Image in a Food Centered Society

I would gauge myself as a fairly good cook and baker, and overall gourmet foodie, so I'm pleased to say how impressed I was with the cooking over the holiday. The recipes were great-along with the desserts. Mmmmm. I wish someone would start up a Carboholics Anonymous meeting in my neighborhood. Chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Apple and apricot tarts. Yum. Food makes me happy. I unfortunately was raised in a family (pretty much all slender people) who like food. Mayonnaise is a good thing. So is butter. And Cheese. My mother will spend 200 bucks to prepare a cheese tray at Christmas. I grew up on Saint Andre. I should probably be thankful that it's not kosher.

I started to think over dinner today, how could anyone Jewish be a size 4? (Or Italian, or Greek for that matter) First of all, I've never been a size four. Skinny for me is an 8. And I mean skinny. My ribs show in my back if I'm an 8. I never felt the need to get smaller than that-to weigh 115 pounds. I like being a little curvier (ok, not as curvy as I am right now) but for the most part I like my hips and breasts and honestly don't want to do what I would have to do to be that waif-like. I can't remember a time when my chest was smaller than a D cup. I think I must have been 12.

I have no problem cutting down on things. I'm working on that as we speak, but two hours at the gym everyday and avoiding everything I love is too much to ask. Many women gladly do this. I think a lot of women use their figures as a way of comparing themselves to everyone else. I remember a girl in high school, that was all of 100 pounds, who used to complain in the locker room that her thighs were fat, just so everyone would tell her she was skinny. Grown-ups do this as well. There is something very fulfilling for certain women to get very thin, and then be told by everyone how it would be impossible for one to get that way. It almost gives the skinny girl a sense of pride, and often the feeling of control.

I'm just trying to save eating my favourite carb and fat-laden foods for Shabbos. One day a week hinders complete progress, but at least I won't be a miserable bitch. I feel sorry for anyone in the future who has to be graced with my presence of a fast day. I would hope they would put everyone out of their misery, myself included, and inject me with dopamine.

I started thinking about typical American society. Women are so anorexic right now. Just look at the magazines in the market checkout aisle. When I can see a collar bone protruding on top of a shoulder blade, it gets icky. I saw a woman today in leggings whom your bubbe would have tied to a chair and force-fed schmultz. No lie. I feel like calling it CCC-Concentration Camp Chic.

When did this happen? When did this become the ideal? Men used to fantisize about Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe, Go ga-ga for Sophia Loren. Those actresses couldn't find a job today. Kate Winslet is "chubby" in a size 10. Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, and Catharine Zeta-Jones, are "voluptuous," all wearing a size 6. Apparently Jessica Alba likes being a roll model for "curvy" women. Ok. Here's my schtick. When someone that wears a size 2 is considered curvy, the woman who is 5'8" who wears a 10 and weighs 140 pounds, toned as she may be, is apparently a moose in comparison. A size 12 is "plus sized." Can I tell you how many men stare at me on the street when I wear a size 12? I don't think that they thought I was plus sized. I don't think that most men could tell the difference between an 8 and a 12. The Ford Agency considered me to be plus sized, but that's because they wanted to make money off of my pics. When I think of plus sized, I think of Star Jones before the gastric bypass. Rosie O'Donnell is plus sized. Drew Barrymore is not.

I'm not sure if I'm onto something big here, but it seems that anorexia became the ideal about the same time feminism reared it's ugly head. Right at the time women were supposedly meant to be empowered, we became slaves to diets and the gym. It almost seems that there was a need to look physically adrogynous. Feminity and sex appeal were not anything an intelligent woman would have relied upon. She had brains. She had a PhD. And, in my humble opinion, she cut off her nose to spite her face and banished all of the beautiful charms that G-d graced her with, purposely trying to make herself masculine. I think of that movie "Spanglish" with Adam Sandler. The wife with whom he had lost a connection was hard, muscular, and he fell in love with the maid, who was soft and inviting. Perhaps this is a sign of changes to come?

The only difference I tend to see is in religous, family based cultures. It's never ok for anyone-male or female-to just let themselves go, but I really haven't met any Orthodox men lately who are leaving their wives because they don't have flat abs after 7 kids. Same thing with many Latin American men I know. They want their wife to look good, but they don't pressure them, and they're not ashamed of them if she hits 40 and could lose 20 pounds. My husband was horrible to me about my figure. He would use it as a reason not to touch me, and then come home too late for me to go to the gym, holding boxes of ring dings. What a freakin' help when I was home all day with the kids-Who could pass by treif Hostess treats 100 times and not eat one? Not I. Even after I had lost most of the weight (which is a good 30 pounds less than I am today) my figure was far from where it was at 19. Pregnancy took it's toll, and I often think about plastic surgery. I worry, that when I marry again and I'm undressed for the first time in front of my chosson, that he will be disappointed. That he will think I look better clothed. Then I look around shul, and there are a few skinny women, and more than a few chubby women, about 3 enormous ones, but for the most part, everyone is about average. I guess average means they could probably lose 10 pounds. But they're happy, and if one can be pregnant 5 times and only have 10 pounds to loose, I think she's doing a pretty good job.

I just can't put my finger on what it is that makes this more acceptable. Is it that the hips and breasts of a woman are an inate way of man judging her ability to be fertile? Do these curves make her more motherly? More accessible? Is it a sense of pride for the husband when her pregnant belly starts to show, since we're in a culture where rarely does 3 years go by without a new baby? I do realize this may seem that I've returned to the Age of Innocence, but weren't people actually happier when they had less expectations? When a husband didn't depend on the perfect physicality of his wife as a means of gaining self-esteem?Has anyone else noticed this or am I just super-intuitive to the fact that there is less pressure on either spouse to look physically perfect within O? I'm not saying it's not out there, but expectations are certainly not what I see in the secular, frenzied world that adores Hollywood. I feel pretty lucky to have this be a secondary benefit. I like brownies. And apple kugel. I just hope I'm as lucky as some of the other women I know, to have a chosson who accepts me curves and all, who enjoys my softness, views my pregnancies as feminine, and won't give me a censoring glance when I nibble on the last latke...