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This promo spot for WeTV’s new show, I Want to Save Your Life, is taking some heat on the feminist blogs today for perpetuating the notion that all overweight women secretly want to be saved.
Is this show sensationalist and ridiculous and overdramatic? Yes. It’s all of those. Will I be watching it? Nope. I’m sure listening to this guy talk for more than 30 seconds will make me want to throw a cupcake at the TV. But these are willing participants — you better believe everyone on this show signed a waiver. They’re there voluntarily. They want to change their lives. And maybe they do want to be saved.
Listen: I’ve struggled with damn near every eating disorder under the sun in my life. Anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia (I didn’t even know it existed until I was diagnosed with it), over-eating, over-exercising, the whole bit. I’ve been there. And I’ll tell you why my eating was so fucked up: Because I was fucked up. Because there was a lot of shit that was wrong in my head and in my life, and it manifested itself through all sorts of food issues. Those issues are long in my past now. I haven’t struggled with my relationship with food in years, and that’s because my family and friends intervened, and I got real, aggressive help, and I got better. I’m now on the high end of the healthy weight for my height, but I eat reasonably and I exercise and, quite frankly, I think my body’s pretty goddamn hot.
Is this guy “real” help? I don’t know. Probably not. But I’m tired of this same old feminist refrain that tells women that they shouldn’t want to change their bad eating habits. If you eat healthy and you exercise and your body still happens to be on the larger side, that’s fine. That’s healthy, that’s your body, and you should own it and you should love it. But let’s get honest here: Many women (and men, for that matter) who are overweight or obese — especially women who are relatively young — have an unhealthy relationship with food, and there’s usually a reason there. As feminists, we would never hesitate to tell an anorexic woman to seek aggressive treatment and to deal with the underlying issues. Overeating is an eating disorder, too, it’s just so prevalent in our society, and it kills so much slower, that we somehow think we should defend it. I disagree. If you’re overeating or you’re eating crap all day, that’s an unhealthy relationship with food — it’s an eating disorder — and women should be encouraged to seek help for that, not to “embrace” it.
I also think it’s why diets don’t work for most people — we’re told to change the way we eat, not to change the way we live. We would never tell an anorexic woman she needs to eat more. We would look at why she’s not eating — we would look at the root of the problem. We would tell her that a lot more needs to change than what she eats, and we would work with her to do that. Until we take the same approach to obesity in this country, it’s going to continue to be a leading killer and an economic drain. I think this guy has the right idea, frankly, even if I don’t much like his delivery.
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OMG wait– with the preview– does that mean that her husband went behind her back to hire some guy to stalk her and watch her eat? HOLY SHIT DIVORCE TIME
Oh, but I agree with everything else you wrote. Wonderfully put. I too have had my fair share of food issues… and yes, just telling someone how to eat better isn’t going to change anything. It’s so all in the brain.
I think people try to ignore how unhealthy a high BMI is, but when a loved one becomes severely underweight, they are so much more apt to try to help them. I wish people would also do this for their obese friends.
And I get sick of it being okay to make fun of thin people, but oh no, you should never do the same for fat people. I have been called names on and off about my weight for the longest time. I have had people throw my anorexia in my face, years after I had reached a healthier weight. It wasn’t funny then, and it’s still not… whoa, whoops, tangent. I just don’t think people comprehend how damaging eating disorders are– and yes, that does include over eating.
I wonder if this dude is a therapist… or has any real training. Oh well. I seriously doubt I will watch it… but I won’t mind reading about it on blogs :)
the “same old feminist refrain” says that women shouldn’t change their eating habits in order to be attractive to men…there is nothing in there that says they shouldn’t change for themselves in order to be healthy
Ugh.
That show makes me sick.
Anyway, am I the only one that thought the woman on there didn’t look that big? I feel like this show might be better if they got really big women
omfg wtf honestly? Personally im overweight, and i don’t eat hot dogs, ice cream, and pizza in a row! i hate that everytime a person is over weight that they must eat junk food and fast food everyda, if that was the god damn truth i would have lost all the weight 3 years ago when i cut out fast food, its genetic, its age-based, its not because we got out and eat and sit on our asses all day!
Sadly, this show got picked up because it promises to be a huge trainwreck, and while individually we may not be to blame, as a whole, we ask for this shit.
I’m currently studying nutrition. It’s incredible the things you learn about why people are overweight, obese, etc… It’s because we have NO clue what we’re eating or why we’re eating it. I was shocked when I first began to learn how our bodies actually use the food we eat. Unfortunately, being obese or even overweight is rarely “genetics,” it’s generally poor eating habits. And I’m not really sure we can blame ourselves. When the only education on food we have are fucking massacres like “Skinny Bitch” and shows like this one, do we really even want to learn?
I want to see a show come out that’s all fact. Screw this reality TV bullshit. Screw fad diets, unrealistic goals, and further promotion of self loathing. I want to see the Mr. Wizard of health and nutrition shows come out – something to teach the basics that we’ve known all along but strayed away from after everything became a genetically modified hunk of cheap shit to fill us up. Where is the REAL help??