Woman's Hour Diet Special - A bit of a rant!

Today Woman's Hour dedicated the entire show to a dieting phone-in with the following premise:

"Are you a habitual dieter? What strategy has worked - or gone horribly wrong - for you? Why? How much have we been conditioned to think we have to watch our weight every minute of the day? And can dieting ever be the answer, or should we just learn to love ourselves the way we are?"

We know that quite a few Beyond Chocolaters called in to take part in the show (thank you to all of those of you who did, by the way, we appreciate your support HUGELY!) eager to talk about their experience and spread the word. They wanted to talk about how much better their lives were since they'd stopped dieting, how much more in control they felt about food and how they viewed their bodies in a completely different light. They wanted to talk about the fact there is another way -  the only viable alternative to dieting or 'just learning to love ourselves the way we are'. They know from experience that when we have a happy, healthy, balanced relationship with food and and our bodies - we reach a happy, healthy, balanced weight as a consequence. When we stop focussing on the symptom, which is the weight, we can start to make changes. When the researcher who screened their call to decide if they would be aired on the show or not asked how this had come about they went on to talk about Beyond Chocolate and how it had changed their approach to weight-loss completely. 

Result: none of them were aired because they were considered to be 'promoting a company'. Instead, Woman's Hour interviewed a real estate agent who had lost lots of weight and whose best tip for success was to 'eat less but don't deprive yourself and move more'. Then they talked to cognitive behavioral therapist (another man - Excuse me, this is WOman's Hour is it not?) who said some pretty reasonable things about the problem being our emotional attachment to food and then said that it would be great if 'people had downloads they could listen to when they get the urge to eat'. Of course, no mention was made of where those downloads could actually be found (pssst...we've got a few good ones here - the Stop Overeating and 1 Minute Mantra ones are just the ticket).

I'm sitting in front of my computer listening to this and thinking of the millions of women out there who have tuned in to listen with the hope of finding an alternative, of learning something new and inspiring so that they won't have to go on another diet doomed to failure or just give up and learn to live with being overweight and instead all they get is a real estate agent telling them to give up drinking and eat less so that they shrink their stomach....and I feel furious. 

Not because I want Woman's Hour to promote Beyond Chocolate so that we can get rich (that would be the day!) but just to break this cycle of talking absolute drivel every January and to give desperate dieters - and the growing number of women who have given up altogether - another way forward. There are thousands of women who have turned their lives around thanks to the Beyond Chocolate Principles - it's doable, realistic and we don't take the piss by ripping people off and selling false promises - it's absurd that more women don't know about it.

The media won't give Beyond Chocolate any air time because that would be a gross and unfair promotion of a money making business (What money?! I haven't paid myself a decent salary since I started 10 years ago - I do it because I'm passionate and determined to get the word out!). On the other hand, dieting companies like Weight Watchers and Lighter Life are busy making millions by infiltrating doctor's surgeries with glossy brochures and the National Obesity Taskforce....the mind boggles.

Rant over.

Is Body Love missing the point?

I was called by a journalist last week to contribute to a debate article they are running in their magazine in January. It’s called ‘Is body love missing the point?’. The person who was arguing that body love, whatever that means to her, is indeed missing the point, thinks that we should simply ignore how our bodies look and focus instead on what they do for us. She thinks (and I do apologise if I have misunderstood her point of view, since of course I am relying on what the journalist who interviewed me told me that she thinks…) anyway, she thinks that focusing our attention on how we look is missing the point. She says that we should value ourselves for the work we do, for the power of our minds, for the things our bodies do, like sports or walking, running, carrying...for the things we do as women that have nothing to do with how we look. She thinks that having bigger models on the catwalk is just creating another body size/type to aspire to which millions of women will fall short of which will just leave them feeling that they are not good enough, again.

 Focusing on body image and how we look, she thinks, is missing the point about how we value ourselves and that we should ignore it. I was asked to present the opposite view. Well, it’s not that I don’t agree with many of my opponent’s (opponent only in this debate of course!) views. I absolutely agree that as women we should value ourselves and be valued by others for who we are rather than how we look. I absolutely agree that we are missing the point if we think self worth can come from looking good and being thin or indeed from any body size, whatever the current fashion. I I fervently believe that women should be celebrated and valued for the work they do, whether it is paid employment or parenting and I feel angry when I see women objectified and objectifying themselves.

And I also think our bodies are a part of who we are, I do not think it’s appropriate or healthy to ignore our bodies, to give up caring about how we look, to focus solely on our minds and our spirits. The way we look, the way we dress, the way we care for ourselves physically is important, it’s is not the most important thing about us, but whether we are talking about women or people in general, being healthy, fit and enjoying our bodies (in all sorts of ways!!) is part of being human. The way we dress and the way we hold and shape our bodies is a very important part of how we communicate with each other and with the world. Our bodies speak in so many ways.

Do I think it is helpful to have larger models on the catwalk, YES! Do I think that it sends out a message that beauty is in all of us, at any size, YES! Would I love to see top designers creating clothes for women who are a size 14, 16, 18 and beyond (actually, do they even design for size 10's and 12's these days?). Why should beautiful, carefully designed clothes be only for tall, slender women? YES, YES, YES! The clothes that are made for the tiny models that grace the catwalk today just look wrong on me - I have lumps and bumps, where they are straight and flat and I’m quite simply far bigger than they are! Would I like to see women of all sizes celebrated? YES! And I think it’s OK to pay attention to how we dress and how we look, it is part of caring for ourselves and that’s what makes us feel good. It is also one outlet for self expression, for expressing our creativity, colour, style and beauty.

Body love, when it means feeling good about the way we look, without having to follow fashion either in size or style, when it means taking pleasure and having fun with fabrics, textures and colours and styles, when it means feeling comfortable looking in the mirror, when it means living in the body we have without restrain or shame, when it means valuing ourselves for all of who we are including how we look as a part of the whole, is most definitely NOT missing the point! Join the debate. What do you think?