You are on page 1of 19

The sexual division of dieting: women's

voices

John Germov and Lauren Williams

Abstract

This article reports the findings of focus group research on Australian


women who have engaged in dieting practices to lose weight. There
have been few qualitative sociological studies on dieting, despite it
being a common practice among westem vs'omen. From the empirical
data in this study three distinct themes emerged: women participate in
the perpetuation and reinfor(»ment of the thin ideal; women clearly
trade-off health in the pursuit of dieting to lose weight; and the domi-
nant discourse of the thin ideal is not only mediated in various ways,
but is also contested by a reverse discourse of size a(X»ptance. A soci-
ology of food and the body enables the discourses in the area of diet-
ing women to be deconstructed, offering an insight into the gendered
context of food, which has implications for the sociology of health and
illness.

Introduction

Dieting amongst women has become so common in westem coun-


tries that it has been regarded as part of 'the everyday' and has
therefore received little attention from sociologists to date. This
'taken for granted' nature of dieting to lose weight has obscured
the fact that dieting is primarily a female act. In Australia, more
women than men diet due to dissatisfaction with their body shape
and size, even though more men are overweight' (National Heart
Foundation, 1990; CSIRO, 1993). There is a sexual division of
dieting, where a number of studies have consistently found that
females (as young as eleven) are more likely to report dissatisfac-
tion with their body shape than males and perceive the need to
lose weight even when within the 'healthy weight range'
© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Sexual division of dieting

(Tiggermann and Pennington, 1990; Huon et al., 1990; Banks,


1992).
Whilst sociological aspects of eating disorders have been well
documented, especially through the use of qualitative methodo-
logy (MacSween, 1993), there have been few qualitative studies
which have attempted to expose the links between food and the
body within the context of dieting. The majority of studies on
dieting are based on quantitative methodology arising from the
fields of medicine and dietetics, whose research base is tradition-
ally the reductionist focus of the biomedical paradigm. Such clini-
cal studies have yielded detailed nutritional information on
nutrient intake, the prevalence of overweight, success with dieting
and sometimes food choice, but largely ignore the social context
of food. In his summary of the dieting literature, Lester (1994)
concludes that few studies have attempted to research the behav-
iours and reasons of why people, especially women, diet.
For many women it is now 'normal' to be on a diet; to be a
professional dieter, to watch one's fat and kilojoule intake, to
plan each meal, to be in a perpetual state of 'disordered eating'.
This sensitivity to weight and body image sets women up for a
cycle of 'yo-yo' dieting or weight cycling which can result in:
stress, anxiety, lowering of the metabolic rate, risk of developing
nutrient deficiencies and eating disorders (Abraham and Mira,
1988; Barber and Bull, 1985). It is estimated that intervention
programs for weight loss have a failure rate as high as 90% and
may cause more problems than they attempt to solve by perpetu-
ating weight cycling, exacerbating low self-esteem and reinforcing
cultural prejudices toward overweight people (Lissner et al., 1992;
Lustig, 1991; Begley, 1991; Pace et al., 1991).
Whilst dieting and the cultural aversion to 'fat' have historical
underpinnings which existed prior to contemporary health warn-
ings (Schwartz, 1986), the well intentioned actions of health pro-
fessionals and govemment agencies in promoting anti-fat
messages may have reinforced the 'thin ideal' and encouraged an
epidemic of dieting. The authors discuss the implications of the
medicalisation of obesity and argue for a moratorium on health
promotion in the area of weight loss elsewhere (Germov and
Williams, in press).

© Tlie Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 631


John Germov and Lauren Williams

Gendered bodies

Wolf (1990) argues that women's eating is a public issue - they


must eat less and differently from men. She states:

Dieting is the essence of contemporary femininity. Denying


oneself food is seen as good in a woman, bad in a man . . . the
current successful and 'mature' model of femininity submits to
a life of self-denial in her body (1990: 200).

Tumer (1992), among others, argues that the body is a social


construction. The discourse of dieting is a gendered discourse
which involves connotations of deprivation, punishment and
denial in order to control the female body. This control has been
especially evident in the external representation of women's sexu-
ality. Throughout history the body has been 'defined as good or
bad; tomb or temple; machine or garden; cloak or prison; sacred
or secular; friend or enemy . . .' (Synnott, 1993: 37). The most
recent paradigm for Synnott involves the plastic body: a body
which can be moulded and shaped: genetically, surgically and
physically (through diet and exercise). Foucault (1979; 1981) out-
lined the surveillance of the human body and used the phrase
'political anatomy' to signify the social control of a disciplining
society, which consisted primarily of 'bio-polities'. Synnott claims
bio-politics refiects male power over female bodies, where the
'phrase "Discipline and Punish" is therefore gender-specific: the
discipline and the gaze are male' (1993: 37). Gendered bodies are
produced through cultural norms goveming women's behaviour
and appearance, which are reflected in discourses of beauty, diet,
exercise, cosmetics, fashion and food.
There is a growing literature on the sociology of food
(Beardsworth and Keil, 1992; Lupton, 1994; Murcott, 1983a,b,
1988; Mennell, 1985; Mennell et al., 1992; Maurer and Sobal,
1995), but of those studies on women and food, few have stud-
ied the dieting process. A number of studies (Charles and Kerr,
1988; Murcott, 1983b) indicate that men can exert control over
the family diet, disputing the premise of the women as gate-
keeper of the family diet. Charles and Kerr (1988: 84) inter-
viewed 200 British women and claim 'the privileging of men in
terms of food provision is a symbolic representation of the sub-
ordination of women within the family, a concrete expression of
their position as servers and carers of men'. They conclude that

632 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

dietary practices are linked to the sexual division of labour in


domestic life.
Dieting, however, can be a positive experience and source of
pleasure for some women, resulting in enhanced satisfaction with
appearance, social recognition and acceptance through compli-
ments from others and the achievement of personal goals of self-
discipline (Orbach, 1986; Chernin, 1981). Orbach and Chemin
also note that the thin body represents the symbol of youth,
beauty, vitality and health, where cultural notions of 'fatness' are
constructed as a clear sign of a body lacking control. Therefore,
the picture of patriarchal oppression that Charles and Kerr paint
is neither so clear nor deterministic.
The lack of qualitative, sociological studies in this area has
meant the subjective experiences of dieting women have been
over-looked. Therefore, the complex, subtle and conflicting rea-
sons and influences on why women diet are unknown. The pur-
pose of our exploratory study was to begin to understand
women's experience of dieting and to document women's voices
on food and dieting for weight loss.

Method and results

Data was collected through two focus groups which took place in
December, 1994 and March, 1995 in Gosford and Sydney,
Australia. Fourteen women, seven in each group, took part in the
research. Participants were required to be pre-menopausal women
who identified themselves as not having any medical condition in
need of dietary modification and who had a history of dieting to
lose weight. Present weight was not a restriction. Participants
were initially recruited through existing weight control groups,
but when this yielded insufficient numbers, the snowballing tech-
nique was used, where existing participants were requested to
invite other people known to them. The number of focus groups
required for research is determined by repeating the focus group
discussions until a repetition of themes occurs. This happened
after two focus group discussions.
Participants completed a short written questionnaire which pro-
vided information on level of education, occupation, income and
previous experience with dieting. Demographic data from the
questionnaires showed the first group (from the suburb of
Gosford) was made up of women who had left secondary school

© Tlie Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 633


John Germov and Lauren Williams

before matriculation level. They were all bom in Australia and


had incomes below $30,000. The second group comprised women
who had university degrees who lived in relatively affluent sub-
urbs of Sydney. Five of these women were bom in Australia, one
in Scotland and one in Finland. With the exception of two
women currently on matemity leave, all had full-time equivalent
incomes above $50,000. In both groups, most women lived with
their husband or partner. In each group, two of the partnered
women also had children (under school age). The ages of the par-
ticipants ranged from 21 to 46, with the majority being in their
late 20s and early 30s. Despite clear socio-economic differences
between the two focus groups, the responses from each group
were strikingly similar.
Focus groups are a qualitative research method of group inter-
views combined with participant observation where the researcher
takes the role of moderator and relies on group interaction to
produce data. Focus group questions are aimed to elicit a range
of responses from the group on a particular topic. The focus
group discussion was guided by a semi-structured group interview
protocol developed and piloted by the authors after reviewing the
literature. Each focus group was facilitated by the female author
to make participants comfortable in discussing gender issues. The
two focus groups were audiotaped, with the data transcribed and
then coded using thematic analysis. A typed transcript of their
statement was mailed to each participant within two weeks of the
focus group session as a validation of the data and to gain any
further insights participants wished to offer. This allowed partici-
pants the opportunity to withdraw or clarify quotes. One partici-
pant took up this opportunity and withdrew some comments
which she could not recall making. The participants were asked
to choose a pseudonym for the purposes of the transcript (Group
1: Max, Gyrtle, Maria, Helga, Audrey, Claudia, Marilyn; Group
2: Abigail, Clara, Scarlett, Mitzy, Di, Cindy, Naomi). The results
are presented below and are grouped into sub-headings which
reflect the main themes to arise from the focus groups. The
empirical findings from the two groups have been combined since
the same themes emerged from each group.

634 © The Editorial Board of The Sodological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

The diet regimen: guilt, control, happiness and the vidous


cycle

The women were asked what being on a diet meant to them. Max
summed up the feeling of all but two of the women toward diet-
ing in stating: 'I hate the thought of dieting, I hate it!' Audrey
agreed, revealing that dieting was: 'Restricted and boring.
Deprived!'. However, two of the women described the pleasure
that dieting could provide:

Claudia: I just get really excited about losing weight... I live


for the excitement of losing weight each week. If I
don't lose it, I feel like I'm a failure, even if I main-
tain my weight, I get depressed.
Abigail: If you get the reward, there can be a lot of positive
feelings - if you lose weight and people comment on
your appearance.
When probed about reasons why they first went on a diet, many
women explained it was due to dissatisfaction with their body
shape. The women clearly acknowledged the pressure to conform
to the thin ideal from friends and family as well as the social
pressure to conform to cultural notions of female attractiveness.
Audrey summed it up by saying: 'It's all what's fed to you . . .
not as food but in words.'
The participants were asked if they ate different foods when on
a diet, compared to when they were not dieting. Each focus group
produced two discrete, but similar, lists of foods: the 'on-
diet/good foods' were those low in fat and high in fibre; while the
'off-diet/bad foods' were high in fat and sugar. This quote from
Claudia shows that the sensory pleasure associated with food can
be spoiled by such classification schemes.

Claudia: I don't like skim milk, so I don't enjoy milk any


more, whereas before I used to love drinking a glass
of full-cream milk, but now I'd feel guilty that I'd
drunk it.
Without being prompted to do so, the participants ascribed the
moral qualities of good and bad respectively to the foods,
expressing feelings of guilt when consuming 'bad', 'forbidden'
foods, which were paradoxically associated with pleasure.

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 635


John Germov and Lauren Williams

Di: I find that if I don't have something nice in the


house, to go to when I feel like being bad, then I'll
go through the fridge and eat everything looking for
that taste that I want, and I can't find it, but I keep
trying.
Audrey: I get that deprived feeling every so often . . .
Sometimes I think I'd really like to have off the diet
food.

The women commonly experienced guilt and depression when diet-


ing. This was either due to the temptation to eat 'off-diet/bad' food,
or the failure to lose weight and achieve the desired body shape.

Helga: As soon as I eat something that's not on my diet, I


do feel guilty, I feel really bad. As soon as I stop a
diet, I'll go virtually the opposite way, I'll just about
eat anything and I know I shouldn't do it but I just
can't help myself . . . It's depressing when you reach
the plateau because you're still dieting and you're
sticking to the diet perfectly, you're not doing any-
thing wrong and you're still not losing any weight.

The plateau effect Helga describes resulted in what Claudia called


the 'vicious cycle'; referring to the never-ending process of: diet-
ing, failing to maintain 'control' and retuming to eating 'bad'
foods, gaining weight . . . only to once again enter the diet cycle.
Such yo-yo dieting can lower the metabolic rate which makes
weight loss even more difficult to achieve.

Body surveillance

There was general agreement among the women that a double


standard existed for men and women in terms of body
weight/shape. It seems to be acceptable for men to vary within a
wide range of weight, whilst women had a far narrower 'accept-
able' weight range. As the following quote indicates, the double
standard extended to executive level women who, unlike men,
were still expected to conform to the thin ideal.

Mitzy: I've had people ask me whether my senior manager


[female] is going to lose weight and it totally

636 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

astounds me, because people would never think of


asking about the CEO (who is male and is more
overweight than she is) whether he'll lose weight. . .
it's quite acceptable for him, but it's not acceptable
for her . . . Since she's been promoted more ques-
tions have arisen about her weight. Because she is
successful, they think she should be more in control
of her diet.
Scarlett: Even in the corporate world with female executives,
the first thing people talk about is 'look at her, she's
put on weight'.

Such comments illustrated the view of some of the participants


that women place themselves under a form of self-surveillance by
adopting male values of the 'ideal' female body and reinforcing
the thin ideal on other women. 'Success' is still measured by a
woman's appearance, where economic success needs to be matched
with 'body success'. Therefore, the social control over women's
appearance was perpetuated not just by men, but by women.

Naomi: Society is the biggest enemy, it's made up of women


as well.
Cindy: Women are their own worst enemy, they strive to
look better.

The women expressed both disappointment and euphoria in the


reactions of others to their loss of weight. Some received positive
reactions and direct compliments when they lost weight, such as
'you look great', 'have you lost weight', 'you look so much bet-
ter'. The reward is linked to 'regaining control' over one's body
and reinforces the 'beauty myth' (Wolf, 1990); based on the
notion there is only one acceptable form of female beauty and all
women should strive to achieve it. The pressure to conform and
thereby gain social acceptance in addition to wanting to be
attractive to the opposite sex, are potent examples of the intemal-
isation of social norms and power relations. Conversely, some
women resented such 'positive' comments.

Gyrtle: It's weird, but people think they're being nice if they
comment on my weight, that I've lost weight . . .
they always think they have to say something to
overweight people.

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 637


John Germov and Lauren Williams

Size acceptance

Both Audrey (who had a long history of dieting) and Scarlett


(who had only dieted in her late teenage years) no longer dieted
to lose weight and accepted their body shape.

Audrey: It's taken me thirty years to accept myself.


Scarlett: I've realised I'll never be a size 10 and so it really
doesn't bother me, and my shape doesn't worry me.

Gyrtle and Abigail acknowledged the desire to be size accepting


and felt they were for most of the time, but occasionally lapsed
and sporadically dieted.

Gyrtle: I'm happy with myself . . . I don't worry about how


big I am, but other people worry for me and that's
what makes me feel guilty.
Abigail: I guess now I've accepted the fact that I either want
to be happy with the size that I am and just have a
healthier eating pattem and if in the process of that,
it helps me to lose weight, well that's great, and if it
doesn't, well this is the shape that I am.

Mitzy and Marilyn had only recently accepted their size and
stopped dieting due to the support of their partners (neither of
whom were overweight).

Mitzy: Actually having a boyfriend who appreciated my


body because it looked like a woman which made me
think that these curves are all me and that's how I
am supposed to look.
Marilyn: When I was with my ex-boyfriend he used to say
how fat I was . . . and now I've got a new boyfriend
and he always tells me that I'm voluptuous and sexy
and I think I feel heaps better so I think it depends
on who you're with sometimes.

Claudia's partner was also accepting of her size, but she still felt
pressured to diet and aspire to the thin ideal.

Claudia: Even when you've got a man, you're still worried


about weight . . . My boyfriend says he's happy with

638 © The Editorial Board of The Sodological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

the way I look, but I'm paranoid that I'm not good
enough and I feel like I have to be slim for me not
for him.

'Size acceptance', for want of a better term, is clearly an 'elastic',


rather than fixed, state. The women in this study who were size
accepting had difFerent experiences leading up to this status. For
some, this position is the result of a history of the failure to lose
weight; others were encouraged by their partners; whilst still
others had decided that obsession with their bodies was not worth
the pain of the dieting process.

Diet versus health

Many of the focus group participants who dieted regularly were


aware of making a clear trade-off with their health. Weight loss
and health were viewed as two separate entities. Therefore, the
prime motivation when dieting was not achieving health, but
achieving a desired body shape. Clara epitomised this view by
stating:

Clara: I'm willing to trade-off health for weight loss in the


short term. I do it when I'm not even on a diet. So
I'll definitely do i t . . . when I want to lose weight.
Mitzy: When I was really sick and lost weight, it annoyed
me that people commented on my appearance, and
not my health.

Mitz5''s statement represents the constant social pressure women


confront in order to conform to the thin ideal even at the expense
of their health. The irony is that medical and other health profes-
sionals advocate weight control as a means of achieving health.
The pursuit to avoid stigma and gain acceptance through con-
stant dieting could lead some people onto the dangerous path to
anorexia:

Claudia: If I was 50kg though, I wouldn't be happy with that,


I'd have to be thinner . . . I'd rather be thin than
worry about my health. It doesn't scare me to have
anorexia . . . If I had anorexia, it wouldn't bother me
. . . but I know that I like food too much to be

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 639


John Germov and Lauren Williams

anorexic, but I know I could probably border on


anorexia. Like I've tried laxatives and stuff, but I
know it doesn't last.

Discussion: the discourses of dieting

Wolf (1990) argues that women's eating pattems are a public and
political issue. Food, with the implications it has for their bodies,
defines a woman in western society. Wolf sees dieting as 'self-
inflicted semi-starvation' and argues that we need to move away
from individually based psychological explanations of dieting, to
focus on the public sphere. She maintains that the thin ideal
should be conceived of as a pre-emptive strike at women because
'fat' is inherently feminine - to deny it is misogynistic - women
naturally have breasts, buttocks, rounded abdomens and hips.
However, Wolf presents an overly deterministic and simplistic
view of the way women respond to the pressure to conform to
female appearances norms. The voices of the women in this study
represent a myriad of reactions to the thin ideal in terms of how
the dominant discourse is accepted, modified, resisted or rejected.
The subjective experience of women who diet can be characterised
in women's contradictory relationship with food, where they
derive both 'pleasure and pain' from food and dieting. The quali-
tative methodology employed in this study reveals the complexity
of the dieting process. Three main themes to emerge from the
data are: the diet/health trade-off, women play a significant role
in reinforcing the thin ideal, and the reverse discourse of size
acceptance. These themes will be explored further below.

Dieting as the new religion: the diet/health trade-off

Certainly these days, when I hear people talking about tempta-


tion and sin, guilt and shame, I know they're referring to food
rather than sex (Sternhell in Rothblum, 1994: 53).

Seid notes the parallel between Victorian attitudes to sex and


modem attitudes to food, where 'food rules have become as dour
and inhibitory as the sex rules of the 19th century' (1994: 8). The
modem message bypasses sexuality and prescribes control over
body shape through dietary regulation. The focus group results

640 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

added to the growing empirical findings on the 'morality of food'


where women classify it into good and bad categories, reflecting
its nutritional composition (Charles and Kerr, 1988; Santich,
1994; Chapman and Maclean, 1993).
Associated with the morality of food was the general attitude
that health concems were sacrificed to achieve weight loss. The
diet/health trade-off may reflect the anti-health views of the age
group of the women, but the clear message from those who
dieted was that they would do what ever it took to lose weight.
Eating in a consciously unhealthy way to lose weight embodies
the seriousness with which some women view the need to disci-
pline their bodies. The diet/health trade-off exposes the links
between food and the sociology of health and illness. The bi-
polar notion of good and bad foods can be contrasted with the
thin/fat dichotomy; where it is good to be thin and bad to be
fat. Health and fitness industries, supported by govemment
health promotion programs, have reinforced the notion of 'slim
equals healthy' which could be seen as promoting dieting.
However, it is clear that health concems take a back seat when
women diet to improve their body image. Whilst such a finding
represents a serious challenge to health education campaigns
which use the promise of health gains to change people's eating
habits, of even greater concem is the link between illness and
weight loss. Mitzy's annoyance at people congratulating her
weight loss due to a recent illness is reminiscent of rewarding
female invalidism in the Victorian era. In this case, it is hypothe-
sised that the sick role can be a reward for women, not only as
a feminine trait, but also as a reflection of women's relationship
to food and their body. This is epitomised in the development of
the ultimate state of thinness - anorexia nervosa. The acceptance
of illness-inducing behaviour as a health/weight trade-off requires
further investigation.

Bodiiis under surveillance

The regulation of the female body has existed for centuries.


Tumer (1992) outlines the historical role of dietary management
in producing a docile and disciplined body by punishment and
penance to purge oneself of excess. The links between religion
and the self-starvation diet regimen have been discussed by vari-
ous authors in relation to eating disorders (Banks, 1992; Bynum,

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 641


John Germov and Lauren Williams

1987; Bell, 1985; Brumberg, 1988). Today dieting is no longer


about religious spirituality, but sexuality and longevity: the body
is now the 'aesthetic body', where for some women the pleasure
derived from dieting resembles the fervour of religious practices
for spiritual salvation. The thin body is an 'ideal type', where
such a goal reflects a desire for secular purity of the soul through
salvation from stigma. The 'aesthetic body' has become the new
religion, with dieting providing a form of aesthetic spirituality.
The surveillance of women's bodies was noted by the partici-
pants as being propagated by women as well as men. The adage
that 'women dress for other women' or that 'women are the
harshest judges of other women' was recognised by the women in
this study. It is no accident that some women actively participate
in stigmatising women who do not conform to the thin ideal.
Bartky (1990) uses Foucault's concept of micro-power relations to
theorise why some women voluntarily impose a continual body
surveillance on themselves and other women. She argues that it is
the internalisation of patriarchal norms, rather than external coer-
cion, that is the dominant form of power relations. This results in
self-regulation and self-disciplining of female bodies in the pursuit
of the thin ideal. The dispersion and anonymity of patriarchal
power relations through internalisation, makes the aim of over-
turning the thin ideal a difficult task; the demons are within and
power is exercised through and by the very individuals who are
the subjects. The internalisation of the thin ideal by individual
women constructs a self-policing Panopticon where women per-
ceive themselves to be under constant scrutiny. Such self-regula-
tion does not occur in a vacuum and is externally reinforced by
structural interests such as the fashion, weight loss, fitness, health
and cosmetic industries.
The feminist critique of the patriarchal construction of the
female body can also engender resistance from women. The
rewards of compliance to the thin ideal can be a greater (or at
least easier) lure than acts of defiance. Also, as noted earlier,
some women may actually enjoy the dieting process. As Bartky
argues, the thin ideal is so entwined with cultural prescriptions of
femininity that:

any political project which aims to dismantle the machinery


that tums a female body into a feminine one may well be
apprehended by a women as something that threatens her with
desexualization (1990: 77).

642 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

Seid (1994) argues that feminism initially embraced the slender,


super-fit ideal because health and strength were seen as symbols
of femininity - in contrast to previous centuries which conceptu-
alised women as invalids. Westem women have made significant
social, economic and sexual gains; the overt repression of past
generations and eras is gone. The regulation of the female body
now focuses on the external body; on appearance and achieving
the thin ideal. Since women's bodies are regulated to within nar-
rower boundaries than in the past, the intensity required to disci-
pline the 'exposed' body is now so rigid that it may even cut
across socio-economic barriers, as implied by the similarity of
responses from the two focus groups. Body regulation is the most
absorbing of tasks since the achievement of the thin ideal is an
impossible goal for the majority of women; and therefore the self-
discipline and self-surveillance required is ever more vigilant. As
Bartky puts its: 'a tighter control of the body has gained a new
kind of hold over the mind' (1990: 81). Bartky's conceptualisation
also helps to explain why even executive level women may pursue
the thin ideal as an attempt to assert authority through 'body
control' in the male dominated public sphere.
A number of authors have argued that it is no accident that
women's appearance norms have intensified with the political and
economic gains made by women in western society. Rothblum
(1994: 72) argues that 'women's gains have required more sophist-
icated and subtle techniques to induce conformity.' Faludi (1991)
and Wolf (1990) make cogent arguments linking the rise of female
sexual liberation with the rise of the thin ideal, where part of the
backlash against the gains of the feminist movement has been the
increasing emphasis on women's appearance.

Body of resistance: the reverse discourse of size acceptance

Nonnalised standards of female body shape may be internalised


by individual women, but this does not occur without resistance.
Most women do not passively absorb the cultural imperatives of
the thin ideal. The discourse of size acceptance represents those
women, and often their male partners, who distinctly react
against the social norm. These women and their partners pre-
ferred a voluptuous body in contrast to the thin ideal. Brownell
(1993) notes the emergence of an anti-dieting movement in the
United States, based on the ineffectiveness and detrimental effects

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 643


John Germov and Lauren Williams

of weight loss programs. In westem countries, anti-dieting, size


acceptance and 'fat rights' groups are emerging and modelling
themselves on previous civil rights movements. It is important to
state that such movements are social, rather than health led
movements. Despite the direction of this social movement and the
equivocal nature of evidence that obesity leads to ill-health, gov-
emment funded initiatives and activities of health professionals
are still advocating weight loss as a desirable activity and goal for
many people. A significant diet backlash is not yet in evidence, if
the size of the diet industry is taken into account. In Australia,
over 500 million dollars is spent on commercial weight loss pro-
grams annually (Lester, 1994), whilst the figure for America is
estimated at $55 billion, with over 65 million Americans on a diet
(Brownell, 1993).
Whilst the discourse of size acceptance is marginalised, it
nonetheless represents a competing discourse which may gather
momentum, just as other minority movements have in the past. In
Weedon's terms, such 'reverse discourses' lead to the 'production
of altemative forms of knowledge . . . [which may result in] win-
ning individuals over to these discourses and gradually increasing
their social power' (1987, 111). As Foucault (1978) maintains,
where there is power, there is resistance. Therefore, it would be a
mistake to classify the social pressure exerted on women to con-
form to the thin ideal as all-encompassing or all-determining.
There is a need to move away from analyses which depict women
as passive victims of patriarchal oppression. As Weedon states,
there is a need to avoid 'the reductionism of single-cause analyses'
(1987, 122). Women are not an undifferentiated mass and clearly
react to and resist 'patriarchal discourses' in varied ways. For
example, in this study some women permanently modified their
eating to maintain their weight, rather than dieting to lose weight,
whilst others had stopped dieting altogether. Reverse discourses
such as size acceptance offer hope for body diversity and a dis-
mantling of the concept of the ideal female form.

Conclusion: challenging the thin ideal

The discourse of dieting and the thin ideal exposes the dominant
cultural sources of control and manipulation of women's bodies.
The cult of slimness remains the key reason why women attempt
weight loss diets, despite the resistance to this dominant dis-

644 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

course. This study documented women's voices and illustrates the


importance of qualitative research in the area of women and diet-
ing. However, further research is required to investigate the fol-
lowing hypotheses drawn from this study:

1. Most women perpetuate and reinforce the thin ideal through


surveillance of other women.
2. Size accepting women have actively rejected the thin ideal in
response to past experience with dieting.
3. For women, weight loss as a result of illness is rewarded.
4. The infiuence of health professionals and health promotion is
unrelated to the desire of women to lose weight.
5. In respect of dieting to lose weight, women's attitudes cut
across socio-economic barriers.

Women are encouraged to modify and monitor themselves in a


never-ending process of self-surveillance to conform to a cultur-
ally acceptable body image, even at the expense of their health.
The thin ideal represents the latest in a historical litany of
attempts at regulating women's public bodies. However, the self-
surveillance and intemalisation of this ideal by women, as well as
overt external coercion by men, is a field which qualitative, socio-
logical inquiry is yet to fully explore.
University of Newcastle Received 20 August 1995
Australia Finally accepted 18 June 1996

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the participants, the research assistance of Jane Potter; and
Helen Belcher, Lois Bryson, Peter Khoury and Deidre Wicks, for their insights on
earlier drafts. The research was made possible by an intemal grant from the
University of Newcastle.

Note
1 The authors acknowledge that any definition of overweight or obesity is arbi-
trary, but have adopted these medically recognised terms due to their use in the
literature.

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 645


John Germov and Lauren Williams

References

Abraham, S. and Mira, M., (1988), 'Hazards of attempted weight loss', Medical
Journal of Australia, 148: 324-5.
Banks, C.G., (1992), 'Culture in culture-bound syndromes: the case of anorexia
nervosa'. Social Science Medicine, 34 (8), 867-884.
Barber, S.A. and Bull, N.L., (1985), 'Food and nutrient intakes by British women
aged 15-25 years, with particular reference to dieting habits and iron intakes'.
Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 16(2), 161-169.
Bartky, S.L., (1990), Femininity and Domination: Sttidies in the Phenomenology of
Oppression, New York: Routledge.
Beardsworth, A. and Keil, T., (1992), 'The vegetarian option: varieties, conver-
sions, motives and careers'. The Sociological Review, 40 (2), 253-293.
Begley, C.E., (1991), 'Government should strengthen regulation in the weight loss
industry'. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 91, 1255-1257.
Bell, R., (1985), Holy Anorexia, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Brownell, K.D., (1993), 'Whether obesity should be treated'. Health Psychology,
12 (5), 339-341.
Brumberg, J.J., (1988), Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a
Modern Disease, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press.
Bynum, C.W., (1987), Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religiotts Significance of
Food to Medieval Women, Berkley: University of California Press.
Chapman, G. and Maclean, H., (1993), ' "Junk food" and "health food": mean-
ings of food in adolescent women's culture'. Journal of Nutrition Education, 25
(3), 108-113.
Charles, N. and Kerr, M., (1988), Women, Food and Families, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Chernin, K., (1981), The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness,
New York: Harper.
CSIRO, (1993), TTte Australian Food Survey 1993: The Summary, Canberra:
Edgell-Birdseye.
Faludi, S., (1992), Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, Great Britain:
Chatto and Windus.
Foucault, M., (1981), The History of Sexuality, Volume One, An Introduction,
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Foucault, M., (1979), Discipline and Punish, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M., (1978), 'Politics and the study of discourse'. Ideology artd
Consciotisness 3, 7-26.
Germov, J. and Williams, L., 'The epidemic of dieting women: a call for a mora-
torium on health promotion in the area of weight control'. Appetite, in press.
Huon, G.F., Morris, S.E. and Brown, L.B., (1990), 'Differences between male and
female preferences for female body size', Australian Psychology, 25, 314-17.
Lester, I.H., (1994) Australia's Food and Nutrition, Canberra: AGPS.
Lissner, L. Nelson-Steen, S. and Bromwell, K.D., (1992), 'Weight reduction diets
and health promotion', American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 8, 154-8.
Lupton, D., (1994), 'Food, memory and meaning: the symbolic and social nature
of food events'. The Sociological Review, 42 (4), 664-685.
Lustig, A., (1991), 'Weight loss programs: failing to meet ethical standards?'.
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 91, 1252-1254.

646 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


Sexual division of dieting

MacSween, M., (1993), Anorexic Bodies: A Feminist and Sociological Perspective


on Anorexia Nervosa, London: Routledge.
Maurer, D. and Sobal, } . , (eds), (1995), Eating Agendas: Food and Nutrition as
Social Problems, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Mennell, S., (1985), All Manners of Food, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Mennell, S., Murcott, A. and van Otterloo, A.H., (1992), 'The sociology of food:
eating, diet and culture' in Current Sociology, 4 (2), Autumn.
Murcott, A., (1983a), (ed.). The Sociology of Food and Eating, Aldershot: Gower.
Murcott, A., (1983b), 'Cooking and the cooked: a note on the domestic prepara-
tion of meals' in A. Murcott, (ed.). The Sociology of Food and Eating,
Aldershot: Gower.
Murcott, A., (1988), 'Sociological and social anthropological approaches to food
and eating'. World Review of Nutrition and Diet, 55, 1-40.
National Heart Foundation, (1990), Risk Factor Prevalence Survey: Survey No. 3,
1989, Canberra: National Heart Foundation of Australia.
Orbach, S., (1986), Hunger Strike, London: Faber and Faber.
Pace, P.W. Bolton, M.P. and Reeves, R.S., (1991), 'Ethics of obesity treatment:
implications for dietitians'. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 91,
1258-1260.
Rothblum, E.D., (1994), "I'll die for the revolution but don't ask me not to diet":
feminism and the continuing stigmatization of obesity', in Fallon, P., Katzman,
M.A. and Wooley, S.A., (eds). Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders, New
York: Guilford Press.
Santich, B., (1994), 'Good for you: beliefs about food and their relation to eating
habits', Atistralian Journal of Nutrition artd Dietetics, 51 (2), 68-73.
Schv/artz, H., (1986), Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and
Fat, New York: The Free Press.
Seid, R.P., (1994), 'Too "close to the bone": the historical context for women's
obsession with slenderness', in Fallon, P., Katzman, M.A. and Wooley, S.A.
(eds). Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders, New York: Guilford Press.
Sobal, J., (1991), 'Obesity and socioeconomic status: a framework for examining
relationships between physical and social variables'. Medical Anthropology, 13,
231-247.
Synnott, A., (1993), The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society, London:
Routledge.
Tiggemann, M. and Rothblum, E.D., (1988), 'Gender differences in social conse-
quences of perceived overweight in the United States and Australia', Sex Roles,
18, 75-86.
Tiggemann, M. and Pennington, B., (1990), 'The development of gender differ-
ences in body dissatisfaction', Australian Psychology, 25, 306-313.
Tumer, B.S., (1992), Regulating Bodies, London: Routledge.
Weedon, C , (1987), Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Oxford:
Blackwell.
Wolf, N., (1990), The Beauty Myth, London: Vintage.

© The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 647

You might also like