I feel defeated. I just got back from Barnes and Noble and the bestseller table was piled high with diet books. It seems that the new trend in this genre is to coerce women into weight loss through degradation and insults. The most popular book out there right now is entitled “Skinny Bitch.” The ex-model author refers to her readers as “lazy assess” and “pussies” in an effort to motivate them to anorexic proportions. If you follow her diet tips, than you will be granted entry into her exclusive Skinny Bitch Club. Just what we need- more skinny bitches running around town thinking that because they possess the ability to starve themselves into skeletons they are automatically entitled to power and prestige. I might just lose a few pounds barfing while I read this crap.

If Skinny Bitchdom doesn’t appeal to you, why not try “The Master Cleanse Guide” which recommends that we torture our bodies into submission by subsisting on a vomitatious concoction of lemon juice and cayenne pepper for 2 weeks. If you haven’t had enough punishment yet, check out Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s new book, “Stop Whining, Start Living.” Just what I need, another book by Dr. Laura telling me what a piece of shit wife and mother I am, to further consecrate my self-hatred.

It is no wonder I am ridden with angst. Everywhere I turn, the media is screeching, “You are a lazy, whiny, flabby, loser. You are not enough.”  If only I was more disciplined and more in control, I would be happy. If only I could master my body’s natural instinct to eat, all would be great in my life.

I once had a therapist tell me “Fat is not a feeling.” For those of us that have been caught in this specific emotional booby-trap, we know how dead wrong she was. To feel fat is to feel like a failure, to feel profoundly uncomfortable in one’s skin. The core feelings of guilt and shame are impervious to any of our true character traits and accomplishments. Our entire self-worth is reduced down to how we perceive our physical bodies look to the outside world. These books brilliantly capitalize on our irrational feelings of fatness, which only cement the distorted belief that we are worthwhile only if we are able to conform to some impossible standard set by a bitchy, anorexic ex-model. With all the advances in feminism over the decades, how can this be our reality as women in the year 2009? And why in God’s name is such a misogynistic book on the bestseller list?

Feeling fat has nothing to do with one’s actual size or weight. This is a particularly difficult concept to grasp. I, for one, am convinced on my “feeling fat days” that my angst is all about the dessert I ate last night or my bloated belly. But when strict logic is applied, even I, in my most delusional moments, must acknowledge that it is impossible to gain weight over night or even over the course of a few days. So if feeling fat is not related to form, what is it really about?

Should we blame the media, who bombards us with pictures of women whose fame and success appears to be inexplicably linked to their excessive thinness? This certainly is convenient, but blaming the ubiquitous media is as effective as screaming at the clouds, because they sure as hell aren’t going anywhere and it doesn’t seem like their obsession with skinny women will be disappearing anytime soon.

“Feeling fat” is the ultimate act of self-hate. When we feel fat, we rage at our femininity and attempt to master nature. Every month we  swell up as our bodies prepares for the most natural, life affirming process, menstruation. During our period, our body bloats and cramps as our uterus practices for labor. Estrogen, the ultimate female hormone, provides a protective layer of fat over our abdomens. Trying to non-surgically get rid of this flesh is like trying to stop the ocean. When we become pregnant, our belly grows to incredible proportions as our body builds a baby. After giving birth, our breasts miraculously swell with milk in order to feed our infant.

Most women tend to” feel fat” before or during their periods. We curse our bodies for being female and doing what they are biologically programmed to do. What if we were able to accept and nurture our bodies during this time, rather than fight them? How about using our “feeling fat” days as a reminder that we are so much more than the size of our bodies. On the days that we feel like a failure because our bodies are not meeting up to some bull-shit criterion, we have the opportunity to dig deeper by focusing on our true qualities. We can even try to accept ourselves, no matter what our physical size is, by shifting our focus off of our physicality and onto the essence of our beings.

And for what its worth, I’d rather hang out with a happy and healthy woman over a skinny bitch any day of the week!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 9:22 am and is filed under 1. Angst Mom Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.