Just last week, Today Show morning anchors Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager weighed themselves on air, with a plan to start intermittent fasting. A few days later, Oprah Winfrey launched a national tour with a “wellness” theme, in partnership with Weight Watchers, now called WW. She’ll be joined by A-listers like Tina Fey, Michelle Obama, Tracee Ellis Ross, Amy Schumer, and Jennifer Lopez.
It almost makes you forget that four women stood on stage in Atlanta to compete in the Democratic Presidential Debate last week, too. While the United States (once again) considers electing a female president for the first time ever, the evaluation and critiques of women’s bodies still dominate our conversations.
Diet Culture is Sneaky and Subtle
No doubt diet culture is the culprit. But it operates so stealthily that we sometimes forget its power and influence.
Diet culture is so sneaky and subtle that it’s even in our children’s schools. In the last few days, one friend sent me the lyrics of her 9 year-old daughter’s upcoming school performance – a holiday song children will sing about Santa going on a diet. The school of another friend’s son announced that “eating snacks is a privilege,” with intent to police the “healthy” and “unhealthy” choices that kids make. Nevermind if that’s the only food to which the child has access. The potential punishment? Confiscated food and a hungry, lethargic tween who has to wait 4 more hours until lunchtime.
Diet culture is so sneaky that the diet companies have changed their names, products and slogans. Weight Watchers rebranded itself “WW” and is up for most-disgusting-company-of-the-year award for its launch of Kurbo, a dieting app aimed specifically at kids and teens. But they didn’t seem to care too much about reports of kids bingeing after feelings of deprivation. And we thought the tobacco industry was clever. Watch out, fruit-flavored vaping products, there’s another monster in town.
Diet culture rebrands and remarkets itself to sound like a no-brainer. They co-opt words like empowerment and inspiration, and make promises of strength, mental clarity, strong nails, clear skin, and refreshed energy. But the true goal is to aim for a smaller body that you must keep shelling out cash to attain. I’ve watched like companies like Tone it Up tweak words like diet into nutrition, and rebrand the “5 Day Slimdown” as the “5 Day Detox.” Everyone knows “diets” and “slimming down” are not palatable words, but nutrition and detoxing are considered so “morally good” that few question the value or the medical proof.
Diet culture is so prolific that even Oprah can’t escape it. Despite her reputation as one of the most successful and inspirational women of all-time, from her top-rated television show to her Super Soul Sunday sessions and her own network, we keep coming back to her body. (Please someone tell me that when I’m 65 and have a net worth of $2.8 billion that I won’t have to fixate on my appearance anymore.)
Hear more in Layla Saad’s podcast about Oprah and diet culture.
The Motivations Behind Diet Culture
But diet culture isn’t JUST about making money and making women smaller.
It’s also about control.
It keeps women distracted. It keeps us thinking about how we look.
Few men sit in business meetings thinking about whether their thighs look fat pressed onto the chair, their eyeliner is smudged, or whether the crease in their forehead is getting deeper while they use active listening skills at a staff meeting. They don’t have to. They haven’t been trained to.
Related: 3 Secrets About Diet Culture
So when we see Hoda and Jenna dissect their food schedules and step on the scale, it doesn’t seem that surprising. But it should be. No one asked Craig Melvin and Carson Daly to weigh in (literally) and discuss the fit of their clothes. Much like our current state of politics, our outrage has dimmed because it’s exhausting to be furious all the time, and because diet culture is so prevalent that it all seems normal.
We’ve been desensitized.
Still, one must wonder what NBC was thinking when they encouraged Hoda and Jenna to get on the scale and try the newest fad diet, one that isn’t necessarily supported by science.
No doubt some producer told them “everyone will think you’re so brave for having the guts to weigh yourselves on national television! It’s soooo courageous because the last thing women want to share is their weight or their age, right? You’ll be a role model to women everywhere.”
And the co-hosts said “okay” because part of their job is to be game for anything.
It would be easy to shame Hoda and Jenna for that decision.
They’re educated, wealthy, thin privileged women who millions of people watch on television. They have an obligation to the young girls out there.
They should know better than to promote disordered eating habits that deny their body food for 6 hours after waking. They should know better than to roll in a doctor to the segment to convince viewers that they’ll actually achieve all the health benefits associated with intermittent fasting a/k/a periodic starvation, like clear skin and high energy and better “health.” Because it’s not about losing weight, it’s just about “being healthy.” Right?
Yes, we can absolutely ask these women for more accountability.
But sole blame on Hoda and Jenna erases the context.
Despite their privileges, Hoda and Jenna (who just birthed a baby a few months ago) have suffered the same diet culture messages as the rest of us. Thinner is better! Get thin to get healthy! Get that post-baby body back!
It also erases the context of their employment.
After all, isn’t it easier for NBC to have women think about their bodies than about the network’s poor decisions? It was almost exactly two years ago – on November 29, 2017 – that they fired Matt Lauer for alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault against other women, including NBC’s own employees.
Some reports say that the network knew about the harassment for a long time and consciously kept it quiet with settlements and non-disclosure agreements that hush the victim. It wouldn’t be surprising, after all we’ve heard about potential coverups by big networks to shield Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein and countless others. The old-boys club keeps these secrets and protects the accused again and again. It’s a story way older than Anita Hill.
After NBC fired Matt Lauer, the network did what they should – what they knew would receive praise – and put two qualified, deserving women on the 7:00am anchor desk for The Today Show: Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.
And last week they put one of those women on a scale.
Hoda was so mad about the number on the scale that she says she took all her energy out at the gym.
That’s the clever thing about getting women mad at their own bodies.
They can only take it out on themselves, on the treadmill. They can only punish themselves.
If Hoda is THAT mad about the scale, how pissed is she at NBC for possibly protecting the guy who harassed her colleagues? How mad is she at Matt Lauer for acting like a good guy all along? And where does she take out all of that anger? Who does she punish?
After all the stories, all the horrendous treatment of women in the workplace that we’ve heard since #metoo broke – that some have experienced for a lifetime – we still distract and control women with dissatisfaction about how they look.
The message to women is clear. No matter how successful you are, no matter how powerful, we’ll reduce you to your body, to your looks. Every. Single. Time.
If you plan to catch Oprah on tour, for a ticket price of about $150, she promises to help you outline your wellness plan for 2020.
Forget the wellness plan. How about we create a Give Me Some Damn Respect Plan instead?
It’s totally free.
If you are a parent, caregiver, teacher, or coach, learn 8 strategies to nurture healthy body image in children in our free guide:
Photo: Aphrodite in NYC, “Oprah Life You Want Miami” License CC BY 2.0
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