Don't even think about trying this (This = jogging in place while eating celery and cheesecake)

I've talked many times about the fact that the media plays a H U G E role in how we see ourselves—both our bodies and our behavior. Of course, we all know the American obsession with thinness and dieting is largely influenced by the media, and that until the way women are depicted in the media changes, our collective perception of our bodies won't change either.

That's why I'm thrilled to report that General Mills pulled a Yoplait commercial last week (see video above) that makes it appear as if having an eating disorder is normal, even desirable.

In the ad, a thin woman is standing in front of a refrigerator eyeing a cheesecake with raspberries on top. She wants to have a piece but clearly feels guilty doing it, so she tries to talk herself into it by first telling herself that she's "deserves it" and that she'll have a "small slice."

But then her internal monologue goes haywire as she tells herself she can have "a medium slice and some celery sticks and they would cancel each other out" or that she could have a "large slice and jog in place while I eat it." And then finally she wonders, "how about one large slice while jogging in place while I ate celery?"

Watching this woman try to convince herself that it's all right to have a piece of cheesecake is honestly frightening.

Maybe the woman is just a good actress or maybe we're all just a little too familiar with this kind of internal justification process.

Either way, it's scary to see her longing for the cheesecake and trying to convince herself of some way it will be acceptable to eat a piece. It's kind of like watching a healthy person descend into the land of lunacy. No, she's not completely nuts, but she's going to a place that is not healthy or happy, which is what makes it so hard to witness.

And this is the reason why the National Eating Disorders Association complained about the ad, saying that it "felt like a 20-second look at the mind of somebody with an eating disorder."*

Jenni Schaefer, author of Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life, added that "a commercial showing a thin person anxiously doing mental gymnastics in order to justify eating dessert—and then denying herself the treat because she wants to be even thinner—could reinforce the idea that such deliberations are healthy and normal,"* and I completely agree that's what makes the commercial so problematic.

Not only does the ad seem to make light of this woman's eating disorder in order to sell yogurt, it also models that behavior for viewers, which is exactly what we don't want our commercials to do.

Schaefer adds that an eating disorder "often starts with that voice in your head saying 'Eat this but not that... The commercial just reinforced that voice. It made that inner dialogue look normal. It let you think, 'I'm okay. I do the same thing.' But that's not normal. You don't have to open that refrigerator and hear that voice."*

Not only does the ad normalize this unhealthy justification process, it also reinforces the message that thin is better by showing this woman complimenting an even thinner woman on her body. The message is clearly that thinner = better, which is one we get far too often on our television and movie screens.

General Mills ultimately apologized and removed the ad from the airwaves.

I have to say I'm thrilled General Mills didn't try to rationalize their depiction of a woman clearly struggling to maintain a healthy attitude about eating, and I'm equally pleased that they pulled the ad without hesitation. I like it when someone, or in this case something, accepts responsibility for its actions. I'm not even unhappy that the ad is probably getting more air time now than it would have without this controversy because it gives people an opportunity to talk about why this message is so unfortunate.

In fact, if every corporation was as conscientious as General Mills, then maybe none of us would ever engage in this kind of unhealthy behavior again.

I'm allowed to fantasize, right?

* http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/does-this-commercial-encourage-eating-disorders-video-2497971/

Cray cray on Capitol Hill

196 pounds

I don't know if you've heard of Michaele Salahi or not.

To be honest, I wish I didn't know who she was. But as fate would have it, I learned of her existence when she and her husband crashed the Obamas' first state dinner last fall.

Crashing a presidential function in the post-9/11 era?

Not smart, Micheale. Not smart.

I could have written off that misstep as a one-time display of stupidity, but as of late, Real Housewives of D.C. star Salahi has been going after the stupid crown like Paris Hilton at a key party.

Because not only did the 44-year-old Salahi just pose naked for Playboy—classy!—she also revealed that she is completely cray cray in a failed attempt to deny she is anorexic. When an In Touch reporter asked what she thought of the rumors of her eating disorder, Salahi denied it and explained that "I start the day with a hot chocolate and cereal—I love Lucky Charms or Kashi GoLean—then some fruit. I don't really eat a lot in the middle of the day. I have an early dinner, which is always a salad, with plain chicken, grilled or broiled."

The woman only eats cereal and salad and thinks she doesn't have an eating disorder?

C r a z y !

To top it off, Salahi insulted all of us who are not as thin as she is when she said, "If [the women who call me anorexic] get out there and move, they will look like me and be thin, and it'll all be good."

You can call me crazy if you want, but I don't think that if we all stopped eating anything but cereal, hot chocolate, and salad, we would "all be good."

I also don't think that if we just "get out there and move" we'll all suddenly look like Salahi, nor do I think most of us want to look like a middle-aged version of Back-t0-the-Beach Barbie.

Unfortunately, the answer to our obesity epidemic is not that simple, and I guess I should have known that someone who is so desperate for attention would probably not understand the intricacies of our country's weight problem.

This whole thing just reminds me of something I already knew . . . never crash a Salahi party, especially if I haven't eaten.

Monkey see, monkey do

CRYSTAL RENN, AGE 16

198 pounds

I just started reading Hungry by model Crystal Renn, and to be honest, so far I find the whole thing pretty terrifying. I'm about one hundred pages in, and I cannot believe the things Renn did herself to be a model. I'll write a full review of the book when I finish it, but for now, I want to talk about the effect that reading the book is having on me.

As I confessed here last year, I went through an incredibly brief period of starving myself when I was fourteen. My attempt to become anorexic only lasted two and a half days, but I ate next to nothing that entire time. So much so that I almost passed out on the third day, and then, thankfully, gave up my "dream" of becoming anorexic.

Why did I do it?

Many, many reasons, but most of all because of a desire to be more thin and more attractive. But another big reason I did it was because I was reading about it all the time—in countless magazine articles and in dozens of young adult novels.

In fact, there was one specific book that outlined in full detail how the narrator learned to starve herself without detection, and, for a brief time, this book was my bible. I didn't really think about not eating until I read it, and while I did, I got caught up in the protagonist's obsession with losing weight. I was supposed to be disgusted by her choices, but instead I found myself rooting for her. And, eventually, hoping I could become her. I guess in some way it all seemed very glamorous to my foolish and naive adolescent self.

Scary, I know, but what's even more frightening is that as I'm reading Hungry, I find myself thinking the same things. I find myself wondering if I could lose weight if I tried some of Crystal's tricks—like working eight hours a day or eating lettuce every meal—and then I think to myself, What the hell is wrong with you??? You have a blog called "I Will Not Diet," and you're sitting here fantasizing about dieting in incredibly unhealthy ways!!! You are really messed up!!!

I also, just as disturbingly, find myself rooting for the sixteen-year-old Crystal to lose enough weight to have a "gap" between her legs, and then I say to myself yet again, What the hell???? Why do you want her to be that thin???

I think the reason I find myself rooting for the young Crystal to become thinner is because I want her to become the model she dreams of being, and that is almost just as messed up. Shouldn't I want her to be something more healthy like a lawyer . . . or a college professor????

As it turns out, there is a still a part of me—at the age of forty, no less—that can relate to the adolescent desire to be thin and beautiful and . . . wait for it . . . famous. I'm disgusted with that part of me and also incredibly ashamed to admit it to you.

But I am admitting it because I think we can learn from it.

If someone who thinks dieting is so unhealthy that she blogs about it twice a week can start rooting for an adolescent model to be anorexic and even consider trying some of her f***ed up weight-loss techniques, what chance do young girls have of not parroting her choices?

The answer is almost none.

That is, without our help.

While I was walking today, I was thinking about this frightening epiphany I've had while reading Hungry, and I realized that the only thing we can do is talk to the young girls in our life about these issues. We can't stop them from reading these books and articles—first of all, they're ubiquitous and, second of all, the last thing we want to do is tell people what to read. But we can talk to them about what they read.

And once I'd figured this out, I also had to admit to myself something else that's pretty scary, and it's this: I would have NEVER felt comfortable discussing those YA books about anorexia with my own mother.

I'm not sure why—maybe it was because my mother always struggled with her weight, making me nervous about broaching the topic with her and hurting her feelings. More likely, though, it was because we never talked about body issues. I was always fit. (I hesitate to say "thin" only because I've been trained all my life not to think of myself as thin, though in truth, I was thin until I was twenty-six years old.) Because of this, there was no obvious reason to talk about my body. But my brief foray into anorexia proves that there really was a reason to talk about it. I should have been talking to my mom about my body issues all the time, but I wasn't.

Instead I was reading a novel about a young woman who almost killed herself trying to be thin, and I was trying, rather desperately, to be like her.

Nothing beats a home-cooked meal

195 pounds

So now that we can all agree that processed foods are the devil’s handiwork, what can we do about it?

1) Shop on the outside of the grocery store and stay away from anything boxed, canned, or frozen.

2) Buy more locally raised produce, eggs, and meat.

3) Cook at home more and eat out less.

Numbers one and two are not that hard to do if you set your mind to it, but number three is obviously more difficult for many of us, especially if both you and your partner work.

But I learned a wonderful trick this past year that makes it much easier to cook and eat at home.

Unlike most English professors, Karen, the chair of my department, has to go to campus five days a week and work long, tiring days. Her husband Kevin also has a job that requires him to be away from home all day long every day of the week. In that way, they are like most Americans. (Trust me, I know how lucky I am to be able to work at home two or three days a week.) And they are also like most Americans in that by the time they get home, they have little or no energy left for cooking. (A problem that is, of course, exacerbated if you also have children on top of a full-time job.)

But Karen and Kevin are foodies—they love food but they want their food to be fresh, natural, healthy, and usually homemade. In order to stay healthy and eat well, Karen and Kevin cook all of their food on Sundays. They each make one big meal on Sunday, and then stretch that one meal out for three days. So if Karen makes moussaka and Kevin makes steak, they’ll eat the steak for the first three nights of the week and the moussaka for the next three nights.

Once I learned about Karen and Kevin’s routine, I was so impressed that I decided that Dave and I should give it a try.

Because we can sometimes work at home a few days a week, we don’t have to make everything on Sunday the way Karen and Kevin do. Instead we take turns cooking and follow Karen and Kevin’s model of making meals that will last us more than one night a week—one of us cooks on Sunday, we eat that meal Sunday and Monday, and then the other one of us cooks on Tuesday, making a meal that lasts the next two days. On Thursday, the person who cooked on Sunday cooks again, and we eat that meal Thursday and Friday. (And we usually eat out on Saturday.)

Sometimes we stretch the meals out longer, but even if we only have to cook every other night, we always notice how much of a relief it is when half of the time we don’t have to exert any effort for a delicious home-cooked meal. And since we take turns, that means each of us only cooks one or two days a week, which seems doable even for the busiest couples. If we plan it right, we almost never have to cook on an especially long and exhausting day. This is, of course, important since we are all more likely to eat out or eat unhealthy food when we are tired.

Another benefit of this system is that we eat less. If we know that a meal has to last two—or three—nights, we’re much less likely to get a big plate of seconds, a huge benefit for two people who really like their food.

This may seem like an obvious solution to the problem of not having time to cook, and in many ways it is, but until we heard about Karen and Kevin’s routine, it had never occurred to us to do make such a simple change.

It seems fitting that today to end with a recent quote from Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma: “You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want—just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”

The 650-pound virgin

195.5 pounds
I talk a lot on this blog about how women need to accept their bodies no matter their size, but I don't intend to exclude men from this discussion. In fact, I think men suffer from the same kinds of issues as women. Let's face it, we all have trouble accepting ourselves the way we are.

So when I heard about a documentary being aired on TLC about a man who lost 400 pounds, I immediately couldn't wait to hear his story. (If you're interested, this show will be airing again at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15th and 1 a.m. on Thursday, July 16th.)

Thirty-two-year-old David Smith, the "650-pound virgin," finally decided to do something about his weight when his doctors told him that if he didn't, he would die within the next few years.

Smith told himself he had three options at that point: he could have gastric bypass surgery, he could change his diet and exercise habits, or he could kill himself. If seeing the incredibly depressing video and pictures of Smith at 650 pounds hadn't already been enough to make me feel completely horrified by his situation, his admission that he seriously considered taking his own life—and his graphic description of his plan to set himself on fire—certainly would have.

The truth is that Smith's story is heartbreakingly sad and, at times, almost too difficult to watch. He was so unhappy that he nearly ate himself to death. But no matter how hard it was to watch, I still think it's important for us to talk about people like Smith in order to avoid letting what happened to him happen to more people. I often complain about how we try to hide people who are overweight in our society, and Smith's situation proves how dangerous that can be. The more Smith was ridiculed for his weight, the more uncomfortable he became going out in public, and the more he stayed at home, the more he ate. At his worst, he described himself as simply sitting at the window of his house every day and watching the seasons change. His obesity was like a prison he could not escape.

Fortunately, Smith decided to change his entire life rather than end it. He reached out for help, and a selfless local trainer took on his case, initially having Smith do simple at-home exercises—like stand up from the sofa, lift water jugs, and climb the stairs over and over—to get in better shape.

In the end, Smith lost over 400 pounds, having surgery to remove the excess skin and repair other problems caused by his weight gain. And now, despite the scars left over from surgery, he looks like a regular guy.

Everything might sound fine for Smith now, but the problem is that while he was hiding away in his house, he missed crucial opportunities to develop as a person, specifically missing the chance to learn to interact with and date women. And Smith's desire to meet a woman, fall in love, and have sex for the first time in his life is how the show ended up being called "The 650-pound Virgin."

The catch is that he still sorely lacks the skills to approach women, much less ask them out on a date. And, to be honest, this was the saddest part of the documentary: when I realized that not only had Smith missed so much of his life but that he had also missed so much of the learning that happens when we experience life. Smith couldn't simply lose the weight and re-start his re-enter the world. He had to lose the weight, have major surgery, and only then could he even begin the difficult process of learning how to be a functional member of society. And he's still trying very hard to learn to do that.

Ultimately, what I think we can learn from Smith is how important it is to talk about our body issues before we let them get out of control. Smith dropped out of high school because he couldn't handle the constant ridicule from his peers. As it turned out, that was the worst decision he could make because once he disappeared from the world, he ate even more. It's also notable that things turned around for him when he found someone—his dedicated personal trainer—with whom he could talk about his problems, including being molested as a child and losing his mother at a young age.

When I saw the pictures of Smith as a boy—pictures that were described as showing him having problems with his weight at a young age—I honestly didn't think he looked that bad. But from Smith's point of view, he looked awful. And that makes me wonder if he saw himself as obese long before he could accurately be described that way. Did he initially stop interacting with others because of his own negative perceptions of himself? And this makes me wonder whether or not things would have ever gotten so bad for Smith if he simply lived in a society that was more accepting of people of all different sizes and shapes.

I guess the only thing we can do to help prevent this from happening to others is to simply try to be more accepting—not just of others, but also of ourselves.

Don't wait until it's too late

196 pounds
We now know for sure that Michael Jackson only weighed 112 pounds at the time of his death. As I said in my last post, that means he had a BMI that was F A R below what is considered healthy. And as more stories come pouring out of the press, it becomes more and more obvious that Michael Jackson was simply not eating the way a healthy person should.

I think we all have known someone in our lives who has suffered from an eating disorder. For me, it was the older sister of one of my childhood friends who I watched deteriorate to almost nothing right before my eyes. What's sad is that I didn't notice it. My mother had to point it out to me, and even after that, I was still shocked when she spent two different months-long stints in the hospital. And what's even more heartbreaking is that I actually saw her as beautiful—her face was so sunken that her cheekbones were as pronounced as those of a supermodel. And though her hair was falling out, I only noticed her long skinny legs, legs that didn't have any of the fleshiness I had on my own, much younger legs. No, I had no idea that she was sick. I simply thought she was stunning.

So it can't be much of a surprise that, around the same time she went into the hospital, I also stopped eating. I was worried about my "thunder thighs" even though I was only 14, hadn't yet stopped growing, and couldn't have had more than 130 pounds on my 5'4" frame (which would have made my BMI a lean 22).

In truth, I was in absolutely perfect shape—some of the more cruel boys in my eighth grade class used to say I looked great "from the neck down," but I never heard the compliment implicit in that awful statement. Instead I focused on the criticism and, therefore, saw myself as horribly ugly.

My response wasn't to get a new haircut—which I desperately needed—or to learn to stand up straight or look boys in the eye. Instead I stopped eating. I thought that if I just lost a little bit of weight, I would be the most popular girl in my class.

I decided to start my adventures in not eating over a weekend. That way my friends would be less likely to notice. I'd read dozens of young adult novels about anorexia and, from those, had learned all the tricks—eating gum to distract yourself from real food, going to the bathroom while everyone else was in the cafeteria, even counting out Tic-Tacs to make it through the day.

I used the bathroom trick during Friday's lunch, and that night at dinner, even though I'd spent two hours biking around my neighborhood after school, I feigned an upset stomach. By Saturday, my parents were starting to catch on, and in order to get me to eat, they made my favorite meal—if you read my blog regularly, you won't be surprised to find out that was cheeseburgers. They even went so far as to put a big, fat greasy burger on a plate for me even though I said I wasn't hungry, and they made me sit at the table in front of it the entire time it took everyone else to enjoy their dinner.

But my will to be thin was stronger than the intoxicating smell of beef. I continued to claim I wasn't hungry, and my parents scolded me without much success.

My mother took my sister and I shopping at the mall on Sunday, and at around three o'clock, I started to feel the effects of not eating for nearly 72 hours. At first, I felt a bit faint and dizzy. But not long after that, I developed a raging headache. The kind of headache I can still remember 25 years later. It turned out that my will to not eat was not as strong as my body's attempts to fight it. And after all of my misguided intentions, I was in the end not foolish enough to tolerate the physical consequences of not eating. My mom tuned into my failing health and suggested we hit the Wendy's in the mall. Though I wasn't ready to go back to cheeseburgers just yet, I did eat a huge taco salad, which for some reason I thought was lower cal than a cheeseburger, a fact we know now is not always true of salads. (In fact, a Wendy's Taco Salad has 640 calories, while a single hamburger with cheese has 490 calories.)

I wish I could say that that weekend was my last exposure to eating disorders, but if I said that I would not be telling the truth. When I was in college, there were a number of girls in my sorority house who would visit the bathroom together every night after dinner. We all knew what they were doing, but no one did anything to stop them. At least, by then, I was smart enough not to join them.

But later in the evening, when the same group would hit the gym for a late-night workout, I could almost never say no when they knocked on my door to invite me along. I still believed—even at just 150 pounds—that if they were stopping at my door, it meant I needed to lose weight. This despite the fact that by then I was 5'6", making my BMI a healthy 24.

After that grueling headache, I never again considered not eating, though it would be years before I would also give up on dieting. I have realized many times since then how lucky I was to have parents who fought my desire to not eat every step of the way. And I can't help but wonder what would have happened with Jackson if his parents had done something to get him to eat. Would he have needed less pills to get through the day? Would he have simply felt better, both physically and mentally?

It may be hard for some people to understand why the media has been almost singularly obsessed with Michael Jackson since his death last week. But even though I was no more of a fan than the average 39-year-old, I get it. When Michael Jackson stepped onto the stage of the Apollo Theatre in 1983, all of us thirteen-year-olds were watching with stars in our eyes. The whole country was watching. And we didn't stop for many, many years. Jackson epitomized the youth, vitality, and success that we all longed for. Whether we were young and old, he was like magic. And maybe a little part of the reason he had fallen out of favor with Americans was because he seemed to have lost that part of himself, all in the name of being thin and attractive "from the neck up."

Rather than show Jackson at his worst, I'd like to remember him at his best. Which is why I've included an old picture of him above—as the incredibly handsome, fiercely talented, vital entertainer I grew up with.

If you think you might have trouble with an eating disorder, please get help. Talk to a friend or family member, or at the very least, read more about it on the internet. Here's a site to get you started: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eating_disorder_treatment.htm