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I reckon that, at any hour of any day, there must be millions of people who are on a diet (or about to go on a diet, or thinking of going on a diet, or just ruined one by remembering the Christmas cake still at the back of the fridge). Which makes dieters a really big group! Even bigger than the group that's obsessed with Facebook or the group that thinks every girl should own at least two hundred pairs of shoes! We're so big, that we're more a subculture than a group. Really. We have our own language (calories, etc), our own code of behaviour (if it's iced, don't eat it), and our own support system (the billion-pound dieting industry). Also, like any self-respecting culture, we have our own mythology. And, just as it isn't strictly true that Atlas carried the earth on his shoulders or that Father Christmas flies through the sky in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, not all of our myths are true. So before you tuck your calorie counter and your scale under your arm and march bravely into the world of mini-portions and cucumber sandwiches without the bread, let's discuss some of the Great Myths of Dieting.
This is the sort of myth, like the one about the world being flat and that there are dragons in the woods, that is guaranteed to keep a person in a constant state of terror. Oh, no, I better not go too far, one says to oneself, or I'll fall off the edge of the world. Oh, no, I better not go into the forest, one thinks, I'll be burnt to a crisp by a very large creature with buggy eyes and smoke pouring out of its nostrils. Better keep away from ANYTHING that tastes good, the terrified dieter tells herself, or I'll look like a blimp!
I don't know who came up with this myth - or even why - but it wasn't someone who's on our team, that's for certain. Because believing that only things that are fattening are truly wonderful, delicious and worthy of unconditional love, gives custard creams and double-cheese burgers a lot more importance in one's life than they deserve.
Let's look at it this way: You're all on your own one night, and you're feeling listless and bored. (You finished that great novel you were reading, you can't find the remote and your mates have all gone mountain climbing and are out of phone range.) Suddenly you feel a little peckish. You decide to have a snack and put on some music. That should perk you up. INSTANTLY, instead of thinking of apples or pistachio nuts or olives (all things that do have calories, but also have food value), you think of honey-glazed doughnuts and toffee-crunch ice cream (which only have calories). Why is this? Is this because Nature messed up and you're genetically programmed to like doughnuts and ice cream more than nuts and fruit? Or is it because you've been told OVER AND OVER that doughnuts and ice cream are these fabulous things that you shouldn't eat because they're so delicious your thighs will start swelling just looking at them. What happens is that after years of this sort of propaganda, you start liking things just because THEY ARE fattening and you're told you shouldn't eat them! 'Ooh, it's got cream, chocolate, butter and three tons of sugar in it, it must be good!' And not liking things because they aren't fattening but are actually healthy. 'What, nothing that will clog my arteries? Nothing that will rot my teeth? Nothing that will make my face break out? Well, that can't be very good!'
My other point is that a lot of the things you really like aren't fattening at all. Pasta. Rice. The humble but brilliant baked potato. The carrot and the pumpkin, the chickpea and the dried apricot. But because they aren't forbidden, they have no glamour. We forget that we like them. We think we only eat them so we have something to do between desserts.
The Chunky Girl myth is as basic to human civilisation as the creation myth. And, like the creation myth, it has as many variations as the forest has leaves. My aunt the radical feminist lesbian says we can trace the Chunky Girl myth all the way back to that major favourite the All Princesses Are Beautiful myth, made popular hundreds of years ago by grumpy male fairy tale writers (itself related to the No One Ever Thumps an Unattractive Cave Woman Over the Head and Nothing Good Ever Happens to Regular Looking Girls myths). I think you can see where I'm going here. In all of these myths, the heroines are always well-gorgeous - and any woman who isn't well-gorgeous is either wicked, stupid, or not worth mentioning. Ugliness is equated with evil, nastiness and/or never finding love. Beauty is equated with goodness, happiness and/or dancing late into the night.
The Chunky Girls Never Have Any Fun myth says that chunky girls never date, never laugh, never have any success, never have a good time, never have boyfriends, never find love and never know any personal fulfilment or joy. You can tell this is a myth because if you reverse it what it's saying is that the only people who ever go out, laugh, etc are thin. And, if you follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion, it means that if you are thin (and, therefore, tres attractive) you'll always be happy and never have any problems. You can only believe this if you never leave your room. You can only believe this if you think being Britney Spears is more fun than being Beth Ditto. (I know which one I'd rather be, and it isn't the one who's always being carried out of her house on a stretcher!!!)
Everyone believes this one. (Even I believed it!)
The There Are Certain Days and Seasons When What You Eat Doesn't Count myth says that Sundays, national holidays, birthdays and anniversaries [NB: this means ANYBODY'S birthday or anniversary - it can be Attila the Hun's birthday or the anniversary of the end of the Crimean War], the day you win the name the post box competition in the local paper, the day you lock yourself out of the house, etc are all times when a diet simply doesn't count. You know, because of Special Circumstances.
Now on the face of it, this makes total sense. After all, one can't diet all the time. And breaks are good. Breaks make you feel that you're controlling your diet, not the other way round. And you're tres definitely allowed to celebrate Christmas, your birthday and the day Arsenal beat Milan. But the key words here are doesn't count. You know - doesn't count as in it doesn't matter what you eat, you're still on your diet. It's as if you've been given a shield that makes you invisible. Or as if your fairy godmother has plopped down in the middle of your bedroom and waved her magic wand. 'Oh' says your fairy godmother, 'one of the Queen's Corgis is having a birthday tomorrow. So don't worry about eating pizza and chips for your tea. You can have as much as you want, it'll be just as though you haven't eaten a thing.'
Willow next door is the creator of the It Doesn't Count if You Break It in Half myth. If you pass her the plate of biscuits, she'll say, 'Oh, no, I couldn't... Oh, all right, just a bit..." and she'll snap a piece off one. She'll eat that in about as long as it takes you to set the plate on the table, and then she'll break another bit off. I've known her to eat half a packet of digestives like that - happy in the knowledge that she hasn't eaten even ONE! Anyway, It Doesn't Count if You Don't Enjoy It is the sister to that myth.
This myth works on the theory that if you spend the half-hour it takes you to polish off two plates of macaroni and cheese and a large order of garlic bread moaning and groaning and repeating over and over, 'I hate this... I hate myself for eating it... now I'll have to live on alfalfa sprouts for the rest of my life... Oh, I really don't feel well now...' you're somehow making up for the extra four thousand calories in suffering. So it balances out.
It's sort of like crossing your fingers before you lie to someone so you're not really lying - but worse. Because at the heart of the It Doesn't Count if You Don't Enjoy It myth is the idea that YOU AREN'T MEANT TO ENJOY YOUR FOOD!!! You know, that it's okay to eat so long as it causes you anguish - but not if it gives you any pleasure. Which, if you want to know what I think, is tres sick. It's like only dancing if you're guaranteed to break your foot.
(to be continued...)
(Note to You: For those of you trying to find my old Diary it is here... )
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Sunday 6th April 2008 