Why?

I am not dieting for one whole year. On March 1, 2008 my social experiment began. This blog chronicles my experiences of not dieting. More importantly, it provides support to those who seek more information on not dieting.

Send tips or personal stories of your own to: hostess (at) notdieting (dot) com

12 March 2008

If it looks like a diet, and smells like a diet...



I am so sick of diet companies trying to re-market their old rules and regulations as lifestyle changes. Jenny Craig's VP of Marketing, Todd Parker, claims their new marketing strategy is to promote a "very different campaign, focused on a healthier lifestyle, not on getting onto a specific dress size." The spokesperson leading this campaign will be none other than Queen Latifah. Wait...what?

Queen Latifah has been a long time supporter of size acceptance. "It's good for regular girls because the meter [for beauty] has been a slim white girl. Beauty is not just a white girl. It's so many different flavors and shades. [In Hollywood] we've definitely gotten better with body type. It used to be just me!" she stated in an interview with People last year. I guess now the beauty meter has embraced the idea of a slim African-American girl as well. Hooray.

"Queen Latifah joins forces with Jenny Craig to communicate the importance of how small lifestyle changes, in the areas of diet and exercise, can have positive effects on overall health." Following Jenny Craig is not about implementing small lifestyle changes. One of my friends joined Jenny Craig and spent $400 a month on their food. She learned nothing about how to eat in the real world. The diet was incredibly strict and if she strayed from it at all, she had to report it to her Jenny Craig counselor in their weekly confessionals.

When I joined Weight Watchers, they promoted it as a lifestyle change, which I completely fell for. Counting POINTS in WW and eating Jenny Craig's sodium-laden cuisine are both highly restrictive forms of eating. The POINTS system is so complex that a good portion of each weekly meeting is spent on clearing up misunderstandings about them. My meeting leader subscribed to his WW lifestyle change so much that he asked his host (for Thanksgiving) to submit all the recipes she would prepare in an email to him. Then he calculated the POINTS for each specific dish. What a fun guest! There is nothing better than having to prepare a menu report for a friend to analyze before they attend your gathering.

WW and Jenny Craig are both diets. Before you subscribe to either one, be honest with yourself about that.

Photo by Matthew Jordan Smith

1 comments:

Plain(s)feminist said...

Hey, Caitlin,
A commenter at my place sent me over here. Interesting post. I disagree somewhat with your analysis of WW, however. I don't see WW as highly restrictive, particularly not when compared to diets or plans that program what you eat, like Jenny Craig or South Beath. I do see WW as forcing you to change *what* you eat, but I certainly eat a ton of food on WW. I also have not found the points system to be at all complicated - but your leader did seem to be a bit, uh, how do you say? Oh, yes - RUDE. I don't think that behavior is necessarily the norm. Many of the meetings I've been to over the last several years have focused on how to attend holiday/celebratory gatherings and not end up eating what you don't want to eat. None of the suggestions ever involved insulting your host in such a way!

Anyway, FWIW.

Thanks for your post!