Supersized portions Vs Superskinny Images

I saw the actor, Alex Kingston, on the Nigel Slater programme ‘Taste of my Life’, the other day. This is where food writer and chef, Slater, cooks for a celeb and talks to them about their favourite foods and childhood memories of food.  Alex Kingston had lived in the United States for a number of years and starred in the American T.V drama, E.R. She talked about going for a part in the series Desperate Housewives; she auditioned for the part that eventually went to Felicity Huffman. She, Kingston, then went on to say that she wouldn’t have fitted in on the programme as the actresses were all so thin. I paid closer attention to this - but Alex Kingston IS thin! I thought. Actress thin. How could she think that she wasn’t thin enough to appear in an American T.V programme (she’d already done E.R after all). But when you look at the poster for Desperate Housewives, you can see what she means; the actors are all tiny. The thing is that you kind of forget how skinny they are after a while because they are all very slender, they look the same; they look regular, no one stands out. Alex Kingston didn’t want to stand out. Funnily enough, I read something recently where they said that a lot of people don’t realise that they are overweight because so many people are overweight these days that when you stand next to another heavy person, you just look and feel normal. It’s all about comparisons. And some commentators are against using plus-sized models and even mannequins because they say that it is normalising of even encouraging obesity. But the thing about so-called ‘plus’ sized models is they probably aren’t obese - they are actually a healthy, ‘normal’ size.

It struck me that America, the most obese nation in the world, is responsible for drenching our culture with images of ultra-thinness. Why do we have this paradox? Why does American media, American culture present us with such an unrealistic, difficult-to-attain body ideal when America is the fattest nation in the world? Why is there such a yawning gap between the reality and the ideal?

Is this lean physique is a status symbol?  The Old Masters gave us images of plump, fleshy women as the ideal of beauty in an age when it was only rich women (and men) who could afford to be plump, and now, when obesity is predominantly a problem among the poorer sector of society (in the West, at least) beauty is represented as a starved-looking body. Who was the rich idiot who said; “You can never be too rich or too thin.”? (Was she a permanently hungry, chain-smoking, old crone with a face like a slapped arse?) I wonder why richness and thinness go hand in hand these days? Is it to separate them from the rest of us poor, flabby, plebs?

Now, I’m not saying that it is healthier to be fat, but I just find it bizarre that the Nation that has brought us the culture of Supersized fast food is also telling us (insidiously) through their visual culture, that we should be super thin.

I just did a Google search to find out the percentage of Americans who were obese. The first thing I came across was this NBC News article from this year, 2014:

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/diet-fitness/whole-world-getting-fatter-new-survey-finds-n115811

The first line reads;

“The whole world is steadily becoming more obese, a new study shows, but not surprisingly, the U.S. is No. 1.”

The U.K have got no reason to be smug about this as we are closely following on America’s coattails - in this as in everything else (see what I did there?) but at least a sizeable chunk of our U.K television reflects people as they actually are. When thinking about British television programmes with female, ensemble casts, the first thing that springs to mind is the BBC1 programme In the Club.  The actors were certainly attractive but they did not have the highly polished gleam of ‘perfection’ that you get in something like Desperate Housewives. I suppose you could argue that because Desperate Housewives was about middle class women, then they, the women, would be uber skinny, perhaps just as middle class women in America are (you only have to look at one of those raft of ‘Real Housewives of ...’ to see that. But why did the cast of Friends have to look like models? Ok, they lived in Manhattan and everyone on New York is thin, so let’s think, the most recent American comedy I’ve watched is The Mindy Project, written by and starring Mindy Kaling. I really like this show - the main character is likably fallible but she has a good job. It’s quite quirky and it has heart but isn’t overly sentimental (most of the time). The main character isn’t skeletal, neither is she huge but her weight is constantly referred to by everyone around her; she is constantly referred to as ‘chunky’ or ‘hefty’, much to the character’s disgust. It’s great to see more ‘normal’-sized women on American T.V but perhaps it would be more groundbreaking if her weight wasn’t mentioned at all.

I really don’t know the answer to this but I’m sure that far sharper minds than mine have pondered it. But why are we being force fed these bizarre, unnatural images of woman kind with a side order of jumbo fries?

The Best Laid Plans...

My plan to do a 45 minute walk to work today didn't happen, because I didn't go to work. When I tried to speak to my daughter this morning to ask her whether she needed the toilet or not (she needs constant reminding) a bullfrog croak came out. Have been coughing up nasty, meteor-sized, green rocks ever since and feeling generally crappy. The kids have gone to the grandparents (as they would have done if I'd gone to work) so I don't have to worry about trying to add authority when I whisper-hiss at the older child to stop tormenting the younger.

So, no exercise for me today and this is a real shame as it's a beautifully, sunny October day. I really should use the time to do something productive like teach myself how to touch type or work on my magnum opus. Or perhaps I'll try some of that desktop yoga that the trainer showed us how to do at the workshop last week. Hmm...I wonder if you can put desktop yoga into myfitnesspal and see how many calories you burn off doing all those shoulder rolls and foot lifts...

Putting it into Practice

Good intentions - the road to Hell is filled with them, apparently. (Bringing to mind images of missionaries, zealots and the like.) But in this day and age, good intentions are what you have on New Year’s Day; when the horrific hangover that is sitting on your shoulders like a bucket full of sewage is alleviated somewhat by the thought of detoxes, diets and 6 a.m runs, hair streaming behind you as you power through the puddles. I’m not waiting for the New Year for my optimistic, healthy make-over, I’m trying to do it now.

Following on from the Optimum Health workshop I went to the other day, I’ve been trying out a slight lifestyle overhaul....

So, er, all sounds a bit wanky, doesn’t it? If I read those words above, I probably wouldn’t want to carry on reading. As it is, I can barely bring myself to carry on writing. Perhaps it would be easier to read/write if I listed my good intentions:

1. Eat less and stop when I am full.

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? I have to admit though that I made this really nice Thai curry the other day. As an aside, I saw someone (on Ready, Steady Cook, if you must know) saying that people like spicy food because it causes pain on your taste buds and that pain brings on a rush of pain-relieving endorphins. Cue happy feelings. Whatever, my Thai curry was delicious and I’m afraid I went back for a bit more. I ignored the receptors in my stomach that were telling me I was full, I tried to run past them, and I ate a little too much. Must. Try. Harder.

2. Exercise more and incorporate it into daily routine.

Trying to walk as much as possible - easier for me as I can’t drive. Long walk yesterday, shorter one today. Planning on walking part of the way to work tomorrow, instead of getting my second bus, thus getting a 45 minute walk in. This all depends on me leaving early enough to allow myself enough time. Notoriously tardy...But no, I will do it! I will, I tells ya, because if I do, it means I can eat more…

3. Write every day. Witness - ma blog. I did write a possible post yesterday, honest, but it was all a bit too personal and revelatory and I don’t think we’re at that stage in our relationship yet. Maybe when I get to know you a bit better. But anyway, so far so good-ish. Baby steps and all that.

Optimum Health and Well-being

So I attended this work-based, workshop yesterday - Optimum Health and Well-being. I had put my name forward for it because it sounded like a really positive thing to do; including a health assessment and a yoga session.

We don’t get many freebies in the public sector; for instance, we don’t get thanked for working hard on major projects by having a free flying lesson and helicopter ride (my other half got this in a previous job), we have to stump up for our own Christmas meal - we don’t get so much as a glass of sherry from the management. We don’t get pay bonuses or rewards and we are not, for the most part, very well paid. So, when a course comes along that seems far more about personal development and happiness, rather than work performance (though some could argue they amount to the same thing) then I for one jump at the chance at it.

I wasn’t disappointed. The workshop contained many helpful pointers regarding diet and exercise and not only that, it challenged the way you thought about those things and what obstacles you put in the way of achieving optimum health. Things like traditional attitudes towards eating were questioned (for instance the culturally passed down habit of finishing everything on your plate, even if you are full up). Also put under the spotlight were the excuses we make for not fitting exercise into our daily routine. It was outlined very early on in the day how vital good health is to us all but how much we live in the short term, rather than focus on long term repercussions. How the health system only intervenes when something has gone wrong and how we need to concentrate on preventative rather than curative measures. (I hope I haven’t breached any copyright by saying this - there was a copyright notice on the handouts) The thing is, this is all stuff we already know - common sense, but we don’t often have time to stop and think about it properly.

I loved the fact that the workshop included a yoga session - so much of office life is spent huddled quietly over a desk or wearing a hole in the carpet going back and forth if you are on a public desk (in the library for example). So it was so nice to take our shoes off and stretch out and do the deep breathing exercises (and I can feel it in my legs today so he really did make us work).

The other aspect to the course was the personal development side - where did we see ourselves in three years time? Where did we want to be? How would we go about doing this? At the risk of sounding a bit sentimental and New-agey, this was great too! One of the things that came out of it, for me personally, was that I should write every day, that I should make the time for it. Whether it be writing fiction or writing this blog, I needed to be writing something. So this is the result - another blog post the day after the previous one.

If anyone actually reads this I’d like to say - if your workplace offers a similar workshop then go for it! If nothing else, at least you get a free lunch. ;)

Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast

It was a wet Monday evening in October, my trousers were sticking to my legs and Leicester Square was as rammed full of tourists and revellers as it always is. We were going to watch a live recording for a podcast at Leicester Square theatre. The interviewer was comedian Richard Herring, formerly one half of double act Lee and Herring, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were writers and performers in cult Nineties T.V programmes; Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard, not Judy.

Herring presents of series of interviews with other comedians at the theatre and over the past couple of years the podcast have a attracted quite a following. One of the most notable interviews was his one with Stephen Fry, where the latter talked of his recent suicide attempt, (it attracted glaring headlines in the papers).  We were going to see him interview Steve Coogan. There was also a second recording with up-and-coming comedian, Sara Pascoe. (The second interview was great but I'm not going to write about it here.)

I’ve been a fan of Steve Coogan for a long time; I’ve always loved his characters Paul and Pauline Calf and, of course, Alan Partridge. I feel that I’ve sort of, not grown up with him exactly, but, grown into middle age with him. I remember laughing at the Paul Calf sketch where the character derided students for paying for a bag of chips by cheque, when I was a student myself. I remember watching Alan Partridge being dismissed and humiliated by Chris Morris’s savage newsreader character in The Day, Today. The first series of ‘I’m Alan Partridge’ set in a ‘travel tavern’ is one of my all time favourite comedy series. And I felt that he pulled off something really special and quite rare in taking his character to a successful transition from small screen to big with the film, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. But while I’m a fan of his comedy, I’m not a slavish devotee of the man. I’m slightly uneasy with the portrayal of him in the press (probably quite misrepresentative but all too prevailing) as a bit of a womaniser. So I went into the recording with an open mind - looking forward to it but not hopping up and down with excitement.

I wasn’t disappointed. Watching the unscripted interview was a fascinating experience; particularly considering Coogan and Herring knew each other and had collaborated in the past. (Lee and Herring toured with Steve Coogan and a group of other comedians in the early Nineties) There was a strangely intimate atmosphere; as if you could call out and ask a question yourself  (while at the same time being hyper aware that you mustn’t do this). You were not participant, merely an eavesdropper. And you got the feeling that Coogan was marginally less guarded than he would been than if he had been interviewed on National T.V. by someone like Jonathan Ross or (snigger) Alan Titsmarch. It was wonderful listening to them reminisce about their early experiences, together or with other people. But what I particularly enjoyed was Coogan talking about the character he is best known for; ‘Alan Partridge’; how he could have been a bit of an albatross but in fact he’d grown rather fond of him over the years. He found himself looking in shop windows and thinking - What would ‘Alan’ think of this? Other highlights included; him talking about the Levenson inquiry; particularly a memorable line about the humourless cross examiner saying to him (Coogan);

“Piers Morgan said he interviewed you at one of those tiresomely hip, celebrity hangouts.” To which Coogan replied, deadpan; “Chosen by him [Morgan].”

Another one was When Richard Herring said - “You’re sort of like the modern day Peter Sellers.” Coogan replied. “Well; I’m not horrible to my kids...”

I can’t really do the experience justice by trying to remember (accurately) what was said and recount it baldly here; what I would say is that it is definitely worth the £16 price tag. There were a lot of laughs and some very interesting insights and it was a unique experience.

As I said, this series of podcast interviews has attracted some big names; Russell Brand, the aforementioned Stephen Fry, Miranda Hart, Jon Ronson, Jenny Eclair, to name but a few. You can listen to prior podcasts for free or pay a small fee to watch a selection of them - well worth a pound (or however much it costs to do this.)

http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_lst_podcast/

Gender stereotypes or the princess and the spanner

Gender Stereotypes

I recently took my daughter to a ‘Princess’ themed party at the house of one of her schoolmates. Although I feel quite uncomfortable with the whole pink princess, Barbie thing, I didn’t want my daughter to miss out on anything. She’s only been at nursery for three weeks and I thought it would offer a good opportunity for her to bond with her classmates and for me to meet the other mums (her father takes her to school every morning as it’s on his way to work and, what with my work and other commitments, I only pick her up 2-3 times a week.

The ‘Princess’ dress was optional, but again, I didn’t want her to feel left out, so I duly went (to a charity shop) and bought her a ‘Snow White’ outfit to wear. I know I’m biased but she looked beautiful in it. Where is the harm in them dressing up? I thought. They are only 3-4 years old and most little kids like dressing up.

My daughter had great fun at the party; there was a bouncy castle and a trampoline in the garden. There was lots of yummy food - a good balance of cheese, fruit, humus, breadsticks and biscuits (so not all refined sugar). The birthday girl had a fairy tale castle cake - only to be expected at a Princess party.  There were party games; pass the parcel - so far, so reliving my own childhood, even to the point where there was no main prize in the middle (I thought it was only my mum who did that!), but then there was ‘pin the wand on the fairy’. Eh? The (American) woman who organised the games said; ‘didn’t you play this game when you were little?’ We played ‘pin the tail on the donkey’, I said. I overheard her telling a parent that when she did this game with boys she did it with swords instead of wands and played ‘pin the sword on the pirate’  I was stunned. WHY this strict delineation? Why wands or swords? What was wrong with the non gender specific pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, anyway?

When I was a child I played with my brother’s toys and with my own. I’ve heard people say that

kids will play with what they want to and no amount of efforts on the part of their parents to try and channel their energies in a certain direction will affect that. ‘Girls will play with dolls and boys with play with cars’. They say, or some variation of that. But really, what chance do they have when almost every toy advert shows boys playing with cars, building blocks and things like that and girls playing with dolls! Not just any old dolls but dolls bedecked in pink, pink and more freaking pink! Either doll babies or those unrealistic, anorexic girl-child dolls. What chance do they have when their parents tell them - this game is for girls, that one is for boys?

I don’t want to slate the pleasant American woman (not the mother of the birthday girl) as she obviously put a lot of work into organising the games for the party. Perhaps she was just following her own conditioning. But I’m just crying out for a bit of balance. Yes, my daughter(unlike me) loves wearing skirts and dresses, she claims that her favourite colour is pink and sometimes tells me she doesn’t want to wear trousers as she wants to ‘look like a ladee’, but she also loves kicking up leaves, hanging upside down, climbing things, taking things apart and trying to work out (often unsuccessfully) how to put them back together again. She loves running about and getting dirty and digging around in the mud. I’ve also seen my friend’s sons rush to play with my daughter’s doll’s house when they came to play at our house. (I don’t have a problem with Doll’s Houses but we didn’t buy this particular, pink one for her) I remember my young, male cousin asking us to paint his nails when he was a small boy. Both my daughters love playing with toy cars. I don’t believe that there is something in their genetic make-up which propels them towards one toy or another. So why the constant, external pressure to choose?

Why are the toys in a lot of toy shops catergorised by gender? They often have a boys or a girls section. You can refine your search in a certain well known shopping website (the one that sells everything) into boy’s or girl’s stuff. But isn’t this denying a huge portion of the population the chance to play with something they might enjoy playing with, just because it is deemed to be a ‘girl’ or a ‘boy’s’ toy.  It makes me glad that I had an older brother and I wonder if my parents would have just bought me ‘girl’s’ toys when I was growing up.

In an age where, despite the fact that they outperform boys in their exams, there are very few girls taking up a career in the STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) industries, the directing of girl’s energies into toys that teach them to care for things rather than to build things, seems particularly sinister.

Footnote: I guess this might all seem a bit hypocritical considering the fact that I posted a picture of my daughter in her costume on Facebook with the caption; ‘Our little Princess’. But the fact is I don’t want to ban her from dressing like a Princess or reading books or watching films about them or playing with particular toys, I just want her to be able to dress as a pirate or a monster or a superhero too!