The demon in the cupboard (an article written for my student newspaper)

The Demon in the Cupboard: the creation of 'Food guilt' in a dieting society.1

Is it particularly surprising in current society that so many women are utterly confused about their body image. I frequently wonder about this issue while watching endless rounds of cereal adverts on the television which promise to make the consumer as beautifully skinny as the woman on the advert. The cereal woman of course looks beautifully shaped but still wishes to go on a diet of eating cereal for two meals a day, hardly encouraging a healthy body ideal really. You will note of course it is always a woman on the advert, men can be warned about cholesterol but it is women who are told they should be slimming. This is my point in fact, that females are surrounded by things which seem to imply that being on a diet is the normal state for a woman. Put a plate of muffins in front of a group of young women (and I don't mean to generalise here but I do believe there is some truth in this) and one girl will probably take a cake happily, not giving a fig about the consequences, another will ignore them altogether through general strength of will or perhaps dislike. But the most interesting one will be the girl who takes one but feels the need to accompany her eating of the muffin she plainly enjoys with words such as 'I really shouldn't' or 'I'll have to spend extra time in the gym later'. Perhaps they are genuinely on a diet and really will go and burn it off later but what is significant is the fact that they feel the need to do this or, even if they do not burn it off, to say that they are going to as if the great dieting god in the sky is listening and will punish anyone who dares to enjoy a great big joyous cake without feeling terrible about it later. I'm not judging these girls, indeed I'm more often than not one of them but what I'm seeing here is the demonisation of certain foods and specifically of indulgence, what I'm seeing is the build up of food guilt. Food guilt? As if there aren't enough things to worry about in life but there it is, the pressure to eat healthily, or is it even that?. If it were only a pressure to eat healthily that would be justified, after all it only makes good sense to try to cut back on things which might threaten your life. But it isn't that, this bother is not about being healthy its about being thinner and looking good and thats where the difficulty stands. Most people could be healthy but not that many people will ever be able to get that ideal body that television and magazines flash around all over the place. There has been plenty of news for a long time concerning the rise in eating disorders in younger and younger people but these are the extreme cases of how much food guilt can effect people. The pressure to be skinny doesn't necessarily only cause eating disorders in the minority it causes that unpleasant sensation of shame that makes that bar of chocolate rest heavily in the stomach. I'm sure in an ideal world we'd all be happy with our figures and wouldn't pay attention to the signals around us, but this isn't an ideal world and we do, not all of us of course but some, I'd go as far as to say many. How many times does one hear the phrase “Oh I've eaten so much today”? On its own it has no negative connotations perhaps but clearly its usually meant to imply, “I've eaten a lot and this is a bad thing which I feel a little bit guilty about” otherwise no one would mention it.
The demonisation of food and overeating shows up even in adverts for chocolate, the unhealthy stuff itself, showing the products as a sin or as less of a sin in comparison to other great sinners of the sweet world. Suddenly a woman is taking part in some great nutritional crime if she dares to eat a snack that does not have the word 'light' in the name. As already mentioned it seems fair enough that, in a world of rising obesity, people are encouraged to eat more healthily but I often find it hard to believe that anything that makes a perfectly healthy slender woman feel thoroughly ashamed of herself because they enjoyed an extra doughnut or makes that same woman feel that she must always be keeping an eye on what she's eating is wrong. Look at one website link on 'how to stay healthy over christmas' or 'how to burn off those new years calories' and suddenly all the joy goes out of even that annual feast when we all should know a little of what you fancy is good for you. I'm not encouraging over eating, I'm not saying we should all eat exactly what we want when we want. I am merely saying that we should not all be pushed towards thinking that a humble piece of cake every now and then and perhaps a slightly bigger stomach because of it is a sign of sheer decadence and something which we must pay for later.
But the real contradiction comes if you do happen to take the first move towards a diet. Once your friends hear the word diet they will instantly pour scorn on the idea and comments in the shape of 'What on earth are you dieting for' and 'you don't need to at all'. Maybe these comments are right of course but we all know that the support of friends is exactly what you need to resist that piece of cake, but unfortunately its more likely that the piece of cake is in a friends hand, made specially by them and waved under your nose with the words 'one piece won't hurt, relax'. These are of course the same friends who are probably terribly derisive of the slightly tubbier fraternity that appear now and again on tv screens. When you've got over that obstacle there is the interesting contradiction in programs which tell women to be happy with their size while still squeezing them into huge pants to make this shape a little more acceptable and one has to ask, if it was beautiful to start with as you say then why are these magic pants necessary? Then there's the man who expresses his personal liking for a woman who'll order a big steak rather than a salad and but also his distaste for any girl over a certain size. All these messages could easily leave us all sitting there thinking, well am I ok or aren't I? Am I meant to be happy or on a diet? Is that cake a sin or a deserved treat. Everything in moderation of course they always say and yet I'm not sure thats what we learn from these contradictions. What we do learn is confusion, guilt and a little bit of bitterness towards people who seem to have the best of both worlds, a large appetite and a small waist.2

Rachel Gill