Re: Slimming World--anyone tried it ?
Another viewpoint on slimming clubs comes from
Susie Orbach, a British psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer and social critic. Her first book,
Fat is a Feminist Issue, analysed the psychology of dieting and over-eating in women.
Orbach gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry on "Body Image" and criticised companies such as Weight Watchers and Slimming World for misleading slimmers by giving them false hope.
She singled out a TV advertisement used by Weight Watchers, which cost £15m – thought to be the most expensive advert ever shown in the UK. Orbach told the committee that in the advert "everyone was my size, but about 20 years younger" and suggested its publicity material always shows slim people.
To loud applause from members of the public attending the Commons hearing, she claimed these companies were locking their members into "straitjackets for the rest of their lives"
A well known feminist blog,
The Fword, posted this article which is a useful read. It's from 2012.
https://www.thefword.org.uk/2012/02/...ence_of_susie/
It claims that:
"as women, we are living in a commercially constructed diet meritocracy."
One of the objections to the ethics of diet clubs was:
"their fake generosity in introducing you to the (only) answer to your hopeless overweightness. “I liked that nothing was forbidden”, because if something was forbidden, you’d think “to hell with this” and not pay for another week, right? Just count it up in your “How ‘synful’ have I been today?” total, then base your self worth on your ability to know the evilness-level of a Walnut Whip."
The blog concludes with the following paragraph
"When in Fat is a Feminist Issue , Orbach told women to – above all – listen to their bodies, not diet gurus, not calories, not even her, it was 1978. Now, 34 years later . . . have we moved forward at all? Or are women, not passive nor stupid, still victimised psychologically and physically by the diet industry? I’m not denying we as a society are having a body crisis, but slimming clubs are part of the problem, not the solution".