The Politics of Food, Weight and Women

Post CNY binging guilt, I found myself at the gym tonight and the whole place was PACKED to the brim - with lots more women than men. It got me thinking about how many of them were there because they were thinking of that last 10 pieces of bak kwa or pineapple tart that they were wishing desperately would leave their systems.

I swear the big difference between men and women is that men never feel the need to apologise or justify for what they eat. But women seem hardwired to feel some kind of compulsion to explain themselves when it comes to issues of food, weight and their appetite. Women with large appetites get the once-over from other women, "Wow. You can really eat a lot eh." (which can come with a loaded hint that a proper woman should not eat like a piggish man) Women with small appetites also get the once-over,"Eh, why you eat so little. You on a diet?" (of which, then comes an embarrassed revelation "Yes I am on a diet" akin to a confession of moral weakness)

Take the simple statement: "I don't want to eat carbs."
This is sometimes followed up with either a sheepish "I know I sound stupid and neurotic" look or a smug "yeah, cos carbs are BAD for you" or even a challenging "wanna make something out of it?" or perhaps a long explanation of why such an earth-shattering decision was made.

What's even more interesting is how women respond to such statements by other women.

Take the typical "I put on so much weight/I am fat" which will be instantly followed by either an encouraging chorus of "No, no, you are not fat." or a mini contest of ego-battery "No, please, look at MY THIGHS. I am fatter than you. No way you are fat cos what does that make me?" - It's like this strange tactic of affirmation by self-demolition.

Seriously, I wonder why men's heads don't explode from trying to navigate the female brain's complex wiring around the most seemingly mundane (to the men) issues.

The reason why questions like "Honey, do I look fat in this?" or statements like "I put on so much weight" sound so loaded is because it is loaded with a whole minefield of neuroses. The mundane statements touch on far more profound questions beneath the surface: about self-respect, fear of being mocked etc. It doesn't even seem to matter if you are skinny or fat, or put on a whole bunch of weight or lost a bunch of weight - every girl has had to deal with the politics of how to give or take in conversations revolving around food, weight and looks.

Of course, I am just as neurotic about all this as the next woman - thankfully a little less neurotic than I was in my nutjob teen years.

SB offered me a cream puff today, "Do you want a cream puff?"

Thinking of my post CNY guilt, I answered sheepishly,"Ya. But I don't think I can."

SB laughed," Don't be silly lah. Have a cream puff."

When I gave him another helpless shrug and said, "Cannot." He rolled his eyes, "Women. You are all crazy."

Yep, that we are. :)

Ah for the freedom of being a man, eating like a pig and then patting his belly proudly with his buddies. Seriously, there seems to be alot more jollies in a pack of men sharing the woeful beginnings of a pot belly. It's like a mutual "Buddy-boys, it's all down hill from here. Let's go get a prata."

It seems like in a guy's world, things are just more black and white and objective.
Pot belly = Pot belly

whereas in the girl's world, all things have strings attached.
Pot Belly = I have no self-control/I am not attractive/I am useless/I am not sexy/I am a loser/I am not as good as my friends.

Funny thing is - I suspect that when we are talking about issues of career, work and money-making, the roles might be reversed. as in girls will not take earning less than peers, or getting sacked as harshly as their male equivalents.

Hmmm....food for thought. :)

We Have a Wiener!

We Have a Wiener!
Originally uploaded by thejacksons.

this is so hilarious.....what is it about plastic googly eyes that appeal to us? i mean stick a pair on practically anything and it will reduce even a grown man to giggles - okay , at least a smirk of repressed giggles.

Comedian and cook, Amy Sedaris organised this craft contest - i think that is SO brilliant. we should all have a googly plastic eye craft party. so cute.

Visit the rest of the competitors entries at
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sedariscraftchallenge/pool/

i will keeeeeees you

happy valentine's day. :)
(courtesy of cuteoverload.com - my secret comfort food)

what did you do when you were young?

2 weekends ago, some of us were making the last minutes of sunday stretch by swapping childhood memories. It was amazing how light-hearted and happy we got just by recalling past silliness. Nostalgia has a magic of its own. Somehow reminiscing about the past is such a human way of forming connections: it's always interesting to get the know what someone was like before you had ever met them.

We discovered surprising little links between the hijinks we got up in school to what we were ended up doing as careers. The irrepressible Redbeanfish was devising codes for her little Famous Five gang to communicate in; enterprising CL was once hauled up by her primary school teacher for being an illegal sticker seller: she had rubbed her mother's perfume on ordinary stickers to latch onto the then-popular "scratch-and-sniff" sticker craze' ; I was always creating stuff to share with my classmates: I cut bad albums with badly written lyrics superimposed on popular songs. I created magazines full of hand-drawn pictures of my childhood mates as celebrities exiting out of limos, hand in hand with hot guys. I had a flourishing little business where I made paper dolls for friends and regularly updated the dolls' wardrobes with new fashion lines of paper clothes.

We also discovered surprising propensity for mischief that lay behind mild mannered faces: A used to make flying leaps off her family balcony in defiance of her screaming mother; SpyMaster used to hide snails in unsuspecting provision shop owners' deep freezers, in between launching water bombs on innocent passerbys.

There were also anecdotes of how childhood shaped your ethical outlook: I will always remember how I cheated on my chinese exam in Primary Six. My chinese teacher had seen through my pathetic attempts to cover up and chose not to reprimand me during the exam. Instead, after all papers were handed up and all people had left, she took me aside to tell me she saw everything I did and told me never to cheat again. It was pure grace. I never expected it from a chinese teacher I had always associated with fiercely knitted brow, tightly pursed lips and a red pen of fury. I never cheated on a test ever again.

You gladly leave some things behind in childhood: your secret and ill-thought crush on Jordan Knight from NKOTB, your deep desire to go for a Richard Marx concert, your notion that Richard Clayderman was the classiest music on earth, your ill-fitting pinafores.

But some things you should just never let go: your irrepressible search for cheap fun, your belief that a good day is always just around the corner, the simple presumption that you were creative and the notion that all you needed was to make the most of today. Tomorrow would worry for itself.

As to all my friends: I raise a glass of ribena (or if you prefer, lukewarm banana-flavoured UHT milk in square little cartons sitting in the sun) to all our todays and tomorrows. Grow like a Champion, Grow.

How glad I am for such lovely company along the way. :)

A form adequate to its content

I was following a trail of google crumbs when I found Jeffrey Overstreet's blog and his thoughts on Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book:

"Honest stories respect our freedom; they don't manipulate us, don't force us, don't distract us from life.
Not all stories, of course, are honest. There are sentimentalizing stories that seduce us into escaping from life; there are propagandistic stories that attempt to enlist us in a cause or bully us into a stereotyped response; there are trivializing stories that represent life as merely cute or diverting..."

The Peterson quote continues "...The Christian life requires a form adequate to its content, a form that is at home in the Christian revelation and that respects each person's dignity and freedom with plenty of room for all our quirks and particularities."

Overstreet muses quite aptly about the Peterson quote, "There's a whole discussion waiting to happen, just from that quote. "A form adequate to its content." He's talking about the Christian life, but let me tell you... if more Christian artists came to understand that the form of their work is as important as the content, we would have a new rennaissance of artmaking.

I don't know how many times I've received emails in which someone has protested my critique of a mediocre "Christian movie" or "Christian music" saying, "But Jeff, your focus is in the wrong place. It doesn't matter how good the art is so long as the message is good."

Wrong. If we package the message in mediocrity, we show it disrespect, and worse, we make it unappealing to those we would desire as an audience.

The form and structure of the Bible is awe-inspiring. The forms and structure of God's creation... from the ocean to the human body to a hummingbird... are awe-inspiring, excellent, beautiful, and meaningful. In the same way, great art lasts and speaks to us because of its excellence. And there is no art more lasting and powerful than great art inspired by, and reflecting back, God's Word. In fact, the meaning of great art and the excellence of great art are inseparable. They are very much the same thing."

On that note, Tim Jackson from relevant magazine weighs in with another quotable quote. He is comparing a Christian production called Facing the Giants and Stranger Than Fiction, "Facing the Giants doesn’t tell a story so much as it builds a case. Giants is an infomercial for a brand of Christianity. From the moment it starts to its never-in-doubt conclusion, it does what all advertising does: sells. The pitch is clear: Buy Jesus now and as a bonus He’ll fix everything broken in your life.
Art often begins with a question that propels us on a journey to discover the answer. Advertising begins with an answer—whether certain or dubious—and creates questions to lead us to that answer. Stranger Than Fiction is art, even if it’s fluffy pop art. No matter how well made or how sincere the intent, Facing the Giants is essentially a commercial.

I love it when people put words to my thoughts. Saves me hours of pondering and keyboard pounding. Plus usually they do such a spiffy job of summing it up. :)

I will kill to see a well-made film that is sensitive, truthful and balanced about Christ/Christians that does not see the need to hit people with a mighty sledgehammer.

The best theatre productions, films, artwork or books that I have seen about Christians/Christ have very strangely been done by non-Christians. The Christian produced ones just seem so...overloaded/overdone/overwrought....with agenda.

Well sure there is The Passion of the Christ - which I admit I did cry but that was more because of my vested sentiment as a christian and just the sheer brutality of the torture scenes. I did not think Passion was great for pretty much the same reasons why I cannot say Babel was great: well-shot, well-acted but ham-fisted and a little too political for my liking. The audience is pushed into a conclusion by vivid cinematography and a plot driven by the director's intentions more than the story's intentions : The audience is left with no room to discuss or ponder or choose to think any less than what the director has already pre-judged worthy of thought.