I think it's something I write about because culture exists on a spectrum. How does pop-culture influence your understanding of the world and inform your writing? You write about pop-culture a lot in your essays. But everything isn't okay, so I recognize that and keep that in mind. But, I also understand the allure of it, this idea that you can just go away and be berated for six weeks and lose a lot of weight and everything is going to be okay. on a case by case basis, am I willing to pay that cost? Am I willing to encourage the negativity that rises out of this thing that I want to enjoy for an hour? "The Biggest Loser" actually isn't a show I watch anymore. So I always try to remember what that cost is.
I think it is well and good to enjoy what you want to enjoy, but you have to also understand that it comes at a cost. I always recognize the issues for whatever it is that I'm consuming and increasingly I try to hold myself accountable. How do you deal with enjoying or analyzing something in pop-culture that might go against what you believe in? You mention in "Hunger" how you are fascinated and also disgusted with "Biggest Loser" and it's effects on people, like the controversial reveal of season 15 winner, Rachel Frederickson and her shockingly low weight. I think dieting culture is pervasive and people admire the discipline and the strength of anorexics because between the calorie restriction and, for many, the over exercising, people think that they are doing what they need to do to keep their bodies in line and people don't see that as disordered when in fact it is. Why do you think that the view of restrictive eating disorders differs from the view of binge eating disorders? I just think that the fat positivity movement needs to be more inclusive and create safe spaces for people to make sure that you can be fat positive and also have bad days, that it's the same as with feminism: you can't fight the good fight everyday. I think there is some pressure but I think that fat positivity and fat acceptance are necessary correctives to fat phobia and a culture that is toxic to fat bodies. Some days it is easier than others to convince myself of that and some days it's not so I just have to keep reminding myself and just faking it 'til I make it.ĭo you think there is too much pressure in the "fat positivity" movement where women are now both expected to project confidence but also are still having to deal with criticism from others about how they look? I just remind myself constantly that I have every right to be in whatever space I am in and I don't have to apologize for it. How do you balance the idea, which you state in your book, that as a fat person you are not allowed to take up space but as a feminist you are expected and encouraged to take up space? There is a great poem that has become a website by a woman named Sonya Renee Taylor called " The Body is Not an Apology" and I think that is something that everyone should try and embrace.
We do not have to apologize for our bodies. All too often women are apologizing for their bodies and taking up less space. I think it's a very difficult thing but I think it's important for women to recognize that their bodies have value, strength, and beauty at any size and in any way that that body exists.