2014modetrends

How weight-loss evangelism makes women fat


(Photo:red prom dresses)There’s a particularly weird mix of messages out there, particularly those geared towards women. Most of us start out with a healthy relationship to food, eating three-ish square meals a day, not overthinking it. This is clearly the right and natural way to do itBut instead we are encouraged us to see food as a series of treats with which to deny or reward ourselves. The messages tend to come in three flavours.First there is weight-loss evangelism – seen here in an advert for Special K – in which self denial is richly rewarded, in the form of yachts, nice weather, and all the red swimming costumes you could want.Then there is devilish temptation – from such seducers as Lindor – where food is an oh-so-intense guilty pleasure.And finally there is divine retribution – in the form of reality shows set in weight loss bootcamps, the fatties toiling away like so many fallen women in the Magdalen Laundries, a sad lesson to us all.Indeed food seems to have replaced sex as the focus of this century’s moral hangups. We idolise the virtuous and self controlled, fetishise temptation, and cast out the sinners – to fat camp, where they belong. That’s is the cause of the present mess, and the reason so many of us will be signing up to weight watchers on the NHS. It makes me wonder which of out instincts we will mess with next. Let’s just hope it’s not breathing.Read more here:formal dresses belfast