tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post3886704613300981836..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Against "naturally fat" UPDATED, TWICE!Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-74091914325996513522011-10-27T23:30:55.539-04:002011-10-27T23:30:55.539-04:00Britta,
I don't remember there being cupcakes...Britta,<br /><br />I don't remember there being cupcakes anywhere near Hyde Park in my day, and would have guessed that their arrival would mean that 'I'm so bad' talk would have come with. So it's a relief to hear the friend's comment - so UChicago, in a good way! I mean, I didn't love, at Chicago, that it was frowned upon to look good, to care about clothes, etc., but if weight-think is viewed skeptically, that I do approve of.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-29120139014458476282011-10-27T22:41:08.636-04:002011-10-27T22:41:08.636-04:00I heard a very similar conversation in a campus co...I heard a very similar conversation in a campus coffee shop. One girl got a cupcake, and she said to her friend, "OMG I'm being so bad!" Of course this being Chicago, her friend said, "I don't see how there's any moral weight assigned to cupcake eating." I felt very warm and fuzzy about undergrads for a bit.Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-86791227562925397252011-10-26T20:37:19.541-04:002011-10-26T20:37:19.541-04:00Phoebe,
I completely agree. I read somewhere that...Phoebe,<br /><br />I completely agree. I read somewhere that, in addition to genetics, semi-unconscious behaviors and habits really determine our weights. Fidgeting is a huge thing, as it burns 100s of calories a day, but people don't think of it as exercise or an activity at all. Also, little things like, do you put extra cheese on something? Cream in your coffee vs. black vs. 2%? etc. all add up, and they're not necessarily about dieting in a "I can only eat cottage cheese and fruit" sort of way. It's also true that you can't really tell how much someone eats from eating a meal, or even a meal a day with someone. I also heard a study that said that the more overweight someone is, the more they underestimated their food intake. I feel like that might be the case--people think "I only ate a salad for lunch, I must naturally be fat" don't calculate in the 6 cokes they drank, or the fact their salad had half a cup of ranch dressing, etc. <br /><br />Finally, we're supposed to eat around 2000 calories a day, which is about 700 calories per meal. Most people eat a lot less for breakfast, so if you don't snack a lot, a normal person should eat about 800-900 calories for dinner (or lunch if it's your biggest meal). That's a decent amount of food, but somehow as women we're supposed to be horrified if we realize we've consumed more than 200 calories in one sitting. I think disordered eating is so pressed on us that it's hard to remember what normal eating looks like. I mean, you can eat a yogurt every hour and nothing else (which is apparently what we're supposed to do), OR you can eat a filling breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which may be pasta, or a cheeseburger, etc, and you won't get fat, nor will you need to eat yogurt every hour to not feel lightheaded. <br /><br />As a very slim by normal standards but fat by model standards woman, I actually can identify the sort of humor in 30 Rock, to a point (but I can also see how it would be offensive). I feel like a big part of it is that there are such extreme cultures where even being normally slim is still seen as cow-like, and the show is making fun of that mor than it is making fun of Tina Fey for being a cow. I think too, if you look like Tina Fey and get called fat a lot, it's easy to make wry jokes about it that come off as offensive to those in a different environment. I grew up in a family with remarkably healthy and normal eating habits and attitudes towards food (more akin to Euro attitudes than US ones), but totally insane ones towards fat and body image (both my grandmothers and to a lesser extent my mother find normal female body fat (not to mention cellulite!) to be completely disgusting). Although I was a skinny-ish teen (at 15, I was 5'4' and 100 lbs), between the ages of 12-22, I got called fat and dealt with constant digs at my weight and appearance on a regular basis by my grandmothers and occasionally my mother and other female relatives. I was definitely "the fat one" in my family, because my sister was insanely skinny through her teenage years. As a result of being considered fat during a fairly formative period in my life, I still sometimes make self-deprecating jokes about being considered fat, which in part are based on the fact that although I've never been even close to overweight, I was considered so by my family. I've had to cut that out because of course people who don't realize my experiences with my upbringing assume I either have some crazy disordered attitude towards body size or I'm fishing for compliments, not that I'm mocking my insane family. I imagine working in the entertainment industry and having a healthy body image leads to the same amusement at the disconnect between reality and perception, but that's not apparent to the wider public.Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-24901203423350058372011-10-26T15:37:31.300-04:002011-10-26T15:37:31.300-04:00PG,
I think, re: "skinny gluttons," tha...PG,<br /><br />I think, re: "skinny gluttons," that there are numerous overlapping subgenres of this, ranging from the model-with-burger to a Liz Lemon or Rhoda, both of whom, though slim by everyday standards, could, we're meant to remember, be slimmer (see: Siree and Mary, respectively). With Liz Lemon, yes, it's partly that she eats junk (although I interpret it less as being about class than as being that she eats "man food"), but remember the episode where she finally looks hot in jeans? That magical jeans are required to make her look good from behind is just one clue we have that her character is not meant to be physical perfection but for a frazzled look and a stain or two on her shirt. Grace Adler falls somewhere in between. When a woman in this size range (and what it consists of varies regionally, a point "30 Rock" makes when Liz goes to Ohio) chows down, it's not quite the model with burger, but it's also not fat-person-eating. But when Jezebel takes this on, they can't get past the fact that Tina Fey is <i>well</i> below a size 20, and over-conflate this phenomenon with the model-burger one. <br /><br />PG (and Britta, this gets to your point as well),<br /><br />The more complicated question, metabolisms. I think both that they vary, and that in individual cases, even as roommates, partners, one can know so little. I've had shared-living situations during which I am generally the one who eats the most at meals. In the dorm in Paris and everywhere else I've lived communally, my nightly pasta-consumption was the subject of much unsolicited fascination. But! I don't have any alcohol tolerance to speak of, and so am not getting down much calorically that way. For example. There are so many factors with other people that you can barely ever know, or might not think of - fidgeting, snacking, how much food on a plate actually gets finished, etc.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-62723212796106539442011-10-26T13:11:19.488-04:002011-10-26T13:11:19.488-04:00The Jezebel article was interesting, but it had a ...The Jezebel article was interesting, but it had a bit of the same problem as Phoebe is pointing out. The article kept stressing, over and over again, that if a size 0 woman isn't actively anorexic, she must be subsisting on a carefully controlled diet of grilled chicken and salad, and has never indulged in one fry too many. It's possible, however, to be really skinny and occasionally binge eat, or overindulge in food, or eat like crap, or have irregular eating patterns (i.e. going long periods and not eating and then eating a lot) and it doesn't mean you'll become fat overnight, or ever. If every day you eat a significantly higher # of calories than you burn, you'll probably put on weight, but if you do so once and awhile, you won't. Also, calories in = calories out, and if those calories come from brie or cheese puffs, they don't automatically make you fatter than if they came from salad or yogurt, or whatever.Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-37892561297635545532011-10-25T17:22:42.174-04:002011-10-25T17:22:42.174-04:00The metabolism thing really can be compared only b...The metabolism thing really can be compared only by looking at two people of about the same age and height who eat similar diets <i>and</i> exercise similarly. I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Christie actually consumes no more calories than Obama, but spends far less time working out. (The last thanks-for-your-donation "gift" I got from the DNC was a picture of Obama running around the White House lawn with his dog. I am thinking that Christie donors will not see such an image.)<br /><br />Some people do have faster metabolism than others. I've lived with women of roughly the same age and height as myself, and even when we're getting about the same food and exercise, some women end up heavier than I do and some end up lighter. Further peculiarity that's probably beyond the Daily Mail's scientific ken: some will end up heavier than I but carrying a lower percentage of body fat (which means that in the technical sense of obesity, they are less obese than I).<br /><br />I don't know about Rhoda, but in my limited viewing of "Will & Grace" and my fairly complete viewing of "30 Rock," I didn't get the impression that Grace or Liz was being portrayed as a "cow." Their eating was treated more as transgressive than as terribly fattening, both because of their milieus (especially for Liz as someone working in entertainment) but more overtly because of their choice of foodstuffs. It's not like Liz generally is teased for over-consuming the sort of foods that Jack would eat and that presumably contribute to his middle-aged heft: steaks, fine wine, fancy cheese. Instead, she eats cheap, junky food. So there's a class element as well.<br /><br />Anyway, Grace and Liz seem to be standard on lists of characters who are "<a href="http://jezebel.com/5301237/type+casting-the-skinny-glutton" rel="nofollow">skinny gluttons</a>," not characters who are called fat while being played by thin actresses.PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.com