person had sat down with a salad a pattern had been established.
Now I legitimately wanted a salad- I think. What I really wanted pizza or a hamburger. But I was coming from the gym and I felt like I would be doing a disservice to my aching bones and digestive system that felt like it was about to no longer be in my body. Plus, people judge you if they see you in work-out cloths eating like crap. I don't have the hard numbers to back this up, but I know that people treat you differently based on your appearance, how much that appearance impacts them, and what they think you should be eating or drinking to conform to those expectations.
So I looked at the salad menu. Too many of them had nuts (good protein, but high fiber and calories). All had cheese (why do places market salads with cheese? I'm just going to ask for it to come off). Fruit- interesting addition depending on what kind of fruit. How many antioxidants do I still need? Are they dried? How many carbs? Is Arugala okay if they don't have spinach? What protein do I want? Shrimp- I think I want shrimp. So give me the arugala salad with the strange seeds, cranberries, grilled shrimp, and the cheese I forgot to ask off. No pecans and no dressing. No, no allergies. Do I want a different dressing? (secretly wondering which is the healthiest and provide the best taste if I only dip my fork in it) Yes, I'll take the basil vinaigrette on the side. Why are you even asking if I want something to drink? You know I'll just be drinking water.
And every girl there had some variation of this salad. Because no matter if we are dieting or trying to get in shape or actually just spending all day watching television, we want the world to think that we are eating healthy and trying to lose weight because we're girls and that's what girls are supposed to do. This is not a judgment on people who choose to eat healthy because it's better for you, or who genuinely like salads. Y'all rock on.
This is about the pressure to be healthy and by healthy I mean fit and by fit I mean skinny.
The world wants to believe that either fat people are actively engaging in a better lifestyle and their slight misery confirms that, or that they are happy in being overweight and won't even attempt to be healthier.
Both of these assumptions are dangerous. I'm sure that there are people who are entirely comfortable in who they are and don't care what others think and wouldn't dare to criticize someone else for having a different lifestyle.
But they are still pervasive.
They are still pervasive in those salads that we eat, not because we want them, but because we want others to think that we want them and that we want to conform to societal pressures.
Last week, the Biggest Loser caused quite a stir when its winner, Rachel, showed up at the finale weighing 105 pounds. She had essentially lost 50 pounds in the 6 weeks between filming and the reveal. My understanding is that losing that much weight off of a 150 pound frame in that short of the time is possible, if not advisable and potentially not healthy. The show has come under attack for promoting unsafe levels of weight-loss and creating an atmosphere so insulated against anything other than weight-loss that dramatic results happen. Quickly.
So of course someone is going to go to the extreme ($250,000 is the prize) and maybe practicing some less than safe weight-loss and lose enough weight that you're getting very close to being underweight.
But can you blame her? Can you blame someone who is at a healthy 145 pounds, size 6, slightly muscular and curvy, and still have people tell her that she would look great if she lost another 5-10 pounds? Is she going to eat something that is high in fat and calories when the eyes of everyone around her are on her, judging whatever goes into her mouth? Can you blame her when everyone tells her how great she looks despite the appearance that she's becoming bone thin?
So I actually don't blame Rachel and I don't blame the Biggest Loser. I don't blame the well-meaning people around her who encouraged her to transform from being morbidly obese to a healthier weight.
I blame those salads. I blame those expectations that my worth is quickly assessed by how small or big I am and that regardless, I should be dieting and eating a salad until society decides I've had enough and can have a hamburger. I blame those salads when I want something else. I blame myself for wanting those salads.
But the socially-accepted salad will live for another day.
I read this post a few times. My conclusion is societal pressures and judgments are bad. I think there is a separate set of pressures that overweight people face. And then another set for women.
ReplyDeleteOn a related side note, a study a while back found that all the emphasis on food, diets, paleo, carbs, etc was actually causing men to have similar levels of food stress that women have typically had. Greater awareness of "healthy foods" can cause a lot of stress, period.
I agree. I've been reflecting on this a lot more recently since all of the weight-loss shows are TV are coming to the end of their seasons. And by all means, I think salads are fabulous and that people eat salads and other healthy foods because they like them and because they are, by definition, healthier options. I also strongly believe that most of the stress is self-generated and based on unrealistic expectations that the media defines as "beautiful" for both men and women. Yet, I have noticed that when in groups of friends there is noticeable more emphasis on trying to find something healthy/low-carb/low-fat/low-calorie by the females around me than the males. I realize this is potentially a bad observational study, but the more I look at what people are eating in restaurants the more I see this trend.
DeleteIt concerns me that, like you noted, this over-emphasis on food is producing stress in both men and women. So I agree that there are separate pressures depending on who you are, but I think that there is an emerging struggle that is overlapping between overweight individuals and healthy weight women to get to a size 0, which is not a bad size to be at if your body is naturally proportioned and built for that size. The problem is that not everyone can or should be that size (bone structure alone would rule that out for a large swatch of society), but that this underlying pressure to at least be seen as attempting to get there is fueling unhealthy relationships with food.
Gillian is actually doing her thesis on how the internet perpetuates these attitudes, specifically how social media sites, like Pinterest, have created an environment that supports and grows pro-ana groups. It's really fascinating, so this post may also be related to the things she has told me about her project.