(no subject)

[aesmael]

Why is it some foods it seems are so dreadfully that merely mentioning them or expressing enjoyment for them gets me warned they 'are fattening'? Do they have some kind of radical, permanent overnight effect on biology? I think if that were the case, in this culture they would be long since banned.

It's very frustrating, that this seems to be the only lens people are capable of viewing food through: 'fattening' (= bad), 'non-fattening' (= good). What ever happened to eating for enjoyment? I don't care if food has been placed into a particular moral category. I don't want to care, and I do believe people's bodies will largely sort themselves out.

But I am not entirely impervious to peer pressure. It frustrates me a lot to look at some food or drink item and have my first thought be "that's fattening". Hard not to, when that is the only context everyone around you regards food in, vocally and frequently. At this point, please consider an additional tear-filled rant at culture and advertising destroying people's ability to enjoy even simple things, and an inability to find escape from it.

At least I can and do still enjoy the 'banned foods', but I'd be happier with that rubbish entirely out of my head.

(cross-posted to feminist_rage)

Comments

[smurasaki.livejournal.com]

It's totally crazy making. And doesn't actually make sense when you think about it beyond the "conventional wisdom" (more like lack there of). There really aren't fattening foods.

I wonder if it would help for people to disagree with the knee-jerk "bad food/fattening food" reaction in other people. Could a simple "no, it's good" or "no, it isn't" make a difference? Or are we sensible people too few and far between?