Not because of the snow. Or the post-holiday lull, or that fact that the end of December is an oasis of wonderfulness with a week off from work, and January means work again. Not because it is REALLY hard to see the end of winter coming in January, and every day feels a little bit like a battering.
No. January sucks because of the resolutions. Specifically, one resolution: I will lose weight. I will work out more.
The two things go hand-in-hand, obviously. And the worst thing about those resolutions doesn't have anything to do with the people making them; if that's someone's goal for the year, I have no problem with that.
No. Again. My problem is with the commercials. God damn the commercials. Every single block of commercials, every night, no matter if you're watching the history channel or HGTV or the Travel channel or NBC, every single block is chock-a-block with commercials trying to sell you a gym or a weight-loss pill or a diet plan (and let's make NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, WEIGHT WATCHERS IS A DIET). They're awful, the lot of them.
Now, I've done really well with the intuitive eating thing. I haven't lost any weight (but that wasn't the goal, I remind you), but I haven't gained any, either. I don't ever obsess about food anymore. I'm working on making peace with my body, but I can tell you that most days are good days. Most days, I'm myself, and that is enough. And oh my god, that last part? That last part is HARD.
And it is even harder when every other commercial is about how your body isn't adequate. Oh, I know it's not personal, and I know I could just shut the TV off. But how about instead, society isn't constantly telling women their bodies aren't right? How about women stop feeling like they have to buy diets so they can look better? (And frankly, I haven't yet seen a Special K or Weight Watchers commercial aimed at men, though I'm sure some of the gym/workout commercials are.) It's an INDUSTRY, and it's looking to make money, and people who feel fat and ugly are far more likely to spend money on diets and crap processed diet foods than people who like themselves just fine, thanks very much.
There are a few really egregious commercials. Many of them are just unwanted noise--the Alli commercials, or the commercials for Ballys--but oh god, there is one Special K commercial that kills me, and then all those Weight Watchers ones with the "hungry monster" just make me want to rip my eyeballs out. In the Special K commercial, a woman is sitting at a child-size table having tea (and yes, she can fit in a child-size chair because she's SKINNY), she stands up, the chair sticks around her hips as she stands, and voila! Special K is selling you diet food so you butt can get smaller. Never mind that she's an adult sitting in a child's chair. Never mind that. She's too big, dammit, and you are too, which is why you should eat these Special K bars! Or drinks! Or cereal! (Cecily wrote a nice reaction to this specific commercial as well.)
And those Weight Watchers commercials, the ones with the orange beast that is hunger? He's offering you pizza and cookies and chips because you're hungry, and you want to eat, and Weight Watchers is telling you: "hey fatty, walk away from the food." I think the tagline is something like, you can conquer hunger, join Weight Watchers and come to meetings. We'll get the hunger monster off your back. Something like that. Now, whether or not Weight Watchers is taking on other diets that leave you hungry or just saying that when you're losing weight and going to meetings and looking so skinny you won't care about being hungry, I'm not sure. I don't care, because it's obviously ambiguous enough that you could read it either way.
And here's what I think: if you're hungry a lot, it's because you're not eating enough. Or you're not eating the right things to satiate your appetite. And that's disordered. I am someone who was CONSTANTLY hungry doing Weight Watchers. CONSTANTLY. I was maybe full for 5-10 minutes after breakfast and lunch, and then maybe for 30 min after dinner. Yes, I was losing weight. I was assured my stomach would shrink and then I wouldn't need to eat more than a granola bar for breakfast or a bowl of soup for lunch, but it didn't. The hunger monster never got off my back, because I wasn't eating enough. I wasn't eating anything of substance; I ate processed diet crap all day long to try to fill my stomach, and it never worked, and it never left me satisfied. My body was so stressed out by this that I was getting migraines every day by the time I decided to let up a little on the diet. NOT FEEDING YOUR BODY IS BAD
I resent Weight Watchers for implying that feeling hungry is a normal way for a woman to live, and that they can teach you how to live with the hollow pain in your stomach so you don't eat a cheesy, yummy piece of pizza. I resent Weight Watchers for implying that it is decadent and WRONG for a woman to feel full and satisfied by food, and that what she really should feel satisfied by is standing on a scale in a group of other women, and taking pounds off, and feeling virtuous and hungry. I resent Weight Watchers for implying that it is wrong for women to have appetites that need fulfilling, and saying that by denying your appetites, you'll be a better person. I resent Weight Watchers for selling a product that is HARMFUL to women and men by promoting unrealistic expectations, and un-live-up-to-able standards.
I f-ing hate that orange hunger monster. I want to smack Weight Watchers for turning hunger into something bad, for turning appetite into moral destruction, for turning weight loss into profit for them and virtue for women. If you can't tell, the hunger monster commercials turn me apoplectic. That's why it's taken me 19 days to muster a blog post, because I know that I tend to turn incoherent at the thought of these ads, and I fear I've done that here anyway. Never mind that. I had to get it out.