Atelier Doré

Disons que manger sans y penser, je ne sais plus le faire…
Et franchement, j’adorerais ne pas me prendre la tête sur le sujet mais c’est juste impossible pour moi!

Les diètes oui, mais pas pour un enfant, c’est inhumain de commencer à penser à son poids quand on est tout jeune… Comme on l’entend souvent, la société est beaucoup trop axée sur les régimes et sur le culte de la minceur.

Gaby Lang
http://gabylang.blogspot.com

Luckily I never had problems with my body, but there are many people who need help!

Elisa from MY FANTABULOUS WORLD

Ben, à Paris, on en est pas encore là.
Dieu merci.
Les filles ne font pas le (archi) grand écart entre Mc Do et Jucemachin.

Quelle horreur, quand même, non ?
(de penser tout le temps à la bouffe qu’on absorbe)

Alors que manger, c’est tellement agréable, tout simplement.

J’ai grandi avec une mère et une grand mère gourmandes mais totalement au régime. Un peu comme ce que tu décris avec les NY capables de « craquer » (rien que la sémantique est intéressante) mais compensant après par une semaine à la soupe ou à manger que des tomates et du thon. Ma petite soeur et moi avons commencé par un rapport compliqué et culpabilisant à la bouffe (ma soeur envoyé chez un nutritionniste et ma mère faisant « attention » quand on se resservait des pates). Et pourtant, ça n’a pas pris, je devais trop aimer les millefeuille
Je suis loin d’être en surpoids, selon les critères médicaux, mais comme toutes les filles j’aimerais que ce soit plus mince, svelte, élancé. Mais je ne fais rien pour: je mange au resto quasi tous les jours, je ne me prive de rien, mais je ne mange qu’à ma faim et je fais un tout petit peu de sport.
Et au final… je ne fluctue plus trop sur la balance, j’ai une silhouette qui n’est pas parfaite mais harmonieuse, très satisfaisante vu mes non efforts et ça me suffit. Et ce qui me plait le plus dans tout ça, c’est que je ne calcule pas ce que je mange, je n’ai jamais fait de régime, je ne me rends pas malade pour une part de gateau en trop… Bref, j’ai l’impression d’avoir laissé les angoisses diététiques de ma famille au placard, et ça me fait très plaisir!

I find your observation very intriguing since I never thought of that the relationship with the food could be overly sailent to some people and not to others. and also I’m glad and refreshed to see this kind of matter in a fashion blog. As always, thanks for sharing.

I’m with you Garance, I was troubled by this story. While I support the idea of monitoring what your child is eating, and offering a health diet, to me this mother was projecting a lot of her own issues about beauty and weight on her daughter. It wasn’t as much about health as it was about vanity, and that I found disturbing.

This young girl will be judged by everyone around her on her appearance, can’t her mother be the one person who won’t torment her about her physical appearance?

I don’t want to judge, I’m not in their shoes. But there is a distinct hint of superficiality in this story.

xoxo
http://www.natashafatah.blogspot.com

Hey Garance,

How annoying! I have noticed the exact same approach with almost everyone around me in London…

I remember in Paris or in Provence, we would go out and drink wine with tapas, charcuterie/cheese mix. Here, the idea sounds great, but the actual act would be shocking! Especially 2 months away from the bikinis!

And what is even more annoying is this way of keeping it « out of the table ». Why not talk about it! Is it not the best way of giving each other good tips and advice.

Here is one advice: Follow the French diet, it’s the best one and you can enjoy every little pleasure in life!

Xx

http://murmureparis.wordpress.com/

Je trouve triste que le poids prenne une telle place dans la vie au point de ne parler que de ça ! Allez donc au ciné, lisez un bon bouquin et souriez !
Et imposer en plus aux enfants (!) cette obsession… c’est tout simplement navrant, y’a d’autres choses à faire dans la vie à 7 ans !!!

Dear Garance,
It’s so difficult to answer in few lines…
Yes, I know a lot of beautiful brilliant women who live always dieting.
Yes, I used to diet when I was 19.
Then I luckily understand food is not my priority, I split up food and emotions, fell in love, got married and had two lovely children. And magically I’ve never felt so beautiful before. And I really am. Happiness and selfconsciusness embelish more than anything.

Mme

J’ai malheureusement l’impression que même en Europe celà touche beaucoup de femmes. Personnellement, ni vraiment grosse, ni vraiment mince, mais depuis toujours complexée par mon poids et mon rapport à la nourriture ( je me cachais pour manger des chipters dans un placard..c’est dire), je me suis décidée à aller voir une nutritionniste pour tenter d’y voir plus clair au milieu de tous les messages auxquels nous sommes soumises aujourd’hui (juicing, detox, cures, thé, massages, Dunkan, Zermati, etc etc etc). Mon but est juste de tenter d’être bien dans ma peau et de manger équilibré, non seulement pour ne pas être trop grosse mais aussi pour donner de bonnes choses à mon corps, un peu dans la logique de ce que tu décrivais quant tu disais qu’il fallait commencer à penser à comment entretenir notre capital à notre age (j’ai le même que toi). Je pense en revanche qu’au delà des règles de nutrition, il y a de très nombreux facteurs qui entrent en jeu ( hormonaux, génétiques, psychologiques, etc), qui sont bien entendu plus difficiles à maitriser.

Most women I know have a pretty complicated relationship with food. Sometimes board line scary with them being completely irrational about food and what they ‘need to be doing’ regarding meal times. I personally got a bit mixed up about good nutrition a few years ago so saw a nutritionalist and now eat healthy and super well. I am very aware of what I eat but would not deprive myself or put a host out by being tricky about what I could or couldn’t eat. I have pretty much trained myself to healthy eating I guess and unhealthy/rich food makes me feel really ill. Weight is no longer an issue.

In terms of putting a child on a diet – I would. If I needed to. By diet I mean removing processed food, sugar, fat and make sure my child ate super healthy to get excess weight off. Food lessons in childhood set the foundations for later life so I do not want my child getting off to a bad start. I take my own children swimming once a week and am seriously shocked by the fat children waddling around the pool. Isn’t that a kind of child abuse? It is lovely to that children and food is love. But there has to be a limit otherwise they will probably carry that weight their whole life and it will dominate their sense of well being.

After living in the city and now in the country, I have found that it is most helpful for us to live in the country where unhealthy food choices are less readily available. We have to be more intentional about going to the market once a week and planning our entire week’s menu for your family. And in the summer, most neighbors are either selling their garden produce or giving it away. Our kids are 7 & 9 y.o. and have always tried to feed them « real » food. Once we as parents followed that rule, it has become a healthy habit. I guess I’m just saying logistics can be a big help or hindrance. . . . but no matter where you live, sugar is the devil! =)

Garance, I think this post is very needed. Exposing food issues is an important way to fight with them. Thank you for not silencing the dark side of fashion.

Problems associated with weight gain are unfortunately very common and it’s always good to talk. it is a very sensitive issue and it is always good to face it with honesty and clarity.
I’ve really appreciated this post Garance.

Kisses

Silvia
http://bornineightytwo.com

Try living in the South. Everything here is fried. Every meal you ask yourself should I eat this. It’s a culture down here. Every wedding, party, night out involves fried food. Even our salads will have some sort of fried food (crawfish, chicken, etc). And it’s not exactly pedestrian friendly down here. Can’t exactly walk to the neighborhood grocery store. So it does become an obsession on how do I lose 5, 10, 15 lbs. It becomes a life long battle and sometimes you just don’t want to fight it anymore.

piouffffff c’est fou.

A Paris, je n’ai pas l’impression que les filles pensent autant à leur poids. Ou peut être juste dans le milieu de la mode? En tout cas, on ne parle pas bouffe avec mes amies, ou juste de nouvelles recettes!! Quand à moi, je sais me réguler un peu machinalement : si gros craquage genre gros burger, alcool, raclette ….. —> je mangerais plus de légumes et de fruits les jours suivant mais sans faire régime.

Tiens, en parlant de recette, voici ma recette du dimanche, une grosse tuerie (pas pour les filles au régime!) :
http://www.elsamuse.com/2012/03/la-recette-du-dimanche.html

Un rapport quoi?? avec la nourriture ?

Je n’ai jamais été la fille filliforme, ça c’est ma sista’. moi, j’ai toujours été charnelle. Pas pulpeuse, non, mais avec gentiment 2/3 kilos en trop.. et puis parfois, la machine s’emballe.
Moi, le stress me fait grossir. Ou plutôt, le stress me pousse à manger trop, beaucoup. Beaucoup trop.
J’ai un bon job dans la tv, avec des responsabilités…et donc pas mal de stress..Tu vois déjà le topo ?

Ensuite, il y a les amoureux…quand on le rencontre, les papillos qu’on a dans le ventre se nourrisent d’amour et d’eau fraiche, donc tout va bien..puis, parfois on se sépare…et quand ma dernière histoire (bien moche) s’est terminée, ben, je me suis punie un peu. beaucoup. J’ai pris 15kgs en un an…et bien sûr, il est hors de question que je rencontre un homme dans « cet état ». l’histoire du chat qui se mord la queue…

A Paris, on parle pas encore à ce point de nourriture, mais, j’ai des amies qui ne dinent jamais le soir, d’autres qui pratiquent le sport à outrance, pour garder la ligne…Je pense que cela ne devrait pas tarder.
Mais, cette femme, devrait-elle laisser son enfant grossir et se mettre en danger? Je ne pense pas. La vie des enfants gros est assez pénible, physiquement et moralement (j’imagine les brimades à l’école, les moqueries..)
Au delà du regime, c’est un mode de vie sain qu’il faut adopter. et faire un peu de sport..
Tout cela est profondément cupabilisant, et on ne parle/pense jamais autant à la nourriture que lorsqu’on est au regime…
Pour l’instant, je mange ce qui me plait, sans outrance, et avec plaisir. C’est le printemps, il fait beau, les marchés vont crouler sous les légumes de toutes les sortes et toutes les couleurs, et moi, je me remets gentiement au Vélib’…
Ah! bien sûr, si j’avais une baguette magique….(je serais aussi épaisse qu’Erin Wasson – juste 24h dans ma vie, etre si mince/maigre qu’on n’a plus de seins. Pour tester)

I think it’s very easy to judge when you’ve never had food « problems », a lot of people do.

I’ve always been a bit overweight ever since my childhood. Not fat but chubby let’s say.
And my mother would control my food, not in a sick obsessive way but in a very maternal and thoughtful manner, because she knew that even a piece of chocolate per day for a week would have been enough to make me gain 2 kilos.
She wouldn’t buy chocolate or unhealthy snacks for example, they simply weren’t at home. She would cook healthy (we’re Italian and most Italians luckily know what healthy cooking means. No butter, no useless fats, « good » carbs, lots of veggies, fish and lean meat but in the end the food is soooo delicious).
She would make me notice, in a very gentle way, if I wasn’t looking that good in that pair of tight trousers because I was losing control of my weight and motivate me when I was looking great.

An obese or severely overweight kid it’s not just a matter of looks. It’s a matter of health, first of all. And a matter of his social life. I don’t know if people have an idea of how hardly obese kids can be bullied. Or how this can interfere with their social and sport activities.
Probably if everyone could spend a week (even though a day would be surely enough) in the shoes of an obese 12 year old there wouldn’t even be the necessity to discuss on whether diet for kids is good or not.

The problem is, I get fat just by looking at food. It’s my metabolism. And as a kid you need your parents to give you guidance, because you’re simply not mature enough to give yourself a balance without any advice.

I’m much more scared of parents that pretend not to look where their child weight is going because otherwise they would look like monsters and control freaks.
It’s like parents that are scared to scold their children because they fear to be too strict. I’ve never really got all this « modern » pedagogy that pretends to treat kids as adults.
They’re not adults, they need to be formed and need to be educated in order to be adults one day. And you surely can do it in a balanced and gentle way, surely there is something in between a Stalin-like education and a do-whatever-you-want-we’re-flower-children attitude.
My parents were like that, balanced and not scared to be strict when needed, and I’m grateful.

Now I’m constantly on a « diet ». A balanced, good diet. No fasting, no juice cleansers, no Mac Donald’s and chocolate cake-nights excesses that make me feel guilty and want to throw up everything.

I have up and downs, of course, unluckily it’s in my DNA (literally).
For example when I moved to Belgium I gained really a lot of kilos. Change of habits, new job, completely different life (and lifestyle)
Now I’m on a diet (followed by a dietician) to lose them all and get back to my usual weight: not thin, not fat, curvy… me.

If it wasn’t for my mom maybe now I’d be 200 kilos and having lots of health issues. Or maybe 80 kilos and after 6 months 60 kilos, switching constantly from junk food craziness to juice cleanse and yoga fixations. Or even worse, I could be an anorexic, after experiencing an adolescence of obesity and social issues because nobody ever taught me how to eat.

Thank you mom.
And congratulations to Dara-Lynn Weiss, who decided to take action, even in this judgmental society, and (try to) preserve her kid from a potential painful future.

Al

you know, it’s very cool of you to mention this article in vogue. i read Weiss’s frankness to be narcissistic, trying to be so honest only to justify herself. Her daughter suffered nasty humiliation, and is too young to defend herself, or even recognize that her mother has her own issues. I hope she finds another role model who teaches her to eat pasta without guilt, and who shows her how to make a delicious salad with a healthy sandwich. My mother was just like this, and although in my teens I had some obsessive thoughts with my weight, they were short lived, and can say that except for those few months, I ate and eat with pleasure.

there do need to be more discussions on eating, thanks for bringing it up

Well written,as always. For anyone not born in the US and who came to this country later in life ,it is startling to see how enormous food portions are. Free refills for gigantic cups of sodas are also unheard of. No wonder it all shows in sizes of an alarming number of Americans (young and old alike)..
I’m led to believe that most Americans, if not all, have a sad relationship with food, seldom
taking it for what it is, a nourishment to be taken with pleasure.

J’ai aussi beaucoup de copines qui se prennent la tête! Certaines sont même tombées dans l’excès. J’arrive pas à comprendre comment on peut autant s’auto censurer pour un acte aussi naturel et aussi agréable!

Cela dit, toutes celles qui se prennent la tête (dans mon entourage), ont une mère qui se prend la tête.

C’est terrifiant parfois! Mais du coup c’est aussi très agréable de trouver une copine sans complexe qui viendra volontiers manger un Bigmac + frites + coca + sunday sans aucun chichi!

Finalement « croquer la vie à pleines dents » prend tout son sens. :)

While I read the posts in French I will respond in English so that my poor grammar does not give me away ;)

This article touches me personally as a woman in college in NY I see this battle daily in my closest friends and hear it in the cafes with girls drinking their venti caramel frapaccinos from Starbucks. « Carb-counting » is probably the most popular and biggest problem for women and girls, as in the U.S. we are taught through our everyday culture that your weight is your defining feature. Being of a smaller physique and a better metabolism I do not fight the same battle as these other women, however, the constant reminder that I could be more ‘toned’ is always on my mind.

The major problem is nutrition and ignorance towards what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. Often times people will think that ‘diet’ is better because there are less carbs/sugar when in reality in moderation regular is just fine. Eating a bon-bon means that you must starve yourself for the rest of the day or run 5 miles that night…WRONG! Life is an equilibrium and therefore so must your diet.

Cutting out certain foods might be necessary: fast food, soda, candy, etc. As I have a ‘sweet tooth’ the size of Texas this was my greatest battle, but I have replaced these processed sugars with natural ones, such as fruit. The major problem I see between Europe and the U.S. is the amount of processed food we consumer without properly informing what exactly is being digested and how that affects your body.

Thank you Garance!

Garance, I appreciate the fact that you have taken this issue on. It’s not just New York. It might be more of an international class of like-minded (primarily but not exclusively) women as I spend a lot of time in London and hear it there–and in Cape Town–as well. I do think that your experience in France is a good counter to this—because it allows you to put it into perspective. The constant checking on one’s weight, discussing food, exercise, etc is incredibly problematic and it is scary. I live near NYU and the number of young girls I see who are too thin and who are walking around smoking, chewing ice cubes or drinking coffee, diet coke, or…..let’s just say there are lots of them, and they are not unique to NYU. And, very likely, they did not come here with those behaviors, they have learned them and adapted. There is not an issue of Vogue or any other magazine that does not have someone talking about what they eat or what they don’t, what they can wear or what they can’t, what they do for exercise or what they plan to try. It’s upsetting that this is happening and equally troubling that our minds are so preoccupied with our bodies–to the point that we are not enjoying the possibilities of either. One of the things that I liked most about your films from the shows was the way you and your friends came together over food. We don’t know who ate what, but I’m happy you didn’t film your friends saying, « nothing for me or I can’t wear XXX. » Instead, you all looked happy and excited and delighted to have such gorgeous food to share.

The one question I had in my mind when I finished the article was – why did none of the daughter’s caregivers address her REAL problem. The weight was just a symptom of the daughter’s unbalanced hunger. The experts should be focusing on finding out why her body wasn’t sending her / why her mind wasn’t understanding the signals of being full, satiated or satisfied after she consumed a weight-appropriate amount of food.

Garance,

If you had asked me a couple of months ago what my relationship with food was like, and whether I obsess or not, I would have blithely lied to myself and to all of you, and said it was healthy « nothing to excess, including exercise ». Something pithy like that.

But–in a month I have to have my gallbladder out, and so now (and for the rest of my life) must follow a low-fat diet.
I jumped into the role of fat-counter and calorie watcher like a natural, and realized I have been subtly judging my own eating for years. It seems I have always known that if I wanted dessert it necessitated self-negotiations that would put the Supreme Court to shame, and my abilities with label reading could be considered a third language.

If I was not anorexic or bulimic, I was still unable to separate food from reward issues and emotional well-being. Becoming more self-aware (as you noted) is not always the answer to becoming more healthy if we (I) don’t also lift our eyes up from the lists, and smell the roses (or the muffins or the marinara).

S

J’ai 16 ans et je me sens obsédé par mon poids..Et bien que je ne sois pas très grosse , je compte mentalement chaque calories ingurgité. C’est déprimant.

Merci d’engager ce sujet. c’est vrai que beaucoup de femmes ont ce genre de névrose (même si on refuse de le reconnaître, moi par exemple). Mère de trois enfants, j’essaye de leur apprendre à aimer les bonnes choses , pas évident quand ils sont jeunes et que les chips ont un franc succès mais ils mangent de tout (surtout maison, j’évite les plats surgelés et autres……). Et il faut penser à sa santé, les régimes draconiens, les privations qui peuvent aller jusqu’à l’anorexie peuvent avoir de graves incidences sur notre santé (difficulté pour avoie des enfants, ostéopénie entre autre).

Des filles minces qui se privent toute leur vie, se gangrennent la tête pour savoir si elles vont manger un ou deux crackers, etre boulimique, vomir, faire des detox et j’en passe, parceque completement occupées par le dicktat de leur microcosme de leur vie de socialite ou manger bon n’est valable que si c’est dans le it-restaurant, avec la it-copine, et le it-chef, tout cela me dépasse, problème d’un autre monde. Faire de la nourriture et des plats a 100 dollars que peuvent se payer les happy few pour rentrer dans un jean slim et bitcher sur les copines qui font du yoyo , problème d’un ature monde.
Des filles venant de milieu modeste, ou justement on mange plus, parcequ’on sort moins, on mange plus parce qu’on regarde plus la télé, on mange plus parce que faire une détox on le fait quand on a plus de thunes pour remplir son frigo, on mange plus parceque les légumes, la viande, la diversité coute cher, alors que des knacki, des pommes de terre, de la brioche et du nutella ca coute moins cher que du safran et du saumon. Et que quand on a pas de thunes, ce qu’on veut c’est manger justement et que ca tienne au ventre.
Alors désolée ce couplet là je l’achete pas.
Quand vous vivez avec un smic et deux enfants dans une grande ville en mère célibataire, vous avez pas le luxe de vous demander si vous allez vomir votre millefeuille. Parceque le millefeuille dans le frigo il n’y ai pas.
Ca ne veut pas dire qu’on ne peut pas avoir un rapport compliqué avec la nourriture, qui bien sur est un rapport compliqué avec soi meme et de ses troubles enfouis ou non.
Mais tout le monde n’a pas le luxe de se soucier autant de son apparence.
On fait ce qu’on peut avec ce qu’on a.
3 repas par jour, des legumes et des proteines et des feculents.
Voila ce que j’offre à mes filles. Le weekend on sort dans les bois, on se fait des ballades en vélo, on fait du roller. Ca coute pas cher et on respire. On prend la tente on fait deux heures de voiture (ca veut dire que pendant une semaine, on pourra pas s’acheter de dessert) on plante la tente on se reveille au bord d’un lac et on regarde pousser les fleurs.
Quand on va a la montagne, on ne skie pas, c’est trop cher, on mange pas dans les resto, c’est trop cher, on se fait par contre plaisir avec du super fromage et du super pain, et on se fait des rando et de la luge. Et les enfants sont aussi contents.
On va dans des marchés, on achète local, mais aussi dans des magasins discount.
On va dans des bibliotheques parceque les livres neufs c’est trop cher, on achete nos fringues et nos meubles en brocantes. Vous dites VINTAGE, nous ont dit deuxième main/recup’. Et pourtant on est super bien chez nous, on a du gout, notre maison est jolie, aucun meuble de coute plus que 40 euros, le prix de ton cocktail.
On va pas en vacances alors on prends des abonnements à la piscine. Quand on va la mer on nage, on fait du surf, on dort dans la tente. On ne mange que des fruits et des salades. Pour pouvoir s’offrir une glace dans un resto de temps en temps.
On a choisi d’habiter dans une petite ville pour diminuer les couts du logements, du coup on connait nos voisins et on s’échange des trucs.
Aucun d’entre nous trois n’est en surpoids, on est bien équilibré on mange quand on a faim.
J’ai 35, mère célibataire, deux enfants, smicarde, en CDD,, mes problèmes d’enfance aussi, et mes problèmes du quotiden aussi surement comme toi aussi, mais juste pas le luxe d’écrire le post que tu as écris aujourd’hui.

@Al, I couldn’t have put it better. I was an overweight child, and I had to take it into my own hands as an adult to lose weight. I would have rather learned normal eating habits as a child than have to learn them on my own as an adult. That said, I am completely aware that it is going to be a life long struggle, like any addiction.

Most of the women I know, over 90% (me included) have been battling with one form of eating disorder or another, since their teens. The thing is, fashion and media industries promote heavily this extremely narrow weight range. Sure, I have a few friends who are naturally extremely skinny and tall, but most of the women aren’t. Chubbiness or even fatness are normal and natural in certain people, a genetic fact, and you can see it in their relatives and ancestors, who lived much before the tv and junk food. There are fat people and some of them are as healthy as skinny or « normal »weight ones. This bias against overweight people in the medical community has a lot more to do with clever marketing by the drug companies and insurance companies looking to increase premiums wherever they can, than common sense or real data. (I know because I am a medic and have given this a lot of thought). But to squeeze ourselves into that narrow weight/size range, might be very difficult for some, and this is where obsessive dieting becomes a problem.

To me, this whole weight and appearance obsession became completely pathetic and stupid when my manicurist’s daughter tried to commit suicide in the context of anorexia. Her mum, my manicurist, is one of those women who live with bulimia, extreme attention to hair, makeup and clothes, fake boobs, lips, botox the works, who loathed herself since the pregnancy. This caused her daughter to develop anorexia, and in the despair of hunger and self-hate, she tried to end her suffering.

After that, no way man, forget about it. I feel sorry, deeply sorry for all these girls and women who are wasting their lives for the sake of fitting into certain size and types of jeans. What an awful, hollow existence…

As far as this story is concerned, I feel really sorry for both that mum and the daughter. It is a vile act to put a growing child on a diet, not only health-wise but also for her self-esteem. What would help that girl is to do some sport or dance, to go with her mum for walks and to play badminton (or table tennis which is an awesome calorie-burner), to walk the dog, to do some chores (housework) and to eat healthier food, snacks made up from nuts and fruit instead of chips and burgers. Cooked food and plenty of activities and lots of love that reassures her she’ll be loved no matter what.
Putting her on a diet screams « you are not good enough, there’s something wrong with you so we have to deny you in order to get you « under control ». Awful…

Well, that’s what I think, anyway.

We do it to look good in the clothes! Period. Everyone wants to eat the cupcakes and french fries and baguettes! All my entire life until the age of 24 I was fat, I would look at my mother in her small stylish clothes and think, oh, she is so lucky, so skinny, it’s so easy for her. I finally lost 100 pounds and through this process I realized that it wasn’t so easy for my mom. She made conscious choices to indulge, cut back–. We became closer as a result and I applaud the Mom is Vogue for helping her daughter form good habits at an early age. We do need to click on that alert button for food and be aware of the things we are putting in our bodies. It’s not about becoming obsessed and punishing yourself. It’s about forming good habits and becoming aware. Anyone who says you can be overweight and feel good and be healthy–is a liar. I’ve been there. No fat person feels happy that they are limited to the plus size boutique of Saks, dreading summer, chub rub. You get more stomach aches, back aches, head aches. No one wants to speak the truth. Because it’s oh so chic to pretend to be « naturally » thin–. Staying thin is hard work, but it’s a job I’ll take up gladly.

En fait, ce rapport à la nourriture me déprime un peu, parce que pour moi manger, ça doit rester un acte de plaisir. Pas besoin de manger beaucoup, ni un truc gras pour ça. De toute façon, dès que tu passes du temps à cuisiner, tu prends du plaisir à manger. Parce que tu cuisines ce que tu aimes, et tu fais selon ton gout (sans que cela soit forcément gras).
C’est ce que je ressens en tout cas, étant végétarienne, avec du cholestérol héréditaire, et un IMC inférieur à la normale (mais quand même complexée par certaines de mes formes). J’essaie de me bouger un max, et j’avoue souvent penser aux calories des aliments, mais pas PENDANT que je mange. Avant ou après. Du coup, ça ne gâche jamais le plaisir du repas :)

Néanmoins, lorsque cela touche les enfants, c’est différent. On sait qu’un enfant obèse longtemps a plus de chances de le rester adulte. Du coup, il me semble important de surveiller son alimentation, mais sans le mettre au régime (mon dieu), juste en cuisinant sainement.

Fin bref, tout ça c’est très complexe et au final, je pense que chacun fait comme il peut^^

Bisous!

i have a very unhealthy relationship with food. i dont ever starve myself or over indulge but im always very hard on myself when it comes to what i eat. i often wonder if i will ever be happy with my body. i exercise everyday sometimes twice, i know im in my ideal weight range for my age, people tell me i look good, my boyfriend showers me with compliments and i am still unhappy and whats interesting about how i grew up was that my mom always loved her body she walked around naked, would wear anything, eat anything and then she had me, a body obsessed kid who would never get dressed around her (that devastated my mom) and always wore baggy clothes. i think my painful issues with my body stem from growing up around a bunch of white girls, im black my body is different, but i always compared myself to them. They were always skinny and i never understood how to love my body because their body type was all i ever knew. ohh the trauma!!!!! what a great topic garance :)

Thanks for sharing your story Garance! What I fin interesting is that people call their diets ´a lifestyle´, which makes it ok for a lot of people. It si a difficult subject, because what is « normal » for me can be considered abnormal to the other. When do you really know when you are being healthy? xoxo

I have a very complicated relationship with food. I grew up with an obese mother for whom not program was ever a permanent fix. She did them all, Weight Watchers, Atkins, all juice, etc, she’d lose the 50 or 60 pounds she’d gained having three girls in three years but once the diet was over she gained it back plus. Eventually she gave up when reaching over 300lbs (which she does carry well on her 5’9 » frame).

Though both of my sisters are thin, I started gaining weight early on. My mom didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to be a part of her diets that never helped anyway. For years (21 in total), I just accepted being heavy, still enjoying my life and valuing myself.

But eventually I had to face the facts, not just that I was unhealthily heavy at 240lbs at 5’7 », but that I had a destructive relationship with food and with my body. I realized how problematic it was that I never felt hungry, that I kept eating even when I felt full. I didn’t diet. I just started trying to listen to my body when it told me to stop. Making sure I didn’t eat until I felt hungry. Trying to eat a more balanced diet (coming from the Midwest, this was a challenge). For over three years now I’ve been living like this. I lost a total of 85lbs, I’ve gained back some during a bout of depression, I’m now losing again.

I think you’re very right that our country doesn’t have a healthy relationship with food and as a result most Americans don’t. In NYC, the problem is trying to be too thin. In the Midwest, the problem is allowing ourselves to get too big.

For me, whenever I obsess about my weight it doesn’t budge. Meanwhile my easy confidence, which has always been such a big part of who I am, disappears. But when I focus on listening to my body, enjoying food but not over indulging, I begin losing weight and feel the positive effect having a healthy relationship with food has on my life.

http://lindseyreneegrace.wordpress.com

After living in NYC for twenty years, I am keenly aware of the culture of skinny that dominates. I see it in my friends who seem extra hard on themselves when it comes to food and exercise—-forcing their bodies into some ideal that their genetic makeup does not support. And, there are very few examples of friends or family who are truly healthy with regards to eating. But, I don’t see this as a culture or subculture that only exists in NYC, as some of the other commentators have pointed out…but we could probably have a long conversation about how this behavior manifests in NYC in very specific ways.

It took me two solid decades (I’m now 40) to rehabilitate my relationship to food—having been raised by a mother who existed solely on cigarettes and iceberg lettuce for the good part of her life, who even in her mid-60s still posts pictures of svelte supermodels on the refrigerator and inside the kitchen cabinets—and that process of rehabilitation has been largely about exploring the emotional dimensions of everyday life…and, at the most basic level, learning how to properly take care of myself.

I stand by the notion that food is medicine—the best and most powerful medicine—for the body, mind and soul. And, as mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties and friends, it is our job to model good behavior…and, perhaps, to be brave and supportive when we recognize someone is stuck on either end of the spectrum of extreme eating.

Je pense que 95% des femmes (et en lisant les différents commentaires je vois que je n’exagère pas du tout) ont un rapport compliqué à la nourriture. Qu’elles soient très minces ou avec des rondeurs, je ne peux pas inviter des copines à dîner sans que la culpabilité soit omniprésente : « oh là, là, demain je vais faire un jogging pour éliminer tout ça », « oh j’ai envie de reprendre du dessert, mais je devrais pas… Beaucoup de ces femmes alternent restriction et craquage sans répit, et il est clair que leur métabolisme est complètement déglingué.
Après une adolescence passée à lutter pour rentrer dans un 36 qui ne m’allait pas, j’ai cessé de me torturer il y a une dizaine d’années. La nourriture, je l’aime, je la respecte, je la traite bien, je la cuisine avec amour et plaisir, et mon corps me remercie. Et curieusement, mon poids est stable depuis des années. Non, je ne rentre pas dans un 36 (à quoi bon ?), mais je suis en parfaite santé, je fais du sport, je me sens bien dans mon 38-40 (et je soutiens que médicalement parlant, je suis plutôt mince!!!).
Je suis enceinte de 5 mois maintenant, et la dernière fois que mon gynéco a osé me parler d’un petit kilo au-dessus de sa courbe, je l’ai envoyé paitre : « Ne vous en faites pas mon corps sait très bien ce qu’il a à faire ».
Mais le fait est qu’un corps gros, à New York comme chez les Gaulois, est perçu comme inélégant, dérangeant, mou…
Et très honnêtement, je n’ai pas souvent vu des gens ronds en photo sur ce blog… hum, hum ??? seraient-ils si dépourvus de style ?

Je trouve que les régimes sont des catastrophes, ou alors sur un très court terme car ils peuvent engendrer de nombreuses carences ! On peut manger à sa faim mais faire attention, autrement dit manger équilibré, mais s’interdire une bonne pâtisserie quand l’on est une friande de sucrerie n’est pas humain. Enfin, nous n’avons pas tous le même poids de base et on ne peut pas lutter contre cela.
ps : J’apprécie énormément ton blog.

Michael Pollan the food writer says, « if you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not that hungry. » Works for me!

As a young girl I saw my moms friend and her daughter diet together all the time. When the daughter was in her teens, she had her jaws locked for one week so that she could only have soup, I was shocked! We could see the family slowly fall to pieces, and still is to this day.

The most beautiful girl I’ve ever met was about size 18, and she was beaming! She also lokked good in her outfit.. ;)
I think people are loosing their patiense with the fashion world. Although we see more and more models we can relate to size-wise, we still see the anorectic half-dead girls on the catwalk every season.
I sell clothes every day, and it is heartbreaking to meet beautiful, real women with such low confidence.
Good thing of Vogue to publish this article, but there is a long way to go, and averybody needs to be a part of it!

Live healthy and be your own shape! We judge ourselves too hard!

Tres tres ANTI regimes pour les raisons qui suivent et 1000 autres. et pour les degats causées chez trop d’amies à moi et moi parfois

depuis 50ans on a jamais aussi peu mangé et on grossi à vue d’oeil, il serait peut être temps d’arrêter cette folie.

Le régime hypocalorique est inefficace car plus on réduit les portions caloriques, plus l’organisme, dans un instinct de survie, augmente son rendement énergétique. Moins on lui apporte de calories, plus il devient économe. Voilà pourquoi lorsque l’on remange normalement, car on ne peut pas rester très longtemps en sous alimentation, l’organisme se retrouve avec un surplus d’énergie qu’il stocke en graisses de réserve. La reprise de poids peut même être supérieure à la surcharge d’origine.
Les régimes hypocaloriques sont d’autant plus dangereux qu’ils entraînent des carences en micro-nutriments indispensables (sels minéraux, vitamines, oligo-éléments, acides gras essentiels). Cela se traduit par une grande faiblesse (fatigue chronique) et par une vulnérabilité accrue à la maladie dans la mesure où les moyens de défense sont diminués.

Ajoutons qu’avec des apports protéiques insuffisants, la masse musculaire a tendance à diminuer. Elle est alors remplacée par des graisses au moment de la reprise de poids.

« Une étude publiée en 1997 a montré qu’entre 1980 et 1990, les Américains avaient diminué leurs apports énergétiques de 4% et leur consommation de graisses de 11%. Quantà la consommation de produits allégés, elle est passée de 19% à 76% en une décennie.
Malgré cela, sur la même période, l’obésité aux USA a progressé de 31%. Les auteurs de l’étude, déconcertés par un tel constat, n’hésitèrent pas à lui donner pour titre « The American Paradox » (le paradoxe américain). »

Hi Garance! I cannot say how many conversations I’ve had about this article with my friends. I was put on my first diet by my mother at the age of 8. I was seeing the best endocrinologist in the city and went thru a lot of the same pressures as the child in this article, so it hit very close to home, to say the least. I’ve been on and off every diet that’s out there, and it wasn’t until I went into therapy that my weight normalized. I belive the issue of an obese child or adult is not just about food, overeating is just a symptom, a way of coping with stress, a way of comforting yourself. I hope the little girl from the article gets real help, along with her mother. They both need it.

Je pense que nous sommes toutes gravement névrosées, et que c’est une de nos caractéristiques que les sociologues étudieront avec amusement dans quelques décennies. Non mais sérieusement, on marche toutes sur la tête.
Merci pour ce post pas comme les autres.

It’s true, there are a lot of people (women AND men) really obsessed with food, their weight…
I once stopped eating, but got back to my sense thanks to my friends
But I was raised that way, kind if commenting every little difference in weight and appearance… it took really long until I realized it
Now I am still thinking about weight and food. But more like: I love good food, really good food. I enjoy healthy food, fresh made, I cook instead of going to eat fast food. But when I feel like it, I’ll have a burger. A lot of my friends love to cook – they are from different places of the world – so we always end up eating too much of too different things. But we love it and instead of detoxing or dieting I’ll go running or ride my bike instead of trains…
so, it’s like fighting with my self, to allow me to feel good instead of thin. I feel good and womanly at the moment – I’m not sure about the bikini-season thou… Still, I love being together with friends and having good food – dieting?! never again!

Post très interressant. Pour ma part mon plus gros problème c’est que cet effet yo-yo qui ne s’arrête jamais fais que je suis juste la plus part du temps mal voire très mal dans ma peau. Et regarder tous mes vêtements dans lesquels je ne peux plus rentrer me fend le coeur, me mine le moral, me fait déprimer et me pousse à chercher du réconfort dans……….la nourriture. Cercle vicieux infernal dont j’aimerais bien me sortir mais pour çà il faut du temps pour soi – ou se créer du temps pour soi, reprendre le sport, manger plus équilibré mais comment faire quand on est au travail de 8h à 19h parceque la charge de travail ne baisse pas (et encore je n’ai pas d’enfant sinon qu’est-ce que çà serait)? ET qui dit grosses journée dit grosse fatigue et donc pas la force de se lever à 6h du matin pour aller faire du sport.
Enfin bref la pleine forme en ce moment :-))).

Et toi avec ton rythme de travail comment fais-tu pour garder la ligne et la forme tout en pouvant manger constamment au restaurant?

THIS IS SOO TRUE!!! when my family comes to visit from europe they cannot not believe the obsession with food,dieting,excerise…..we all start to become obsessed too with body image and calorie counting and getting enough excercise…its crazy and i think everyone is becoming more crazy about this subject….i for one am 49 and a little overweight and am constantly thinking i am no longer feeling to attractive or sexy…i also look around and in this country there is soooo much obesity and people are always eating and eating and they never get full or sick from it… there portions are enough for 4 people in these framily style restaurants or they are not cooking or they are eating these food always from fast foods or packages….. i will see this around me and think maybe im not soo bad after all…. besides our friends and family like to eat and eat good food that is how we bond, laugh, cry ,and talk we are not worried about how many calories are in the dish or cheese or pastry we are eating …..i think because some people have to eat 3 pastries instead of just one or they have to eat a kilo of pasta instead of regular one person portion… i dont know this is just our opinion but many of our children growing up with this kind of flaws in culture are making themselves sick, i feel sorry for this there must be some way to change this … i believe it starts in the home.. and making time for your friends and family and showing our daughters to love and respect themselves and the rest should come naturally ,i think if you love yourself you will know naturally what feels good for you. sitting at the table and truly breaking bread and communicating,sharing,loving, argueing, listening,and maybe the food then does not become the total focus…but just a delicious and meaningful part of the day or night with people who you love or who are important to you.. i don’t know for sure but i think this could be some answer. What do think Garance? pls right back your opinion xoxo

I agree completely… even I frighten myself a bit because I saw so much of my own behavior in reading this post. I definitely fluctuate between the extremes– eating a cheeseburger one night and drinking tea and eating nothing but yogurt the next day. Definitely not healthy and not good. Oh the influences of living in America! I agree with the comment above me — our culture is definitely missing moderation.

@ Mina : tellement d’accord avec toi!

Moi je trouve ça drôle (façon de parler!) que Vogue en parle … avec courage? … Mouais, une fois n’est pas coutume, je ne suis pas forcément d’accord avec toi. Vogue dont les pages célèbre la femme mince voire ultra-mince. Bien sûr cela n’explique pas les problèmes de troubles du comportement alimentaire, c’est plus complexe, je sais… mais franchement ça n’aide pas.

Tu as raison, il serait facile de juger cette femme qui décide de mettre au régime son enfant, mais je trouve son comportement plus que symptomatique du rapport qu’ont les occidentaux vis-à vis de la nourriture. En revanche ce que je n’ai pas compris c’est: est-ce que la mère a pris l’initiative, seule, de faire faire ce régime à son gosse? Ou l’a -t-elle fait avec l’aide d’un nutritionniste? Car la démarche n’est pas la même selon qu’un professionnel de la santé soit intervenu ou non.

Quelle image renvoie cet enfant en surpoids à sa mère? Et inversement, que projette cette mère sur son enfant? Bref, ces histoires de poids et d’image de soi sont compliquées et l’intervention d’un nutritionniste voire d’un psy ne serait pas du luxe dans certains cas.

One thing I will always be thankful for, is that I grew up where diets and weight were not mentioned, and where food was delicious food for your body and a fun thing to make and enjoy. Diet talk shouldn’t be forbidden, but most of the time I don’t think it does much good.. but then I also have a rule where I don’t offer up my insecurities to others (except close loved ones) – why bring attention to it since most likely, others don’t notice? I enjoy talking about things like running, yoga, etc. with friends, but find I become very uncomfortable whenever numbers, diets, or self-loathing is brought into it, as though by listening I am encouraging their worry/obsession. A very difficult thing for me lately was helping a best friend through an eating disorder, while trying to not be « triggered » by her behaviors. I truly think food/weight/body obsessions are contagious, even if you have a very healthy mindset to begin with.

Le problème, plus qu’un histoire de poids c’est une histoire d’addiction, d’emprise et de perte de liberté…

Le problème c’est pas faire le régime, c’est de ne penser qu’à cela (ne pas grossir), être sous l’emprise d’une obsession et ne jamais lâcher prise. C’est comme la relation avec l’alcool. On peut boire 1 verre de vin ou 2 tous les jours sans être alcoolique. On le devient dès lors qu’on commence « à y penser » en permanence et à en avoir besoin…Et ce genre de chose on peut l¡appliquer à à peu près tout dans la vie (le boulot, le sexe, la nouriture, le poids, le sport, les drogues…) Bref, de nos jours on est tous difficilement libres….

Pour moi, la relation à la nourriture a toujours été très saine. Il est vrai que je n’ai pas de problème de poids. J’essaie d’être active, de bien manger, etc.

Ma mère est nutritionniste. Elle m’a donc toujours très bien alimenté étant jeune et j’ai gardé beaucoup de bonnes habitudes alimentaires qu’elle m’a inculquées. Aux EU, le problème d’obésité est de plus en plus grave. Il est dommage de faire faire un régime à une petite de 7 ans, mais en même, ça peut me paraître nécessaire dans certains cas. Les habitudes alimentaires s’apprennent très jeune avec nos parents, dans la cuisine avec eux, etc. Si cette mère a autant de problèmes de relations à la nourriture, il est normal que sa fille en ait aussi. Et il me semble normal de l’aider à passer par-dessus ce problème.

Ma mère dit toujours : mangez de tout, mais UN PEU de tout. Je trouve que c’est une très bonne formule de vie pour être un esprit sain dans un corps sain. :)

Nina, ton commentaire est à tomber, il est le seul dans le vrai.
Merci.

Food, like sex and beer, is best enjoyed in the company of another lover.

Terrorific history!…
http://www.fotoestudio.es

there Is a Solution

and its called 12 Step Recovery in Overeaters Anonymous
maybe not for the 7 year old, but certainly for the mom who might have a « spiritual  » problem that she fills with food.

My suggestion would be for her to look into Overeaters Anonymous
http://www.oa.org

J’ai eu quelques problèmes, et puis j’ai appris à lâcher prise. Il est vrai que je me sens beaucoup mieux depuis que je me suis envolée pour les Etats-Unis. C’est peut-être différent pour vous qui vivez à New-York et travaillez dans le milieu de la mode, mais dans l’ensemble, je trouve les Américains beaucoup moins obsédés par leur image que les Français. C’est reposant, même si parfois la beauté et le style à la Française me manquent terriblement !

I obsessed about my weight for years, tried every diet going, and then one day I stopped. And then the weight fell off. As soon as I stopped worrying, I was happier and slimmer than I’d ever been.

je me sens très concernée par ce rapport complexe à la nourriture. a la fois un vrai plaisir, un partage avec les autres mais aussi une véritable auto destruction avec tentative régulière de controle et lacher prise coupable et destructif…rapport compliqué dont je ne parviens pas à me sortir seule, tout en étant persuadée que la solution est en moi….je me sens un peu moins seule ce soir merci

I am glad my Mother said « Eat like a French woman. Eat fresh, buy it daily, eat only until full, if you want a sweet eat a proper sweet nothing fake, go for a walk and wear a smile. » I am a 46 yo man who has never battle weight. My skin is fantastic and my spirits are usually good. If we are sane advice early it sets us up for life. I am not quite sure what to think of that article, harm or good? I know my Mum would have been horrified. Love to you Garance!

This is interesting but I’d be interested to read more of your thoughts about French dieting. I’m American but I lived in France for several years- one year with a French host mom and then subsequent years with young French female friends. I did not find the attitude French women have towards food to be any more healthy than American ones. In fact, what you said in your post about « perpetual anorexia » is exactly how I would describe the modern French approach. I don’t deny that the American attitude towards food is unhealthy, but I don’t think the French system is good either. Some of these comments, particularly the French ones, are shocking to me! It is the attitude of « we do not have this problem here » that has caused the obesity rate to skyrocket in France in recent years. I think it is more of an issue of the role the media plays in our social conscience than the idea of « good nutrition » being handed down from parents to children as it once was.

J’ai toujours cru être qqn qui se restreignait pas et j’avais pour le coup un corp normal en faisant un peu de sport et en ne privant surtout pas de chocolat…j’utilisais juste l’excuse que je n’étais pas une fan de bouffe pour expliquer mon petit appétit…jusqu’au jour où enceinte, j’ai dû supprimer les salades entre midi et deux au boulot, et que je me rabattais sur les aliments « toxo-free » dans les snacks (cad pâte, quiche,…), et là j’ai découvert que je prenais vraiment plaisir à manger plus qu’une petite salade et qu’en fait je me restreignais bien plus que je ne voulais le croire au fond… Après ça n’avait rien d’extrême non plus, mais quand même, c’est toujours flippant de voir comment on est influencé « malgré soi »…

C’est vraiment une ligne mince entre la nourriture et les Américains. Je suis américaine et j’étudie en Suisse maintenant, alors je voyage en Italie beaucoup. Les Italiens parlent de la nourriture toujours–comment ça faire, les ingrédients, si on veut plus…mais c’est une chose positive et on mange sans inquiéter. Par contre, quand je suis chez mes parents aux États-Unis, je suis très paranoïaque au sujet de quoi je mange. L’indulgence par manger est négatif, peut-être parce que le monde a une vue de les « gros américains » ou notre culture s’inquiète trop de tout et la nourriture est la seule chose qu’on peut contrôler.

Ce blog est vraiment cool ! Je l’adore !

I think an obsession with food can be very healthy. But only if you are very picky about the things you put in your body. I know that my family and most of my friends are very conscious about this: don’t put bad, processed, chemical foods into your body. That doesn’t mean you don’t eat meals, or even enjoy meals out. In fact some of the healthiest people I know eat out all the time, they just don’t eat a lot of meat, eat in moderation, and make sure everything is natural.

Yes, I think about food all the time, and I am thin. But what I think about is the healthiest, most natural meal I can have and cook for myself (I am not a brilliant cook by the way, I usually just cook lentils or roast vegetables), and I enjoy it. I love food. But I would prefer to snack on raw asparagus or chocolate than cupcakes or cookies, so. What’s the big deal? It’s ok to be obsessed about food, just be in it for the right reasons.

Cette situation vaut le coup de s’alarmer.

Je suis ancienne gymnaste. Ma mère travaillait au bureau de mon club. Elle a toujours été obsédée par son poids parce qu’elle était obèse lorsqu’elle était jeune. Du coup, elle fait très attention au mien.
Malheureusement, un soir, elle entend aux portes que si je ne perd pas 6 kilos (à 12 ans) en deux semaines, on me virerait de mon club.
Ma mère m’a alors mis au régime: 1 café le matin, 1/2 melon le midi, l’autre moitié le soir. J’étais, et je suis encore, une grande obsédée de mon poids, persuader d’être toujours grosse. Comme si la minceur était un but irréalisable pour moi.

Je suis maintenant une jeune-femme de 20 ans … qui n’a toujours pas arrêter d’être au régime.

Voilà, moi je n’ai que 13 ans, mais déjà pas mal de soucis vis à vis de la nourriture. Ma mère aime manger et ne s’interdit jamais rien, et au fil des années ses habitudes ont déteint sur moi. Je mangeais quand je voulais, ce que je voulais, je ne me préoccupais jamais de mon poids, persuadée que c’était « un truc de grands ». Et puis un jour, je me suis pesée, ça a été un choc. Aujourd’hui, en y repensant je trouve cela dérisoire, et je m’en veux. Je pesais 50 kilos. A suivi toute une période où je ne mangeais plus, je buvais des litres et des litres d’eau par jour, rien d’autre. En une semaine j’ai perdu 12 kilos. Et j’ai continué… je suis tombée dans une sorte d’anorexie, mes proches voyaient que j’avais maigri, mais ne disaient rien. Puis un matin, j’ai eu un déclic. Commence alors des mois d’incertitude, de bouffe malsaine. Boulimique. Ca fait maintenat trois ans, je pèse 55 kilos et je suis presque guerrie. Seuls certains de mes amis le savent, ma mère s’en ai toujours moqué, mettant ça sur le compte de l’adolescence. Je lui reprocherais sans doute toute ma vie, et je lui en veux autant que je m’en veux à moi-même. Si je devais dire quelque chose à qui que ce soit, homme, femme, jeune, vieux : ne tombez jamais dans ce piège, vous risqueriez de ne jamais en sortir…

Oh et Garance! continuuuuuuuue, t’es géniale! bisous!

Vogue me déçoit, il fait dans le politiquement correct maintenant…

La seule qualité de l’article est peut être justement de sortir du non dit, et encore, ce pseudo mea culpa semble plutot aider à se détacher de SA propre problématique et de SON rapport à la bouffe, car ce n’est pas de se nourrir dont il est question !

Le non dit est entretenu par un groupe et non par une seule personne…

Manger est bien sur un plaisir (peu mentioné ici) mais on oublie que c’est d’abord et surtout un besoin primaire …

Courage, la solution est dans le soin et non dans les régimes. Lâchez prise les filles!

( 31 ans. 1 enfant, juste normale, mais pas le « normal » de l’article ;-)

Je bosse en endocrinologie, et je peux te dire que des obèses, j’en vois passer!

Le problème des régimes, c’est leurs conséquences, à la fois sur le mental, puisqu’un régime est intenable à vie et donc que la personne reprend forcément du poids, donc se sent en échec (donc refait unrégime etc etc, cercle vicieux dont on ne sort pas), et sur le physique, car le corps est très maltraité (et l’image de soi aussi).

La première des choses à faire est donc d’orienter ces personnes en surpoids (et pas seulement) vers une ligne de conduite, une réeducation alimentaire mais pas que, une hygiène de vie (à vie), une bientraitance de soi (se déculpabiliser, s’autoriser le lâcher prise, s’occuper de son corps, tout en acceptant de ne pas trop vouloir le maîtriser et ne pas vouloir lui imposer telle perte de poids, c’est lui qui décidera, mais y’a pas de raison, il perdra!).
C’est très compliqué car la nourriture est vitale, source de plaisir, et peut devenir affective, une dépendance, une punition aussi. Bref.

Wow..

C’est un sujet difficile à aborder selon moi, étant donné que moi-même je suis absolument déglinguée quand il s’agit de nourriture.
A savoir que la nourriture est en quelque sorte la compensation de toutes mes frustrations quotidiennes. C’est inconscient bien entendu, j’y pense pas vraiment, mais c’est bel et bien le résultat.
Mes émotions sont toutes exprimées à travers la nourriture, quand je suis contente je mange trop, et tout le temps, quand je suis triste, même chose, etc.
En fin de compte, je suis pas obèse, je pense être en léger surpoids cela dit, mais mon poids ne change pas beaucoup.
Je n’arrive pas à tenir un régime, puisque chacune de mes émotions, m’amène sans que je le veuille, à me « remplir », ou quelque chose de ce genre quoiqu’il en soit.

Avoir des troubles alimentaires c’est terrible, ça rend la vie très difficile.

Bref,

Article intéressant, tout comme ton point de vue comme toujours ;)

J’espère qu’il fait beau à NY.

xx

I think it is good that a mother is monitoring her daughters’ food habits in some ways; children cannot determine what’s healthy for them, and bad eating habits that are created in youth can develop worse and uncontrollable habits as they get older.

However, I think it’s important to distinguish between when these things are done for vanity or for health. I haven’t read the Vogue article, so I can’t judge for sure, but the word « diet » to me has a lot of connotations beyond regulating a person’s health.

I used to work at a chocolate store and I would have young girls come in, probably around 10 or 11 years old, talking about diets, calories, how they couldn’t indulge, etcetera. The only girls who discussed these things were invariably thin and most likely didn’t need to regulate their diet at all. It was sad to see these young girls repeating the things they’d heard from their moms or magazines, simply for the purpose of being trendy or keeping up a thin image.

America in general has, as you’ve said, a complicated relationship with food. It’s hard to make any statement beyond that because health for every person means something different, so does beauty. I just hope everything works out for this young girl in the long run.

Being healthy starts in the mind, and if you start messing with that at a young age, its very likely problems will persist. I did not read the article, but I hope the mother who is concerned for her child will mainly work on her self esteem and happiness rather than focus so much on food.
I, like so many other girls, had a mother who was always obsessed with her weight and diet and drank Tabs all day to keep thin and other diet fabs that were not healthy, and I sadly and unsurprisingly developed eating disorders. I, too, became obsessed with food, and am rather picky now of what I put in my body, but I’ve also eventually developed a mindset to try not to allow myself to get too crazed about food, and to enjoy it and life. I wont deny a night out with girlfriends or a date and great food and drink. But I do my best to put healthy foods in my body on a daily basis to make myself feel good and have my hair, nails and skin look good. (by healthy I mean lots of vegies and fruits and clean things- NOT DIET FOOD). I try to only buy good ingredients, mostly organic and from the farm. And, again, I let myself indulge on fabulous delicicies in moderation. If I didn’t allow myself to do that, I’d be denying myself pleasures in life, which would be completely sad.
I feel good when I take care of myself and enjoy life. I remember feeling nervous, distrusting, and bitter when I starved or put crap diet foods or junk in my body. I think a lot of french have one up on many because they don’t obsess on things so much, and let nature do its course, but no one’s perfect.

maybe it’s because I live in the countryside, far away from the fashion world, but never really had problems with food. maybe it’s because I’m spanish… and we enjoy food!! of course there are people with food issues, but it’s not a common thing. I think that in general here we have a good relationship with food. and yes, we talk about what we ate the night before… not to complain about it, but to talk about how delicious it was!!! (yes, for real!)

after all, I think that the most important thing is not what we look like, but how we feel with ourselves!

http://brandnewbyanna.blogspot.com

I’ve read many comments on the vogue article, but yours is interesting to me because it speaks not so much about the issues of overweight children and parenting, but of a culture of food-obsessed people in general. I think it’s absolutely true, and am starting to notice this in myself. I don’t think of myself as unhealthy or obsessed, and I certainly don’t have an eating disorder, I am a healthy athletic dancer with natural curves, but I am hyper aware of everything I eat, and all exercise I do. I don’t necessarily form decisions based on whether or not a certain food will « make me fat », but food, and its effect on my body, is pretty much constantly on my mind. I’m slowly starting to realize that while this may be « normal » in the sense that millions of others live this way too, it may not be the healthiest and happiest way to live. I love that you’re bringing this issue onto the table.

http://nomadic-d.blogspot.com/

Je suis un peu boulimique parfois, surtout avec le chocolat, parfois juste l’envie de chocolat, mais aussi quand je suis stressée ou un peu angoissée, c’est compulsif. Une fois j’étais seule, je stressais dans l’avion, je me suis enfilée quasi tout le paquet de chocobons, j’en avais mal au bide. Mise à part ça, je mange assez équilibré sûrement grâce à mes parents, à cette culture française de la bonne nourriture et j’adore les fruits et les légumes, si pendant un jour je n’en mange pas, je suis limite malade.

Garance,

Hé bien ça fait réagir beaucoup de monde! Je pense que c’est un problème qui touche énormement de personnes. Moi-même j’ai lutté longtemps en m’infligeant des jornées drastiques suivies par des journées de craquages… Désespérant… Un vrai cercle infernal sans fin… Du Yo-Yo, un mois 5 kg en moins le suivant 6 en plus…

J’ai décidé il y a peu de temps de réapprendre à manger (seule sans accompagnement) et de manger intelligement, de ne me priver de rien mais de manger à ma fin sans plus. Mais au moins si j’ai envie d’une tartine au nutella je la mange et après je suis heureuse, alors qu’il y a quelques temps lorsque je craquais je mangeais 5 ou 6 tartines d’un coup… Bref je pense que beaucoup de femmes se laissent influencer par les magazines, l’image des femmes qui est à la télé ou dans la presse, mais le principal est de se sentir bien! Et c’est (presque) mon cas car je mincis doucement maintenant ;)

Merci pour cet article. Bises

http://www.madeinsisters.com/

Bravo. I think what people need to learn is that there is a difference between a diet and just changing the way you eat. Child obesity is no joke and I applaud this woman for having the courage to not only address her failures in terms of how she interacts with food in her own life, but also in her daughter’s. She’s stopping the cycle. As long as the child stays healthy and learns what nutrition actually is (rather than learning that going on juice binges is the way to go), then this can be a good thing. Thanks for the insight, Garance.

An interesting view of the article: http://jezebel.com/5895602/mom-puts-7+year+old-on-a-diet-in-the-worst-vogue-article-ever

I know some women who have a complicated relationship with both food and or/ their weight. I myself am thankfully not one of them. To me food is pleasure. Eating delicious food is an experience that I cherish every day and especially when travelling. I hope to instill this love and excitement for food in my children. And I am super thankful to have this relationship with food.

Wahou, ce post m’a pas mal percuté. D’une part parce que j’suis une passionnée de nourriture dans tous les sens du terme -alimentation, troubles du comportement, resto, cuisine…- et d’autre part car j’ai eu aussi ma période « j’suis grosse & nulle ».J’ai 22 ans & pendant 6 ans j’ai été ma pire ennemis à m’affliger des régimes et toutes sortes de maltraitance psychologiques!
Pourtant j’étais plutot normale -avec origines latines donc des formes- et mes amies n’ont pas vraiment compris le pourquoi du comment!
Bref j’vais pas faire tout mon blabla (même si j’en ai déjà dis pas mal ^^) mais avec toutes les photos de magazines aux filles filiformes (ou squelettiques au choix) ou alors les vraies rondes on a plus d’image de gens normaux. Pourquoi on a plus le droit d’avoir des seins, des fesses & des hanches ? Alors que soit disant les hommes préféres ça & que c’est aussi ce qui nous différencies des jeunes adolescentes!
Quand je vois les top des années 90 Claudia, Cindy & cie là on parlait vraiment de beauté!
Je trouve que maintenant, à cause des médias & de nos sociétés modernes on essaye de tout stéréotyper: femmes minces & rondes et basta.
Bref, je suis pas pour autant fière de mon corps mais j’essaye de voir la vie plus large & me faire plaisir car sinon à quoi beau?

Voilà, mon point de vue :p
Bisous

Garance, je dois te le demander! Est-ce que t’utilise une des ces tablette graphique comme les Bamboo pour tes illustrations??

En effet, je pense que beaucoup de femmes normales s’infligent ça.
C’est ce qui est alarmant.
Il faut dire que malgré toutes les unes de magazines féminins nous vendant du « Les rondeurs, c’est super », la tendance n’est quand même pas à l’alternance dans le milieu de la mode …
Alors, elles font ce qu’elles entendent depuis toute petites : il faut souffrir (même bêtement ?) pour être belle …

http://jolicassoulet.wordpress.com/

« il s’agit carrément d’une espèce d’anorexie perpétuelle » très vrai Garance, je le sais car je l’ai senti sur ma propre peau pendant des années. Maintenant fini tout ça, je mange à nouveau à ma faim, sans compter les calories, sans me peser tous les jours… et je ne suis pas grosse, mais pas maigre non plus. Ça donne quoi ça? Mince? Ben oui, et si on se contentait toutes de juste être minces et non pas maigres comme les magasines et publicités nous incitent à vouloir être? Je suis sûre qu’on serait toutes plus heureuses et confiantes… sans que cela déplaise à nos amis les mecs. Voilà!
Très bon post sinon, merci pour la façon dont tu aborde ça. Sinon, pour l’article de Vogue je ne suis pas choqué d’entendre qu’une mère mette au régime sa fille. Ce qui est très important dans cette histoire c’est que la fille a été déclaré obèse par un médecin et non pas par la comparaison avec un mannequin de magasine, non?

Ill be interested to read the article as the mother of a seven year old « obese » girl. I was a chunky kid but as an adolescent I slimmed down and have managed my weight pretty evenly through reasonable eating and exercise ever since. Im in my 40s. I see in her so many of the habits I had as a kid. We just do our best to keep the foods she eats whole and ensure she gets lots of active time. My biggest worry is that i’ll worry too much and pass the anxiety I have about her staying healthy on to her in
a bad way.

J’alterne entre la lecture de cet article et visionner « Top Chef  » sur la 1. Véridique!

Pour travailler dans le milieu de la mode – milieu que tu connais donc, et ou je t’ai déjà vu ;)) – on pourrait penser que je devrais être super obsédée par mon poids contrairement à ce qu’on puisse dire de ce milieu.

Mais en faites: pas trop.

Je me fais plaisir.

Mon rapport avec la nourriture n’est pas très complexe. Je mange parce qu’il le faut mais je mange ce qu’il me plait.
Je fais tout de même gaffe de temps en temps – rapport aux gènes de ma mère ou nous avons tendance à prendre rapidement tout de même -.

Après, au niveau de mon apparence, j’ai une apparence qui me semble être normale même si bon…comme je suis petite (1,60m) je les vois quand même mes jambonneaux mais je n’ai pas trop à me plaindre comme je fais 53 kilos environ.

Un coup, je peux me dire: « Hmmm dis donc toi, tu commences à avoir un double menton là! » et le « Hé pas mal ces boots, ça m’affine dis donc! »

Mon rapport n’est pas si compliqué. Je ne pense pas m’infliger un jour un régime car j’aurai ô grand combien peur de tomber dans la spirale « effet yoyo » ou tu reprends le double de ce que tu as perdu. Je pense que ça ne vaut pas le coup. Je ne me vois pas compter les calories de l’escalope de dinde qui cuit dans sa poêle avec sa crème de champignons – ça envoie du rêve! –

Mais ce que j’aime surtout dans la nourriture c’est la cuisiner et la faire déguster aux autres. J’aime travailler l’esthétique du plat.

Emilie

This is a healthy and fascinating discussion, full or honesty and inquiry. Brava, Garance, for initiating it!
Interestingly, I never see any big, heavy-set women of style on this blog, celebrated as avatars of chic, originally and flair. Overwhelmingly the gals smiling from the photos here are almost preternaturally skinny, young, and dressed a la mode. One would almost think that there are no stylish, admirable, gorgeous, smart and highly original women over the age of 50 or the weight of 120 pounds! Perhaps one answer to all of this hand-wringing over body image and disordered relationships to food, would be for some brave soul to consistently – not just once in a blue moon, not as a token – dare to show the complete range of body types and ages who represent the fullest bloom of terrific personal style. Lord knows they’re out there! Since it’s in our DNA – our very brain chemistry – to interpret images and project onto them assumptions about unseen states, the burden is on us to change the conversation with the use of pictures. The more various the images we shoot and show, the more flexible the readings and the happier everyone will be.

I think what the problem is that we have vilified the word « diet » and we can never tell whether we refer to an unhealthy, starvation regime or monitoring the unhealthy/processed/calorie-laden stuff that we should not eat at every meal we have while focusing in eating healthy, unprocessed foods for the majority of our meals. Is it the same when I count grapes for breakfast and vilify carbohydrates, and when I decide to have a side salad instead of mash potatoes with my steak when I eat out? I really don’t think so.

For the record, I am currently on a « diet » of the second persuasion I’ve mentioned. For a year or so. I’ve lost 75 lbs and I haven’t gone to bed hungry one day. Perhaps this affords me some obsession with food. But I’d rather have that than being morbidly obese. I’m old enough to know that I’ll never be a double zero, anyway.

@Nina, votre commentaire sonne juste et vous n’êtes pas la seule. Merci

I agree that this article featured in Vogue is very interesting, and very culturally relevant as a testimony of the weight issues of « real women » and parenting in general. What I find even more interesting is how Vogue works as a marker of what our culture finds aesthetically ideal, in this case acceptable body shapes. Last month’s cover girl Adele — who is unapologetic about her buxom shape– was presented in a different light, every image taken of her focused only on her upper body and face. The only image that featured her body showed her laying on a sofa, wearing a very full skirt with a cinched waist, the lighting and pose emphasized her waist, and further made her look thinner than she actually is. Upon reading last month’s editorial, I noticed this direct use of selective photography to further Vogue’s presentation of « acceptable » body-types, this month’s article clearly attempts to reconcile that with perspectives from a « real woman » and her daughter.

Cette mère a raison de mettre sa fille obèse au régime. Etre trop gros, comme être trop mince, c’est mettre sa santé en danger au delà du simple aspect physique. Je suis maman de trois enfants qui mangent de tout et je ne limite jamais les quantités. Comme beaucoup d’enfants, ils adorent les sucreries et je leur apprend que cela doit rester exceptionnel, comme une petite fête. C’est quand même triste de voir que dans nos pays riches, l’alimentation est devenue source d’autant de souffrance ! Au Maroc ou je vis ou beaucoup de gens sont pauvres, il y a peu d’obèses, la nourriture est précieuse et, pour une question de budget, les quantités servies au quotidien sont bien inférieures aux nôtres (cela m’a d’ailleurs frappé en arrivant). On peut se régaler dans la rue d’une orange pressée ou d’un cornet de pois chiche au cumin, délicieux ! D’ailleurs, depuis que je vis ici, je me pose beaucoup de questions sur la nourriture dans nos sociétés occidentales. Comment a t on pu en arriver là alors que manger permet de rester en vie tout en éprouvant beaucoup de plaisir…

Ton article me parle! Aujourd’hui, diner cocktail au sein de ma société et je n’ai pu résister du coup je me suis goinfrée (pas d’autres expressions car c’est la réalité) et en rentrant chez moi je me suis dit mais que m’arrive t il????? Ce matin même, je me disais ‘ je commence un régime!’ et à midi évidemment j’ai craqué, je vous épargne les détails car ce fut tout sauf un menu équilibré et le soir, j’ai empiré la situation!
Donc je me suis dit je vais jeuner demain, ou encore boire des bols d’eau chaude ( oui certains peuples ont cette habitude pour se purifier) mais évidemment je ne vais pas faire cela car je ne tiendrai pas, alors que faire????
C’est pourtant normalment simple de se limiter à un repas équilibré quand votre cantine vous le permet et malheureusement non!!! la tentation!!
autre chose, aussi, je me dis que dès que je perdrai mes kilos (5 kg idéalement) je me sentirai mieux dans ma peau, que je serai plus…heureuse!! et je réfléchis et me demande si ces kilos et ce manque de volonté ne sont pas plutot dû à autre chose??
Tout est lié, quand on est bien à priori on se jette moins sur la nourriture, et quand on est mal (en tout cas pour moi) la nourriture et le shopping deviennent bizarrement mes ‘passions’; on compense donc un vide, un mal être…sans doute…
Mais il est vrai que tout cela devient obsessionnel, et que culpabiliser à chaque repas c’est épuisant!!!….

I only can say that if we notice a problem in other people then we have the same problem. Sometimes we’re just covering it up because we are aware of the way we would be judge if we accept it. All people here, including me, the writer and the commentators saying they don’t have a problem with food, have for sure a problem with food and their own image. Problems out there are just mirroring our own problems. There are way to many problems related to food and image to be count here. I would love to see more compassion regarding people who struggle in life. I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you.

Je crois hélas que la norme de tout ces mannequins anorexiques et photoshop ont réussi à gravement perturber non seulement l’image des femmes mais aussi les normes de la vie actuelle.
Même enceinte maintenant il ne faudrait prendre que 5 ou 6 kg pour ressembler à Victoria B.
L’horreur !

i found the article sad and scary. while obesity is definitely a concern, it is nothing to restrict your daughter over. this only creates other problems like eating disorders. it’s so sad. i can’t believe vogue would even publish this really.
xx, http://wordbyjessie.com/

Garance — I am a great fan of your blog but have never felt the need to comment before. Your honesty and delight at life and fashion are infectious, but I most love how you take it all so light-heartedly and enjoy your life and adventures. I am so glad you took on the issue of food and the obsession with weight. I am a petite 60+ year old woman who loves to eat and wear fabulous clothes. For the past 30 years I have tried to eat healthfully and maintain an active lifestyle without obsessively dieting or exercising. Good food is one of life’s great pleasures. My best friend, on the other hand, is anorexically thin. She has a much younger sister who is quite overweight. One day my friend and I took her two young nieces (her sister’s daughters) out to lunch and the first thing my friend said to the girls when they looked at the menu was, « Which of these foods will make you fat ». I felt as if she had slapped their mother in front of them. There were so many negative messages in that one comment. I hope I can be a better role model for them.

Je ne vois absolument rien de choquant dans la démarche de cette femme à l’égard de sa fille. Elle suit les recommandations du pédiatre et a bien raison de le faire. Ce qui est choquant, c’est le fait que cette enfant soit obèse. Et il est du devoir de tout parent responsable de veiller à ce que la situation ne dégénère pas. Ce genre de problème doit être traité le plus tôt possible afin que l’enfant acquière de bonnes habitudes alimentaires. A l’âge adulte, il sera trop tard, ses goûts seront formés.

Pour répondre à ta question, personnellement, j’ai un rapport très aisé et très sain à la nourriture, ce qui me permet de prendre beaucoup de plaisir à table sans jamais prendre un gramme. Je le dois à ma mère et à ma grand-mère qui ont une hygiène alimentaire parfaite – à 89 ans, ma grand-mère est toujours une femme mine et élancée.
Bien sûr, cela exige de se mettre aux fourneaux, de faire l’effort d’éplucher et d’émincer quotidiennement des légumes frais, de vider le poisson, de prendre le temps de laisser les plats mijoter… Bref, il faut admettre qu’une certaine dose de travail est nécessaire. Mais c’est aussi une question d’habitude, de discipline. Pour ma part, je ne supporte pas qu’un repas ne contienne aucun légume ou soit constitué d’aliments gras. Je ne mange JAMAIS de plats surgelés ou achetés chez le traiteur.
La règle est simple : si les produits sont frais, ils se suffisent quasiment à eux-mêmes et il n’est point utile d’ajouter de sauces ou d’exhausteurs de goût. Des oignons, de l’ail, des épices, des légumes cuits lentement à l’étouffée, et c’est le bonheur garanti.
Ce plaisir fait que je n’ai pas à me préoccuper de mon poids. Il ne varie jamais.

I read the article, and I am so pleased you are talking about it. I wonder if the mom could have started slowly changing her daughter’s diet to healthier things without actually classifying it as a diet. She could have also slowly brought more exercise into the girl’s life, again, without calling it a diet. I suspect this little child is going to grow up with the same problems as her mom. Feeling guilty about enjoying lovely foods is insane. There is nothing wrong with educating kids about more and less healthy foods, but life without any millefeuilles would just not be the same :). Great post, Garance.

Like many of the comments above, I state that my philosophy towards food is « eat everything, in moderation ». As such I avoid processed foods, prepare my own foods, try to eat from every food group, and indulge on occasion . So everything is perfect… But if my relationship with food is so healthy, I wonder why this article interested me so? Why did I spend so much time reading through many of the comments? Am I in any way denying myself pleasure from food for the sake of being « healthy »? Am I fooling myself into believing that my eating habits are really about being « healthy », rather than being about body image?
I tend to pat myself on the back for not being one of « those » girls who starves and exercises constantly to be thin. I may not be starving myself, but I am aware that my relationship with food is very closely tied to how I feel about my body, and there is a fine line to where it might become unhealthy. Maybe it already is unhealthy, given the amount of mental energy I have dedicated to the matter!

Wow. thanks for sharing this Garance. I’m with you- the constant obsession with food (or rather, the obsession with the obsession with food)- does not seem to be a healthy way to live- whether you are obese or emaciated.

And certainly NYC has a skewed perception of healthy bodies!

After having an eating disorder for 10 years and spending most of my waking hours (and many of my dreaming ones) obsessing about eating or not eating, vomiting or not vomiting, exercising or not exercising, my recovery (I celebrate 10 years this fall), has been a journey involving relapse, experiments with different dogmatic types of diets, and finally, an equilibrium.

When people ask me how I am so so productive in my business (as a life and business coach), I laugh and say, « All the energy I used to spend obsessing about food/weight/my looks/calories, I now channel into what I do for a living! It’s much easier! »

And that, is the truth. Because the sad part about this weight stuff (again for those who struggle with too much or with not enough) is that that struggle so overshadows the living of a real, engaged, intentional life.

Thanks for discussing this and opening up your own experience as well.

Lauren

Wow.

Garance, je suis très heureuse de lire ce post. Car il touche une branche, disons le, ESSENTIELLE (quoique bien camouflée derrière beaucoup de feuillage) du monde de la mode, mais aussi de notre univers moderne. L’obsession qu’ont les femmes avec leur corps n’est plus culturelle ou seulement liée au 21ieme siècle, elle fait partie de nous depuis fort longtemps. Sauf que l’obsession de la minceur, voire la maigreur, c’est plus récent, et franchement, tellement répandu qu’on oublie souvent que ça devrait être alarmant. Je me questionne depuis de nombreuses années à ce sujet, et je mentirais si moi, ou n’importe quelle de mes copines, n’y pensons pas constamment à toutes ces calories ou à ses belles jambes élancées qu’on veut avoir.

Ça me perturbe terriblement, et je ne vois pas vraiment comment la situation pourrait changer. Comment ne pas tomber dans le panneau après tout ? Avec toutes les images à la télévision, dans les magazines, sur Internet, sur les blogues (etc!) c’est plutôt flippant.

Je te lève mon chapeau, très haut si c’est possible!. Car tu as mis le doigt sur quelque chose de fragile, et tu as choisi de mettre des mots sur ce mal répandu, mais qui reste pourtant bien trop secret. Il est devenu une normalité alors qu’il s’agit d’une étrange conception de ce à quoi devrait correspondre la réalité.

sent comment, don’t know why it’s awaiting moderation, help!

Garance, I LOVE that you brought this issue up.

I myself am also of European descent, and as you, living in New York City.
Compared to what I am used to, it is absolutely saddening to see peoples relationship to food here.

I first moved to New York at the young age of 19. Back then, I was unfortunately drawn into the world that many N.Y.C women live in; the never ending obsession with food & the state of mind that there is a « perfection » to be reached with ones body.

After moving back to Europe for a while, my mindset completely changed again. I re-learned to appreciate eating & drinking in a European « sense of moderation »- eat whatever, whenever, but not always.

Food is an extremely important part of our lives, it is what keeps us alive and it is what contributes to the energy we have to laugh, have fun, and most importantly, to love.
But to let food completely devour ones life is an energy completely wasted, in comparison to how a life really can be lived.
Unfortunately, I see the negative type of energy towards one self being of the dominating kind here in New York. It is just sad to see, because what people do not seem to realize, is that they loose their own inner self and individuality through putting so much focus into food, and thus, their outer self.

When a person has respect and love for him/herself, that is definitely the most beautiful asset that anyone can have. No magazine or bodily ideal can ever take the pure beauty of individualism away.

Thank you for writing this post, I think the fashion industry needs more women like you.

Saludos!

it’s throughly surprising how little people know of nutrition. they know an abundance about ‘diets’ but next to nothing on what nutritional values are necessary for our health.

and it’s also surprising to hear this talk about the obsession that surrounds food in new york – not the making of food, or the farming of it, or where it comes from or what goes into it – no, it’s just the consumption of it. how one dimensional.

and the diet industry is such a pathetic joke on our consumeristic world – it’s just that – an INDUSTRY. seriously think about it – if any of these diets were actually designed to work in the long term, then every company that sold these diets would eventually sell themselves out of business. it’s just a con – which brings me back to my original point – nutrition. if people had a better understanding of nutrition then they wouldn’t be spending their cash on fad diets…..

what can’t be solved with a little education?

The poor women of this world. We’ve been trained to have a troubled relationship with food. Instead of seeing eating as a nourishing fulfillment of needs, we view eating on a scale from starving to over indulging. When we see that woman/model/actress on the juice fast, we ask ourselves if we should be measuring up with this woman? If she starves, should i? Then when we see that woman who eats whatever she wants, we measure ourselves against her too. If she indulges, then i can too, right? Instead of having an objective view on eating, we are pitting our eating habits against one another, and thereby pitting women against women.

As a girl who mostly eats whatever she wants, and is never without butter in the fridge, i wish that we could stop making a competition of who eats less, or who indulges more, and start trying to enjoy eating again.

If parents are worried about passing along poor eating habits, then they should put down the diet books, and start teaching their kids to have a healthy relationship with food.

This story touched me. I have a wonderful mother, but her insecurities about her own body (which has never been overweight) often passed on to me (who has also never been overweight, though my weight has fluctuated within the healthy scale). My mother would nervously eye what I ate and suggest I eat less, praise me when I was in my thin times, and critique me if I was TOO thin or didn’t eat enough. This, in combination with America’s obsession with women’s weight/bodies, has made it difficult to view food and my own body without constantly being critical and occasionally quite hateful/anxious.

I hope this little girl can be happy in the body she has, whether she’s thin or a little fat, if she feels good about what she eats, and gets proper nutrition and exercise. That will keep you alive longer than stressing out over a 19 BMI will.

Moi, je n’ai pas de problèmes avec la nourriture mais j’adore manger sainement, j’ai toujours été « pulpeuse » et bien proportionnée ( dixit les copains! ), jusqu’à peu j’ai toujours trouvé cela très désagréable comme expression: pulpeuse et bien proportionnée pfff!! Ça voulait dire quoi, maintenant je sais que cela voulait dire exactement ce qui était dit et j’ai compris que c’était un compliment. Tout ça pour dire que malgré de bonnes habitudes alimentaires, le rapport au corps est complexe et va à l’encontre de la logique. J’espère inculquer des valeurs alimentaires à mes filles sans les angoisser car il est vrai que dès qu’elles mangent des « cochonneries » je culpabilise vas savoir si elles le ressentent!! Pourvu que non… Mais il faut bien dire que les filles et la bouffe ça a toujours été un sujet délicat et que le poids des mots ( pulpeuse+bien proportionnée dans mon cas ), le poids des images ( les magasines ) et l’image que l’on a de soi-même interfèrent dans chaque petite tête féminine et créent une sorte de confusion mentale que l’on gère +ou- non?

J’ai 18ans et j’ai passé les 5d= dernières années de ma vie à penser à mon poids, à la nourriture 24h/24. Ma silhouette a été pour moi la cause de dépressions et de crises d’angoisse mais, un jour, ma psy (oui, les crises d’angoisse n’était pas seulement dues à mon obsession alimentaire) m’a conseillé une diététicienne. Pourquoi n’y avais-je pas pensé avant? Cela fait un mois que je la vois mais, dès le premier RDV, elle avait trouvé le problème (en regardant le carnet où je note tout ce que je mange: obsédée?NOOOONNN!):je ne mangeais pas assez et, mon corps ayant peur d’être privé à nouveau, faisant des réserves….de graisse. C’est pour cela qu’à raison de 400kcal par jour et d’1/2 de footing j’avais gagné 30kiloes en 3ans…Maintenant, j’essaye de reprendre une alimentation saine,mais c’est assez difficile de recommencer à manger, de moins avoir faim (car,oui, la faim est une pu**, tu t’y habitues et même tu t’y attaches). J’ai perdu 1kilos en une semaine.
Donc, peut-être, les régimes hypocaloriques (et les régimes en général) ne sont-ils pas la bonne solution. Je pense qu’il faut juste manger équilibré (oui, manger de TOUT), à sa faim et pratiquer une activité sportive. Je sais que ça parait simple à dire, mais je pense qu’à long terme, c’est la meilleure solution.
Ah oui, je voulais ajouter que les comportements d’anorexique ne se cachent pas seulement dans les anorexiques elle-même: je suis une peu potelée et, pourtant, je me faisais vomir de la salade et des carottes plusieurs fois par jour. La vie est ironique, voilà tout :)

la première fois que j’ai entendu parler « régime », j’étais au collège, en 5 ème…les filles voulaient toutes être super fines, on avait déjà la règle de calcul de l’Indice de masse corporel en tête, on collectionnait les magazines, on collait les photos de mannequins sur nos cahiers…la règle d’or « si t’as pas un creux entre les deux cuisses quand tu es debout, t’es grosse »…Il fallait faire du 34 (vu qu’on faisait toutes moins d’1m 65..), pour les photos de classe , on rentrait nos joues en » fish face », on se trouvait « trop belles comme ça ». On matait les gamines des catalogues e t on se comparaient à elles…bref , ça commence tôt cette obligation de la minceur, les enfants ne vivent pas hors du monde!!Pourtant, les garçons sortaient avec les filles qui leur plaisaient, quelle que soient leur taille de vêtements, mais ça, même adultes on ne l’a pas vraiment assimilé!!

C’est mon quotidien cet article!
Je suis diététicienne nutritionniste et j’essaie, avec le meilleur de moi même, d’aider ces enfants en mal être pour que ce ne soit plus un problème à l’adolescence et à l’âge adulte.

Au vue du nombre de personnes que je vois, adultes, avec ce mal être du fait des « yoyos » endurés dans leur vie, j’essaie d’apprendre à chacun à trouver leur alimentation, celle qui leur convient et non celle des régimes « à la mode ». C’est un apprentissage ou plutôt réapprentissage pour celle et ceux qui l’ont égaré.
C’est un peu comme LA MODE en fait, on garde nos basiques, on prend les choses qui nous conviennent dans ce qui est tendance, chacun prend ce qui lui va et réadapte en fonction de son évolution !

http://www.theoucafe.org

Mais, n’oublions pas que nous ne sommes pas du tout égaux face à la nourriture…

bravo garance!! I am also really interested to know– what do you think about Model Alliance and Marc Jacobs not paying models?

Article intéressant! C’est vrai qu’aujourd’hui le poids est devenu un critère de jugement social, à base de « tu es mince, tu as le contrôle de ton corps, et par extension de ta vie ». C’est plutôt effrayant mais c’est devenu la norme. C’est pas mal que VOGUE soit lucide sur le sujet et partage ce témoignage de mère, cela montre que même à la Mecque de la mode on n’est pas aveuglé par le rêve glamour et perfectionniste véhiculé par.. le magasine lui-même. Merci Garance de nous faire partager ça!

http://pcigarette.blogspot.fr/

Bonjour,

Merci beaucoup pour cette article et ton blog! C’est du beau travail! Je t’encourage pour la suite!

Merci

Aude

http://www.laboutique-aufeminin.com (5 euros de remise pour 30 euros d’achat avec le code promo : forum jusqu’au 31 mars)

C’est bien simple… a chaque fois que je fais « attention », je grossis.

Après le stress de la fille mince (comme j’ai pu en lire dans les commentaires), j’ai eu tout le temps peur de grossir… Ce que j’ai fini par faire en avalant plein plein plein de bon pain… Pendant 2 ans.
Ca n’apas été simple de guérir, j’ai eu besoin d’aide et 4 ans après, je suis enfin apaisée. Je ne pense plus jamais aux calories, à l’équilibre lipides/protéines, je pense à ce qui me fait envie, je m’écoute, je profite… Je suis cool quoi… Et depuis, je suis revenue à mon poids de forme -soit plutôt très mince- et ne grossit plus. Je trouve ça presque magique…
Je trouve plutôt choquant de voir ce que l’on est capable de faire pour être maigre (et ce que l’on est capable de dépenser… franchement!) alors que la vie tout simplement peut nous apporter ce équilibre… On aura beau peser 45kg, on n’aura pas pour autant des échasses de top model…
Pis, c’est quand même plus intéressant de pique-niquer tranquillement au soleil avec des copines en se marrant que de penser que la part de gâteau au chocolat (et la coupe de champagne?!?) vont nous coûter 500 calories… non?

Obèse ou pas, aujourd’hui la société occidentale fait TOUT pour que nous pensions constamment à ce que nous mangeons. Tu avais fait des articles très révélateurs là dessus d’ailleurs. Le premier semblait assumer une légère prise de poids due à ton régime alimentaire pseudo-gourmand (je doute que tu était en surpoids quelconque) et celui d’après… Finalement non !
On ne trie plus du tout les aliments selon « bon/pas bon », mais « trop de sucres » « trop de gras » « pas bon du tout pour mes bourrelets »… C’est très grave, très poussé.
La santé n’entre réellement que dans de très rares cas. La plupart du temps, ce n’est qu’une question de 2, 3 ou 4 kilos de plus ou de moins à ne pas prendre ou ne pas garder.
Je doute que tu l’ignores, mais tu es citée à plusieurs reprises dans l’essaie Beauté Fatale de Mona Chollet, et c’est percutant… Je te le conseille vivement, toi qui as une grande influence via ton blog…

Because 7 is still the age of baby fat
so being on diet at 7 ys old sure is a bit extreme and scaring
at least this little girl will have this article to show to her therapist

PS: et j’adore manger, en plus j’habite à Lyon, (ville maxi-tentation) avec juste en bas de chez moi : une boulangerie de-la-mort-qui-tue, un fromager de-la-mort-qui-tue, un charcutier/traiteur heuuuu… »de-la-mort-qui-tue ».

Donc je « craque » souvent, pour un pain au chocolat à 16h, un St Marcellin bien coulant sur une baguette fraicher, un steak haché bien frais… Mais ce ne sont que des bonnes choses! Je les déguste donc avec bonheur et zéro culpabilité.

Et j’adore PARLER de bouffe.
Je pense que c’est typiquement français, parce qu’un jour notre prof d’anglais en master nous a donné comme exercice de parler d’une marque ou d’un produit qu’on adorait (à l’oral, of course) et 75% des élèves de la promo avaient choisi des trucs comestibles! (Haribo, Ladurée, Charal, Danone, Bjorg, Le Père Dodu…)
Il a halluciné, notre British de prof…

On food and obesity you must read William Reymond’s book « Toxic ».

It’s unbelievable what food industrialization is doing to our bodies.

F

Et bien, vu le nombre de réactions, c’est un sujet qui parlent à toutes… et à tous!
Je n’ai jamais eu de problème de poids, ni de balance. Juste une ceinture et des jeans qui m’indiquent si oui, j’ai pris quelques kilos. Si c’est le cas, ce n’est pas grave. Ca passera avec le sport hebdomadaire mais surtout avec LA PENSEE POSITIVE! Je me sens heureuse dans ce corps là, avec un petit ventre pas parfait, de fesses rebondies et ce n’est pas une balance qui pourra me contredire.
Après, mon petit budget et mon enfance à la campagne me font faire attention au supermarché, au resto, au marché que je fais tous les dimanches. Un rapport serein avec la nourriture est vraiment épanouissant.

+ une précision: dans ma famille de gourmands, personne n’a de problème de poids, et nous sommes plutôt minces.

In the Netherlands, we have a tv-show called ‘Help, our child is too fat’. To me, it’s perfectly normal for a parent to interfere with their child’s diet. Even more so: it’s their responsibility as a parent! What the tv-show has taught me is that most of these children are really unhappy – very often because their parents are divorced/they don’t have friends/parents work all the time – and that the parents are blaming their children for eating unhealthy foods, while the parents are the ones doing the shopping. Parents say things like ‘I know I buy a lot of cookies, but it’s HER decision to eat them’. That’s not fair to say to a 10 year old! First of all, children need to be taught healthy eating habits. Second, children eat junk food, chocolate, snacks etc for exactly the same reason as adults: because it’s easy and it detracts your attention of something else. What you see in this television series are unhappy kids, who don’t know how to deal with their emotions. They don’t excercise, don’t do fun things with their parents, they watch TV for hours or are stuck behind their computers. They never talk about what troubles them. So they eat. And again, I think it’s a parents responsibility to help them with this, even though that can be very difficult. I guess it’s not surprising that it’s usually not only the child that’s too fat….

Love this article Garance..

At a young age I became very aware of my weight, this was impulsed by doing ballet/dance and by my older sister dieting and trying to keep her weight in control. At ballet I was confronted with so many petit girls I became overwhelmed (I was 9/10 years old…)

At a certain point in my life food food was my enemy who I loved passionately at the same time. Somewhere along the way I started to accept myself and with that came a much more healthy relationship with food.

To illustrate my story more; I have never even been close to being overweight, yet I had an issue with my weight! I have always been slim (thanks to dancing mostly) and muscular. The latter was where my issue was concentrated in the past though I confused it with being « fat ». Now I know that my muscels are a blessing and are simply a part of me. I will never be ‘petit’, I will never be short (yes I wanted to be short –____– I wasn’t too familiar with the concept of models yet lol).

I’m averagely tall and toned; I happily accept!

bof, de toute façon, perso, je n’aime pas le sucré, ça m’écoeure très vite et ça me rend malade, donc c’est vite vu, en plus je fais pas mal de sport et je ne dépasse pas 1 à 2 plats par repas (quasiment jamais de dessert, je préfère les gateaux à l’heure du thé, 1 fois par an gd max!!) et donc aucun pb de poids… Et comme ça je peux me jeter sur les frites ou des crêpes à titre exceptionnel: zéro culpabilité!!

I don’t have time to read all the responses, but I wonder if anyone who has responded has a daughter who is overweight? I do. She’s 12 (5’2″) and weighed 130lbs two months ago. I also have two other daughters who are not overweight. So what is a mother to do?
I read the article in Vogue and I agree with what this mother did. I wish I had been more proactive when my daughter was younger. When you are a mother and you have a fat daughter, people blame the mother for the child’s weight. In my situation, I have tried to keep my daughter very active – sports each season, ballet and dance during the school year. No buying school lunches, limited snack money for after school excursions with friends. I don’t have a weight problem. I’ve been 125 lbs and 5’5″ for the past 20 years, even after having four children. We eat healthy; I make dinner for my family 5 out of 7 nights a week.
My approach with my daughter is awareness that she can not eat the way her brother and sisters can, especially now. She needs to be aware of every wasted calorie that enters her mouth. If you had a daughter that was allergic to wheat or dairy or nuts, you would teach your child how to eat and avoid those foods. It is the same when you are a parent of an overweight child. You need to educate your child about what they can and can not do. She is now down to 124 lbs and our goal weight for her is 115, as per her pediatricians suggestion.

when I was 8 years old my mum took me to a doctor cause I had problems with my weight after a country move and obviously a food change… I can’t but THANK HER a lot. now I’m 30 and I’ll be glad that my mum did that. I’m happy as I am now and I learned to eat healthier (which is not the same as being obsessed with weight). Taking care of what you eat is more important than being obsessed with how many pounds you weight or which size you are.

But Vogue DIDN’T « break the silence » on the issue, as you put it. Because nowhere else in the issue is the issue addressed directly. They only presented this point-of-view piece. They did not offer any useful advice or help or any information on where to get it.

What they did do is publish an article about a Mother with food issues celebrating forcing her child onto a diet and arguably pushing her issues onto her own child. As a stand alone article it would seem that they are advocating the point of view of the Mother.

After Vogue being the topic of the body image debate so frequently (and not in a positive way), you would think they would know better. You would think they would see the danger.

But NO. They just see a good way to put themselves back in the media. Get themselves extra publicity. No matter the cost.

That is what is so abhorrent. Not just the disturbed Mother.

Mettre des enfants au régime oui, mais sans leur donner l’impression d’être au régime et pour des enfants qui en ont VRAIMENT besoin, pour certaines mère dés que son enfant n’est plus dans la courbe de poid idéal c’est la catastrophe et le gamin à la droit à un régime drastique. Il faut comprendre que pour un enfant encore en pleine croissance le plus important c’est de stabiliser le poid, puis aprés le gamin il s’affinera et puis voilà.
Moi ça m’est arrivé, depuis gamine je suis un peu bouboule, vers 10-12ans on est allé chez la dieteticienne, alors oui ça a aidé, mais quand à Noël ton père te dit « Pas de tranche de foie gras pour toi, t’as du poid à perdre » et bah je peux te dire que ça fait trés mal. D’où le fait de faire un régime pour que le gamin stabilise son poid, je pèse le même poid que à mes 10ans aujourd’hui, j’ai grandit donc je me suis affinée. Aujourd’hui j’ai 17ans, ma relation avec mon poid est toujours aussi conflictuelle, j’ai des formes, un p’tit bidon, des cuisses et bon ça me dérange. J’avais perdu du poid en ne mangeant quasiment rien pendant un mois, je trouve ça tellement stupide en y repensant… Bref, voilà mon avis :)

I think all women have a complicated relationship with food. I realized that in order for me to be healthy I have to eat right and exercise. A lot of ppl are lazy when it comes to that myself included. We make it hard on ourselves by looking at friends or celebs and comparing our bodies to their’s it’s ridiculous . It might sound hippy dippy to say but have we to learn to love ourselves and if you have someone in your life who makes you feel like shit because you’re not a size 0 cut them out of your life.

I read this article yesterday and I am still thinking about the true message of it. My niece is 9 years old and quite a big child – we are all a little concerned that she is getting too pudgy, though she’s not obese. I believe it is absolutely the parent’s responsibility to make sure their children are as healthy as can be – parents should be as aggressive about the health of their children as this mother eventually became. It is, like you said, a difficult subject and certainly case by case… but in this case I think the mother did the right thing, and I do think she put her daughter on a diet because she had to – and obviously her pediatrician would back her up in a second.

It is worse for a parent to give their children sodas, cookies and junk food and not take responsibility for their weight than it is for them to monitor their diet. I hope I’m a thoughtful enough mother to make sure my children eat as healthy as possible even though I don’t always do so myself.

What is sad about this story is that the daughter got obese in the first place. There is no one to blame but the mother – that is negligence, and of course she would be fighting an uphill battle trying to get the kid to change eating habits after being able to indulge.

The saddest bit of the article was when the girl said, « but when I was 17 pounds healthier, I was still me » and the mother disagreed. That, to me was tragic.

What was lost in this article was the message that the daughter is beautiful no matter how much she weighs… too bad…

surveiller son alimentation, c’est pour moi une bonne chose
alors tous les sujets à ce propos m’intéressent, même l’interview du vogue us
et Garance, quant aux filles que tu photographies et met sur ton blog, il me semble qu’elles répondent toutes peu ou prou aux canons de beauté actuels, c’est à dire filiformes, etc. , non ?
de plus, tu les présentes toujours comme les filles les plus cool de la Terre, non ?
Et pourtant, je ne pense pas qu’elles se laissent aller
j’avoue ne pas comprendre ton point de vue …
je n’ai pas de balance, mange très sainement et suis toujours ravie de découvrir de nouvelles recettes mais pense aussi à équilibrer le tout sans que tout cela me semble contradictoire
anyway, bon yoga !!!!!!!!

Thank you for starting this conversation…it is very important!

J’ai déménager y’a 3ans aux Antilles où les hommes aiment les femmes en chair et où les femmes assument leurs rondeurs. Résultats: décomplexées, j’ai arrêté de me surveiller constamment! Je ne me pose AUCUNE question (j’insiste). Ca a été long, et vivre autour de gens qui s’en foutent m’a beaucoup aidé. Aujourd’hui, je ne comprend pas comment j’ai pu me priver autant, alors que je vis dans une famille de gourmets :)
On aura beau le dire milles fois mais pour maigrir pas de secret: sport + aimentation adaptée à son métabolisme. Malheureusement, y’en aura toujours pour vouloir mieux et qui se mettrons dans des situations pas possibles.
A l’heure d’aujourd’hui, on est plus au diktat de la minceur, les canons de beauté ont des formes. Voilà.

Garance, yours is the first sane post I’ve read on this article! So glad you wrote it. Everyone’s just been so busy bashing the woman, but what you’re seeing that we’re just making a scapegoat out of her for saying things that force us to confront our food issues, individually and culturally too.

As a self-professed chubby kid gone skinny–you know the type–I know I have a troubled relationship with food. Despite my best efforts, my weight fluctuates by about 5 pounds at any point throughout the year. Depending on whether I am having a « healthy-feeling » week or not, I eat cherry garcia ice cream out of the (quart-size) carton, crave (and consume) chocolate, cookies, macarons, buttered toast, etc. etc. But secretly? I complain about it because we all do–if I didn’t I think people would hate me for being mostly okay with it–but secretly, I’m actually not too perturbed. Sure, sometimes I eat a lot, and sometimes I binge-eat crackers at the keyboard late at night, but I never purge, and honestly, we all have a somewhat difficult relationship with food from time to time… I don’t know why we expect not to!

It’s important to be aware of our behaviors, but not to let our guilt get the better of us. It’s the obsessive thinking about food-guilt, I think, that’s the most debilitating.
Food Nirvana must be « eat whatever you feel like, try to do it in moderation, and don’t feel too bad about anything. » Right? Cookie does not equal terrible human being. Nor 5 pounds for an extra week or two.

I find it interesting that everybody’s comments on this post relate to diets but nobody has raised the issue of what’s in the food we eat, especially in the US. Every two years we visit my in-laws on the East Coast for a month and I cannot tell you how much preparation goes into this visit. We try to find out where we can buy organic meat, bread, vegetables, we plan recipes and we try to snack out as little as possible. Sure, we eat a muffin, or a cookie now and then and we dine out with family and friends but we also realised that fundamentally the portion sizes are humongous, that the kid’s menu always offers the omni-present grilled cheese sandwich (somebody please explain to me why my daughter would not want to eat a fillet of grilled fish and steamed broccoli and should have to subsist on spaghetti instead?) and that after a week we’re in fact pining for home and a supermarket with lanes of normal dimensions with food that doesn’t contain corn syrup or other strange ingredients.
I guess my point is that from a distance the US’s problem is the food it eats, starting with the breakfast cereals and the school meals it serves. Pizza Friday? My kid has to bring fresh fruit and packed lunch to her small state school every day. And I’m happy that way.
The day it actually becomes cheaper to cook a meal with vegetables instead of getting a MacMuffin or whatever is the day that a change will start in the US.

Gosh Garance, it’s so good to hear someone with some common sense speaking up about these issues. They are so insidious and normalised in our society. It really is ridiculous. We all have to learn to listen to our inner selves, surely. A little bit of what we fancy is good for us, just like eating till we’re full is a good mantra. Food is to be enjoyed, like life, like clothes, like friends etc etc. If we all learned to love ourselves (or didn’t learn to unlove ourselves) so much of this problem would disappear over night. Thought provoking post and refreshing. Thanks Garance and bon appetit!

I do know a lot of people with food obsession. I feel so lucky to not be in this situation. I have a great metabolism and a love for good-quality, home-made and healthy (full fat!) food, cultivated by my mother, who is completely old-fashioned and no-nonsense (you were not getting up from the table without eating everything on your plate, and you were not going to skip a meal!). When I was in my 20s I was a national-level athlete, and for me that had the effect of making me love my food more! I knew that to perform well I had to nurture my body. In my 40s, I have an Italian partner from the south of Italy, and so food is very important as an expression of culture. So at every turn, I’ve been lucky. I don’t think about my diet or my weight. I do find it depressing that women who are colleagues are always sending articles about the next big diet or food combination (or asking me, because of my athletic background), or whatever, and I always try to convince them (impossible) to just let go, listen to their bodies, enjoy food and…forget about it. I know it’s easier said than done. If there’s one thing that Americans could do to break this food problem it would be to stop eating all processed food and focus on food preparation at home. That makes a big difference in making the connection between food and life.

I read the article, also. As a mom, although I did not condone everything the mother said to her daughter, I sympathized with her plight. Kids today are inundated with junk food. Every kid brings cupcakes (usually the most horrid, supermarket ones filled with preservatives and dye and other yucky stuff) to school on their birthday, every Valentine’s day is filled with candy, every soccer match ends with a snack. Even if you have healthy food in your house, it is very hard to control the constant barrage of empty calories coming your kid’s way.
Couple this with a more sedentary lifestyle – kids don’t go out and play like they used to, there is more computer time, etc. – and what you have is what we have in this country: one in three kids is overweight, which. Overtime, these kids are at risk for diabetes, heart attack, depression and even early death. It’s not a joke. It’s a big problem.
It’s interesting that coming from another country, Garance, you see an American obsession with food and calories. . . it’s a hard problem and one that I think we’re just beginning to grapple with. . . I don’t know what the answers are. I think this woman will be roundly criticized for her methods, but as someone said above the parents who let their kids eat unhealthy food much to their detriment are not doing a great thing either. . . . . . it’s a tough nut, this one.

For the first time in my life, I went to a nutritionist last year. It was the best thing I did for myself, the best money I’ve ever spent. She taught me so much about eating healthly and choosing what’s good for you. I’ve been losing weight ever since, and I feel happy because I’m never hungry and I feel so energized. I regret all those years that I wasted on stupid diets and feeling ashamed of putting on a bikini and I wished I had gone to a nutritionist before.

I was chubby as a young child, and agonized over trying to lose weight. I had a weird relationship with food, because I craved sweets, but my mother would judge me if I ate sweets or fast food.

Even though being chubby was normal for me at that age, the idea of trying to be thin stuck with me. Once I was past the adolescent phase, I realized that I am normal and that healthy exercise with a combination of exciting healthy food will keep me in great shape! I don’t do fasts or juicing. I only do exercise that makes me happy – dancing, swimming, surfing. I eat lean meats and lots of beautiful vegetables and fruit. It’s all good!

I am currently recovering from anorexia nervosa. I also know a lot of people that have this disease. Trust me is not something you could want. I have classmates that are models. I used to look up to their bodies, I used to feel fat around them. So I started exercising, when I was only 13. Then,when I was 14, I started dieting. Then dieting and exercising became an obsession. When I was 15 i was weighting 99 lbs, when I should’ve weight at least 117lbs. My mom was scared, she made me go to different doctors, psychologists, but they didn’t help. Later, when I was 16 I stop dieting, and start gaining weight, but gain to much. Then last year, I stopped eating for days, then, for 3 months I ate nothing but vegetables, tea, diet jelly and cacao. I achieved again my lowest weight, but I had no energies and looked like a ghost. This year my mom made me go to a center specialized in EDs. They made me a lot of exams, and they found out that I have (with only 17 years old) bradycardia, osteopenia, low defenses, amenorrhea and my hair falls in impressive amounts. Now, three months later I’ve gained 4.4 lbs, I eat better, but my health hasn’t improve. It will take a lot of time until I can physically and mentally recover. Until then, I’m afraid to touch my hair (less to comb it) because I’m afraid I might end up bald; I can run (even though I started running in order to lost weight, I ended up loving it), cause I can have a heart attack. I’m scared to play volleyball, or football, or to even press my pencil to hard cause I might break my bones; I stay away from my friends when they are sick, because of my low defenses; And what scares me the most is that I really want to (someday) become a mother, but my period wont come. And I’m only telling you the physical consequences of my anorexia. The psychological ones are worst. Although I have the same problems that my 81 years old grandma has, I wish I could be thinner. I can’t stand my own body. I think I’m fat, and not because I gained 4.4 lbs, but because I will never be thin enough. The thing is, EDs are a living hell. And I really appreciate that some people speak up, get involved and try to do something. Society’s perception of beauty should change. This post made by you, Garance, is a step, and I’m grateful for that.

Je trouve cette maman très responsable au contraire, comparé à ces femmes qui laissent leurs enfants s’enfoncer dans la malbouffe et les kgs en trop jusqu’à l’âge du point de non retour.
J’ai été contrainte de faire un régime à 8 ans et je ne peux qu’en remercier ma maman car aujourd’hui je suis de nature très mince. Peut être que j’aurais 15 kgs en trop si elle n’avait pas choisi de faire cette démarche avec mon médecin de l’époque.

*are you reading this?*

I feel like there is an unbalance, but to get to the root of a situation we must start at the beginning. For example, the mother, in the above mentioned article, put on twenty pounds during two pregnancies, which lead her to want to diet. This issue begins way before the diet. I started with those eating habits that lead her to the twenty additional pounds (which are more than likely the same eating habits adopted by her 7-year old). Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating dieting, but neither am I against it.

I feel like the word (diet) itself has taken a negative concept over the past several years. Especially with its heavy associations with being sexy, fit, and acceptable. But it simply means – the way one eats. And I feel in that context, we should all have a healthy, balanced, diet. And since there isn’t an ideal circumstance for any two people, diets will vary from person to person. Take me for instance, there are somethings I just won’t eat. There are also some tasty things I have given up because I noticed that it was doing more harm than good to my body.

Obesity is no laughing matter – especially in America. Our menu is already full of food combinations that put the body in over-work mode, which eventually slows or shuts down our metabolism and in worst cases, our bodily functions (hence the gradual rise of digestive illnesses). I will not comment on the mother and her daughter, because I don’t know facts and judging someone’s intentions is tricky business (plus I didn’t read the article…lol). But would I put my child on a diet if he/she was obese AND his/her health was at risk? — Most certainly!

It is safe to say that you are right, Garance. We are unbalanced. We are either taking our relationship with food too seriously or not serious enough. I find that the need for a diet (in the self-depravation sense) always comes into play when someone realizes they lived only on one side of the scale and needs balance. Discovering what works for us, respectively, is an intuitive art, and it solicits patience, care, and love. I just hope the latter is the mother’s intentions for her 7-year old daughter.

Food is a gift. And should be a joy. But like many relationships, specially romantic ones, one can tend to self sabotage by being too focused on it. My doctor gave me the best advice for keeping a happy diet – have 60% of your calories come from fresh vegetables, fruits and legumes. Stuff made by mother nature. The rest, you can balance with meats, dairy and processed carbs (bread, muffins, whatever). If your plate is full and colorful from fruits and vegetables, both your body and your soul will be fed. I also think so many women place their value on their appearance and not on their heart, soul, real worth – because its hard to look into your own spirit and see that change is needed. But if your spirit and your soul are pleased, are at peace, the extra 5 or 10 lbs won’t bother you. They will only make you more pleasant to hug!

I just read this article yesterday and I loved it! Personally I think that it’s good for anyone to learn how to eat healthfully, her daughter is learning a great lesson very early. She probably won’t go through what the rest of us 20-somethings go through when we realize that we suddenly can’t down a bag of Doritos in one sitting anymore. That and she’ll feel a lot better than the kids that eat too much (and too much junk)!

As someone who has grown up in both the US and Europe, I find the split very extreme. Women obsess about calories and fat in the US in a culture that promotes it, because it’s a way of making money. Just notice how hard it is to find full fat yoghurt (a whole 4% fat, wow!) in an aisle full of sugar-filled, gelatin-enhanced non-fat so-called yoghurt! It’s a symptom of a larger issue. Then people gorge on junk food. I think there’s a balance missing, that sends out cravings. Denying yourself only creates cravings, obsessions.

In continental Europe, people eat full fat milk products, cheese, chocolate, butter…it’s part of the everyday and so maybe cravings don’t happen. I think the French multi-course, little of everything, is a fantastic secret because you get lots of vitamins, lots of variety, have to loooove cooking (and food) because it takes more time than throwing together a single bowl of pasta or meat dish, but is all about pleasure, company, multiplicity.

My father was something of a whole foods healthnut. I grew up in American health food stores in the 60s, made own yoghurt, and had a vegetable garden. But I was also jealous of my friends who got sweet cereals and twinkies, so I gorged at slumber parties. (Americans ate pretty badly in the early 70s, I must say…probably why my parents went the other direction to ueber-healthy) What I did learn from early on, though, was what good healthy food was and habits for life. I also learned to eat ‘junk’ food every now and again without gorging and also realized it tasted chemical and I felt gross and not particularly satisfied afterwards.

I think if the child learns strong habits, they’re there for life and diets aren’t necessary. But I also think that American culture has a really off-kilter relationship with food and bodies, fuelled by imbalance and a food industry that likes fads. I remember when all orange juice had calcium in it because it became a fad! Orange juice with calcium??? Just drink milk! Find the balance, learn moderation, enjoy food rather than obsess about it, and things fall into place. We have to eat, after all.

Coucou Grance, et aussi tout le monde.
Je crois qu’il ne faut pas tout mélanger. dddD’un côté nous avons le problème de la maman et de l’autre celle du surpoid de la jeune fille ( déclaré par le medecin donc credible).
Je dois dire bravo à cette maman qui a su reconnaître le problème de sa fille, que cela ait ou non un rapport avec le sien n’a rien à voir.
Je trouve cela inhumain par contre ces parents qui laissent leurs enfants manger tout et n’importe quoi, toute cette mal bouffe qui nous entoure, ce satané macDo que je ne considère même pas comme de la nourriture ( cf Michael Moore…) bref je crois que l’obésité ne touche pas que des adultes conscients de ce comportement autodestructif mais de jeunes gens tout-à-fait innocents et surtout mal habitué et mal informés.
Jamie Oliver , notre cuisto chouchou anglais s’est lancé dans une mission à ce sujet et a parcourru l’Amerique afin de « ré-éduqueré les familles et de leur faire prendre conscience de leur erreur sur leur façon d’envisager leur alimentation.
Dans les écoles, les cantines ne donnaient uniquement que de la « finger-food » c’est-à-dire uniquement des plats , si on peut appeler ça comme ça qui se mangent avec les doigts, je vous laisse imaginer: burgers, frites, pizza…bref, une cata quoi!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg, je vous laisse regarder!
En tous cas Grance, une fois de plus tu soulèves avec brio et de façon directe sans blesser un sujet délicat.
Merci et continue !!xx

I love your opinion on the topic. It is true that women are always trying to find new ways of dieting to lose weight. I think that in the U.S. many women find ways to indulge on fast food or fattening food while in other countries women eat what they want. I think the main problem is that here in the U.S. servings are huge and everything is artificial and full of preservatives.

As a child I had the advantage of growing up in New Zealand where the norm at the time was to have a vegetable garden in your backyard and access to an endless supply of fresh local fruit, quality meat and dairy. We often as children had our own patch of garden to grow our vegetables of choice. We were shown how to prepare food and dinners were always home cooked. Eating out at restaurants (with the very limited choices there were!) was for special occasions (this included Pizza Hut!). As such my siblings and myself have a healthy relationship with food. We have great appetites for veges (although my sister still refuses to eat brussel sprouts…) and have continued on the legacy of the backyard vege patch (or in my case the vege garden in pots due to limited outdoor space).

Today many children in New Zealand and worldwide are struggling to even be able to identify different fruit and vegetables. Let alone having the chance able to develop a palate for healthy choices? Many people will not have the skills to produce a meal ‘from scratch’. This I think has a huge effect on our relationship with food. Is it any wonder that people continue to make choices in regards to ‘diet’ that are influenced by the society they are in? Much of society has become so removed from where our food is actually coming from it must inevitably effect this relationship. How can you love something that came in a plastic wrapped tray that’s been nuked in the microwave? The historical french and Italian relationship with food as reflected by many of the comments above shows us that knowing where your food has come from and how it is made can help build an understanding of food and consequently a healthy relationship with it.

I realise it is hugely idealistic to expect everyone in all situations to grow at least some of their own food, but I feel the world would be a much better place for it. If a parent wishes to instill some knowledge of food then this would be a great starting point. Involve them in the creation process of a meal and let them know where their food has come from. Introduce them to different foods and tastes. I would hate to have missed out on all the weird and wonderful things I have tasted in my life!

C’est certain que malheureusement beaucoup de femmes sont obsédées par leur poids, je le vois tous les jours en mangeant avec mes amies… Je trouve ça bien d’en parler car ce culte de la minceur est vraiment dangereux! J’ai moi même eu quelque problèmes avec la nourriture, mais en faisant attention et en mangeant ce qui me fais plaisir sans excès, j’ai perdu 7 kilos et je me suis stabilisée à un poids qui me convient ! Il ne faut pas se priver toute sa vie, sinon on est frustrée ! Il faut savoir profiter !

I’m 24 years old and I’m starting to take into account what I eat more than I did before in an effort to lose a bit of weight while eating healthy. But I love food too much to be on a diet or to get to the point of counting calories! :)

Garance, how right you are to finally bring up this subject! I was reading this article yesterday and it made me think about the subject aswell.

All the time that I am having a look at your beautiful pictures of these skinny pretty girls I am asking myself: Are they so perfect as they seem on these pictures..? Nowadays everyone has to be in perfect shape, extremely thin, but also a great cook and good eater. Isnt this paradox? Women nowadays have to be everything at the same time and this is what gives them such a hard time. Imperfection is hardly shown, neither is honesty about our eating habits. That we count calories all the time and think about the calories of a croissant instead of simply enjoying it is shocking but absolutely true. Nobody is perfect but no one shows this to us. I love seeing pictures on your blog of « real » women who have wrinkles of all their moments when they were laughing, who have not the perfect whitet teeth and maybe not the skinniest legs. It reminds you that noone of us is perfect. Although I am 21 I admire women as Maryl Streep and not Victorias Secret Angles. Of course Marly is not half as pretty as any of these girls, but with her beautiful way of talking, her smile, her charisma, she is a hundred times of what any of these girls are trying to achieve. Please do me the favour and include pictures of such women even more often, just to show us the difference between beauty and real beauty. We need other powerful women who remind us of the fact that we should stop aspire only after our looks and start searching for our real inner us who accepts and enjoys food without hesitation and feelings of guilt.

Je suis convaincue depuis longtemps que notre rapport à la nourriture est l’un des meilleurs reflets de notre état psychologique.

COMPLETEMENT d’accord avec Soleils, les régimes créent des troubles psychologiques et il n’y a que l’écoute de ses sensations alimentaires qui peut nous guider, sans risque sur la santé physique et mentale. Les minces d’origines restent ainsi minces alors que je connais plusieurs filles, dont moi-même, qui sont devenues des rondes alors qu’elles sont fines par nature. Heureusement c’est réversible, j’en suis la preuve. En France, c’est le Dr Zermati qui est le chantre de ce discours et j’espère qu’il saura faire entendre davantage sa voix (mais c’est vrai qu’il n’incite pas à consommer derrière, genre bouquins et produits dérivés divers). Quant à l’éducation de ses enfants, c’est bien sur ce point que cela se corse, il ne faut surtout pas transmettre ses peurs et ses obsessions ce qui est difficile vu l’apologie ambiante de l’équation minceur=valeur. Simplement dire à son enfant qu’on l’aimera toujours quel que soit son IMC…

I’m naturally skinny, and i reallyyyy enjoy food!! I spend more on trying new restaurants and plates, than what i do in clothes. But I’ve always try to keep everything in balance, even though I’ve never had much problem with my weight.

Although, in the last year I’ve become conscious of this obsession that people have with diets, and it has alarmed me a bit. ‘Cause it has become like a fashion thing, like being on a diet is « in », even for people that doesn’t need it.

As a journalist, I’ve been invited to a couple press lunches lately, and on one in particular i had nothing to say on the table and i got sooooo bored, just because everything that my colleagues were talking about was calories, new diets, training… etc. And no one but me seemed to enjoy the delightful dishes this new restaurant was serving just for us.

So I really agree, this obsession is far beyond from being healthy, some people’s life is starting to run around a « healthy life » that’s becoming mentally unhealthy.

I read that article in Vogue and I thought it was a bit ridiculous. I think teaching your child how to eat healthy is one thing but making it obsessive is dangerous. She is introducing her daughter to the same obsession she has with food and how it is a hinderance rather than a delicious pleasure. Everyone here in New York wants to be thin and with so many amazing food choices here, they are bound to drive themselves mad. Im sorry but I love to eat, but that should never suggest that I don’t love my body. Food helps my body stay powerful and energized– and just plain happy! :)

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