13 April
Tyranny
I came across this graphic novel called Tyranny in my local library today. It’s a story about a character named Anna developing and eventually overcoming her eating disorder. The author/artist Lesley Fairfield struggled with body image/eating disorder issues for 30 years and has been recovered for 20 years.
Here are a few snapshots from the book:… Read The Rest
11 April
Pretty Face
In a Daily Beast essay Ashley Judd makes many valuable criticisms of the recent media/tabloid speculation regarding her “puffy” face (you can read it here).
And while I don’t agree with this LAT editorial, it points to another truth- that Ms Judd has spent her career making money off her beauty.
Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about the conflict between wanting to be seen as a multi-faceted, smart woman and, to also be seen as attractive. While it seems obvious that these two things can coexist, I do think that many women struggle to manage their relationship with their drive for beauty. Because there is such a strong emphasis placed on being attractive for women and beauty is seen as a source of power that often seems to overshadow other accomplishments, it is very easy for this drive to flare up. Not to mention that solutions to beauty seem much more accessible, i.e.… Read The Rest
11 April
Putting Time In
A year ago I left my husband in New York and went back to Los Angeles for the opportunity to work and train at The Eating Disorder Center of California- an affiliate of Monte Nido. The EDCC is a unique treatment environment where the staff is recovered and I was excited about being a part of it, but it was also a very difficult decision to move to the opposite side of the country and put a part of my life that I highly value “on hold” (my marriage) while I pursue another part of my life that I value deeply (my career and my desire to work with eating disorders specifically).
I am now back in New York, settling in, and have had a little bit of time to reflect on my experience. I am glad that I did it. I don’t regret a second of it. I’m amazed at how natural it feels to be back home, living with my partner, hopping on public transport rather than driving.… Read The Rest
04 April
Killing Us Softly 4
Jean Kilbourne is a feminist author, speaker and documentarian known for her series of films critiquing the advertising industry and connecting advertising to such issues as violence against women, eating disorders and addiction. Here is the 4th and most recent addition to the series Killing Us Softly 4. Well worth the watch:… Read The Rest
03 April
NPR: Interview with Judy Avrin of Someday Melissa
Tell Me More on NPR recently interviewed Judy Avrin, the mother and producer of the documentary Someday Melissa, about her 19 y/o daughter who died after a 5 year battle with bulimia. It is a heartbreaking interview that highlights that people do sadly die from eating disorders and that you can’t necessarily judge how ill someone is by their weight.
14 February
Can I have your attention please?
Here is an interesting NYT article about Mayor Bloombergs response to criticism over a recent anti-obesity ad where a man’s leg was photoshopped out for dramatic impact.
Fear based campaigns in general seem tricky, not because they don’t work, but because the unintended consequence of dramatizing the message is that people may discredit it by saying, ”but that won’t happen to me” or by avoiding the message because it’s overwhelming (like this driving+texting PSA which I couldn’t get through). The ad also made me think about the many people with Type II Diabetes who have lost limbs to their disease, why not have a real person in this situation participate in the campaign? If not for authenticity alone. But would that make its message more powerful?
Then I remembered a shocking anti-anorexia ad from a few years ago, which did feature a real person. It was not a PSA like the one above, instead it was an actual ad for a clothing line done by a controversial artist Oliviero Toscani.… Read The Rest
30 January
Saturday Support Group Pasadena
TIME: Saturdays TBD
Although an excellent adjunct to therapy, this peer support group should not be used as a replacement for therapy.
30 January
Funny ha ha: Bossypants
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From Tina Fey’s book Bossypants:
“…I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom–Beyonce brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl must have:
- Caucasian blue eyes
- full Spanish lips
- a classic button nose
- hairless Asian skin with a California tan
- a Jamaican dance hall ass
- long Swedish legs
- small Japanese feet
- the abs of a lesbian gym owner
- the hips of a nine-year-old boy
- the arms of Michelle Obama
- and doll tits
The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.… Read The Rest
23 January
Appetites + Tangents
Carolyn Knapp’s Appetites (2003) is packaged as a memoir of anorexia, and though it does include the story of Ms Knapps’ struggle with the disorder, the book is about much more than that. The word appetite is used, not in the conventional sense of hunger for food, but broadly as in female hunger for pleasure, for experience, for achievement and beyond.
The cover of the copy I read had a blurb from Salon asserting that Appetites is “the smartest anorexia memoir ever written.” Something about this tag grated on me as I read each chapter. What is that? Maybe its that it oversimplified the book, reduced it to a pathology in its most minuscule terms. Maybe its that anorexia never feels quite so smart, as it does cunning and driven. Maybe its the low pitch of a distorted subtext, that Ms Knapps eating disorder was smarter than somebody else’s, smarter than mine.… Read The Rest
21 January
Lauren Greenfield
Documentarian Lauren Greenfield (THIN and Kids + Money) debuted her most recent work The Queen of Versailles at this years Sundance Film Festival. The film, dubbed as a rags-to-riches-to-rags menagerie, is described by the DailyBeast as:
“The unbelievable-but-true story of Florida real-estate tycoon David Siegel and his ex-beauty-queen wife Jackie, who nearly went broke while trying to build the biggest house in the country.”
The house at the center of film is a 90,000-square-foot palace that is “loosely” modeled on Versailles, French King Louis XIV’s 17th century estate. Apparently there are 10 kitchens, 30-plus baths and a closet so big a visitor mistook it for a master bedroom.
In an interview with the LAT, Greenfield talked about what drew her to following the Siegel’s story, “I’m not as interested in rich people as I am in our values. I’m interested in consumerism in our culture and how powerful it is,” she says.… Read The Rest
