Sunday, April 5, 2009

Gonzo Journalism 2

Advertisements on TV, one in particular catches my eye. A new yogurt, now with like 60 calories instead of 100. All eaten by relatively thin women talking about how they need to lose weight. And here we are, us stricken with Anorexia, Bulimia, or EDNOS told about how we are fine and shouldn't lose more weight. No gain weight, it'll make you happier. And watch TV where they will tell you nothing but how you should lose weight.

It used to be an easier double standard to understand. Men got dealt one hand, women got dealt the same but with added bonuses and a damn near immunity to anything dealing with men. A double standard that could be understood. Now this standard has advanced to a much more ambiguous arena. Lose weight. Don't lose weight. Losing weight will make you pretty and happy. Gain weight it'll make you pretty and happy.

It's hard for anyone to look around at all this and not feel that they're body isn't flawed, imperfect. You need improvement. What kind of improvement though? Thin people should be on diets and lose weight, but also they can't be too thin or else they need to diet and gain weight. Diet diet diet.

We're losing track of the baser things, the real things. Happiness. Contentment. Accepting who and what you are. But then again. I see all this around me all the while feeling nothing more than I need to lose weight. I need to hit 110. I see ads about people using new weight lose supplements and it says the loss shown is 6.5 Lb over 8 weeks. And then that voice screams out in my head. I can lose 6.5 in 3 days. So am I better off or worse off?

5 comments:

Mango said...

Yay!!! You're back!!! =D

Why should you listen to what society says anyway? Just lose weight and be happy. =) Weight loss = happiness, weight gain = depression. Nice and simple. This society is just too fat and they're all jealous of people that can be thin.

SinkorSwim said...

Is it weird that when I read that line "lose 6.5 lbs in 8 weeks" I was practically thinking the same thing you just wrote. I was like "8 weeks! Thats a long freaken time, dude. I can lose that in atleast a week!" I don't know hon., but I do know that if you read enough magazines showing pretty thin people in all their happiness and glory, you can come to your own conclusions. I've always been more into the visual then the verbal, because as the saying goes "actions speak louder than words."

One of Ana's Boys said...

That they do

Mango said...

As random as this may seem... I think I'm in love with you. XD Honestly, you just seem really cool. And a guy that's so open about being ana... that's just amazing.

Savory Sweet said...

I loved this post! Said all the things I think but can't stitch the sentences together... especially the last bit about losing the weight in mere days, normal weight loss irritates me now :)