The Sexual Division of Dieting

The sexual division of dieting: women'svoices

John Germov and Lauren Williams

Abstract

This article reports the findings of focus group research on Australianwomen who have engaged in dieting practices to lose weight. Therehave been few qualitative sociological studies on dieting, despite itbeing a common practice among westem vs'omen. From the empiricaldata in this study three distinct themes emerged: women participate inthe perpetuation and reinfor(»ment of the thin ideal; women clearlytrade-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 genderedcontext of food, which has implications for the sociology of health andillness.

Introduction

Dieting amongst women has become so common in westem coun-tries that it has been regarded as part of 'the everyday' and hastherefore received little attention from sociologists to date. This'taken for granted' nature of dieting to lose weight has obscuredthe fact that dieting is primarily a female act. In Australia, morewomen than men diet due to dissatisfaction with their body shapeand size, even though more men are overweight' (National HeartFoundation, 1990; CSIRO, 1993). There is a sexual division ofdieting, where a number of studies have consistently found thatfemales (as young as eleven) are more likely to report dissatisfac-tion with their body shape than males and perceive the need tolose 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 welldocumented, especially through the use of qualitative methodo-logy (MacSween, 1993), there have been few qualitative studieswhich have attempted to expose the links between food and thebody within the context of dieting. The majority of studies ondieting are based on quantitative methodology arising from thefields 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 onnutrient intake, the prevalence of overweight, success with dietingand sometimes food choice, but largely ignore the social contextof 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 aprofessional dieter, to watch one's fat and kilojoule intake, toplan each meal, to be in a perpetual state of 'disordered eating'.This sensitivity to weight and body image sets women up for acycle of 'yo-yo' dieting or weight cycling which can result in:stress, anxiety, lowering of the metabolic rate, risk of developingnutrient deficiencies and eating disorders (Abraham and Mira,1988; Barber and Bull, 1985). It is estimated that interventionprograms for weight loss have a failure rate as high as 90% andmay cause more problems than they attempt to solve by perpetu-ating weight cycling, exacerbating low self-esteem and reinforcingcultural 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 historicalunderpinnings which existed prior to contemporary health warn-ings (Schwartz, 1986), the well intentioned actions of health pro-fessionals and govemment agencies in promoting anti-fatmessages may have reinforced the 'thin ideal' and encouraged anepidemic of dieting. The authors discuss the implications of themedicalisation of obesity and argue for a moratorium on healthpromotion in the area of weight loss elsewhere (Germov andWilliams, in press).

© Tlie Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 631


Gendered bodies

Wolf (1990) argues that women's eating is a public issue - theymust eat less and differently from men. She states:

Dieting is the essence of contemporary femininity. Denyingoneself food is seen as good in a woman, bad in a man . . . thecurrent successful and 'mature' model of femininity submits toa life of self-denial in her body (1990: 200).

Tumer (1992), among others, argues that the body is a socialconstruction. The discourse of dieting is a gendered discoursewhich involves connotations of deprivation, punishment anddenial in order to control the female body. This control has beenespecially evident in the external representation of women's sexu-ality. Throughout history the body has been 'defined as good orbad; tomb or temple; machine or garden; cloak or prison; sacredor secular; friend or enemy . . .' (Synnott, 1993: 37). The mostrecent paradigm for Synnott involves the plastic body: a bodywhich can be moulded and shaped: genetically, surgically andphysically (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 discipliningsociety, which consisted primarily of 'bio-polities'. Synnott claimsbio-politics refiects male power over female bodies, where the'phrase "Discipline and Punish" is therefore gender-specific: thediscipline and the gaze are male' (1993: 37). Gendered bodies areproduced through cultural norms goveming women's behaviourand 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 overthe 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 interms of food provision is a symbolic representation of the sub-ordination of women within the family, a concrete expression oftheir position as servers and carers of men'. They conclude that

632 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996


dietary practices are linked to the sexual division of labour indomestic life.

Dieting, however, can be a positive experience and source ofpleasure for some women, resulting in enhanced satisfaction withappearance, social recognition and acceptance through compli-ments from others and the achievement of personal goals of self-discipline (Orbach, 1986; Chernin, 1981). Orbach and Cheminalso note that the thin body represents the symbol of youth,beauty, vitality and health, where cultural notions of 'fatness' areconstructed as a clear sign of a body lacking control. Therefore,the picture of patriarchal oppression that Charles and Kerr paintis neither so clear nor deterministic.

The lack of qualitative, sociological studies in this area hasmeant the subjective experiences of dieting women have beenover-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 understandwomen's experience of dieting and to document women's voiceson food and dieting for weight loss.

Method and results

Data was collected through two focus groups which took place inDecember, 1994 and March, 1995 in Gosford and Sydney,Australia. Fourteen women, seven in each group, took part in theresearch. Participants were required to be pre-menopausal womenwho identified themselves as not having any medical condition inneed of dietary modification and who had a history of dieting tolose weight. Present weight was not a restriction. Participantswere initially recruited through existing weight control groups,but when this yielded insufficient numbers, the snowballing tech-nique was used, where existing participants were requested toinvite other people known to them. The number of focus groupsrequired for research is determined by repeating the focus groupdiscussions until a repetition of themes occurs. This happenedafter two focus group discussions.

Participants completed a short written questionnaire which pro-vided information on level of education, occupation, income andprevious experience with dieting. Demographic data from thequestionnaires showed the first group (from the suburb ofGosford) was made up of women who had left secondary school

© Tlie Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1996 633


before matriculation level. They were all bom in Australia andhad incomes below $30,000. The second group comprised womenwho had university degrees who lived in relatively affluent sub-urbs of Sydney. Five of these women were bom in Australia, onein Scotland and one in Finland. With the exception of twowomen currently on matemity leave, all had full-time equivalentincomes above $50,000. In both groups, most women lived withtheir husband or partner. In each group, two of the partneredwomen also had children (under school age). The ages of the par-ticipants ranged from 21 to 46, with the majority being in theirlate 20s and early 30s. Despite clear socio-economic differencesbetween the two focus groups, the responses from each groupwere strikingly similar.

Focus groups are a qualitative research method of group inter-views combined with participant observation where the researchertakes the role of moderator and relies on group interaction toproduce data. Focus group questions are aimed to elicit a rangeof responses from the group on a particular topic. The focusgroup discussion was guided by a semi-structured group interviewprotocol developed and piloted by the authors after reviewing theliterature. Each focus group was facilitated by the female authorto make participants comfortable in discussing gender issues. Thetwo focus groups were audiotaped, with the data transcribed andthen coded using thematic analysis. A typed transcript of theirstatement was mailed to each participant within two weeks of thefocus group session as a validation of the data and to gain anyfurther 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 commentswhich she could not recall making. The participants were askedto choose a pseudonym for the purposes of the transcript (Group1: Max, Gyrtle, Maria, Helga, Audrey, Claudia, Marilyn; Group2: Abigail, Clara, Scarlett, Mitzy, Di, Cindy, Naomi). The resultsare presented below and are grouped into sub-headings whichreflect the main themes to arise from the focus groups. Theempirical findings from the two groups have been combined sincethe same themes emerged from each group.

634 © The Editorial Board of The Sodological Review 1996


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

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

Claudia: I just get really excited about losing weight.. . I livefor the excitement of losing weight each week. If Idon'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 positivefeelings - if you lose weight and people comment onyour appearance.

When probed about reasons why they first went on a diet, manywomen explained it was due to dissatisfaction with their bodyshape. The women clearly acknowledged the pressure to conformto the thin ideal from friends and family as well as the socialpressure 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 ona diet, compared to when they were not dieting. Each focus groupproduced 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 fromClaudia shows that the sensory pleasure associated with food canbe spoiled by such classification schemes.

Claudia: I don't like skim milk, so I don't enjoy milk anymore, whereas before I used to love drinking a glassof full-cream milk, but now I'd feel guilty that I'ddrunk it.

Without being prompted to do so, the participants ascribed themoral 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


Di: I find that if I don't have something nice in thehouse, to go to when I feel like being bad, then I'llgo through the fridge and eat everything looking forthat taste that I want, and I can't find it, but I keeptrying.

Audrey: I get that deprived feeling every so often . . .Sometimes I think I'd really like to have off the dietfood.

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, Ido feel guilty, I feel really bad. As soon as I stop adiet, I'll go virtually the opposite way, I'll just abouteat anything and I know I shouldn't do it but I justcan't help myself . . . It's depressing when you reachthe plateau because you're still dieting and you'resticking 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 calledthe '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 makesweight loss even more difficult to achieve.

Body surveillance

There was general agreement among the women that a doublestandard existed for men and women in terms of bodyweight/shape. It seems to be acceptable for men to vary within awide range of weight, whilst women had a far narrower 'accept-able' weight range. As the following quote indicates, the doublestandard 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



astounds me, because people would never think ofasking about the CEO (who is male and is moreoverweight than she is) whether he'll lose weight. . .it's quite acceptable for him, but it's not acceptablefor her . . . Since she's been promoted more ques-tions have arisen about her weight. Because she issuccessful, they think she should be more in controlof her diet.

Scarlett: Even in the corporate world with female executives,the first thing people talk about is 'look at her, she'sput on weight'.

Such comments illustrated the view of some of the participantsthat women place themselves under a form of self-surveillance byadopting male values of the 'ideal' female body and reinforcingthe thin ideal on other women. 'Success' is still measured by awoman's appearance, where economic success needs to be matchedwith 'body success'. Therefore, the social control over women'sappearance was perpetuated not just by men, but by women.

Naomi: Society is the biggest enemy, it's made up of womenas well.

Cindy: Women are their own worst enemy, they strive tolook better.

The women expressed both disappointment and euphoria in thereactions of others to their loss of weight. Some received positivereactions 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 bodyand reinforces the 'beauty myth' (Wolf, 1990); based on thenotion there is only one acceptable form of female beauty and allwomen should strive to achieve it. The pressure to conform andthereby gain social acceptance in addition to wanting to beattractive to the opposite sex, are potent examples of the intemal-isation of social norms and power relations. Conversely, somewomen resented such 'positive' comments.

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



Size acceptance

Both Audrey (who had a long history of dieting) and Scarlett(who had only dieted in her late teenage years) no longer dietedto 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 acceptingand felt they were for most of the time, but occasionally lapsedand sporadically dieted.

Gyrtle: I'm happy with myself . . . I don't worry about howbig I am, but other people worry for me and that'swhat makes me feel guilty.

Abigail: I guess now I've accepted the fact that I either wantto be happy with the size that I am and just have ahealthier eating pattem and if in the process of that,it helps me to lose weight, well that's great, and if itdoesn't, well this is the shape that I am.

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

Mitzy: Actually having a boyfriend who appreciated mybody because it looked like a woman which made methink that these curves are all me and that's how Iam supposed to look.

Marilyn: When I was with my ex-boyfriend he used to sayhow fat I was . . . and now I've got a new boyfriendand he always tells me that I'm voluptuous and sexyand I think I feel heaps better so I think it dependson who you're with sometimes.

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

Claudia: Even when you've got a man, you're still worriedabout weight . . . My boyfriend says he's happy with

638 © The Editorial Board of The Sodological Review 1996


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

'Size acceptance', for want of a better term, is clearly an 'elastic',rather than fixed, state. The women in this study who were sizeaccepting had difFerent experiences leading up to this status. Forsome, this position is the result of a history of the failure to loseweight; others were encouraged by their partners; whilst stillothers had decided that obsession with their bodies was not worththe pain of the dieting process.

Diet versus health

Many of the focus group participants who dieted regularly wereaware of making a clear trade-off with their health. Weight lossand health were viewed as two separate entities. Therefore, theprime motivation when dieting was not achieving health, butachieving a desired body shape. Clara epitomised this view bystating:

Clara: I'm willing to trade-off health for weight loss in theshort term. I do it when I'm not even on a diet. SoI'll definitely do i t . . . when I want to lose weight.

Mitzy: When I was really sick and lost weight, it annoyedme that people commented on my appearance, andnot my health.

Mitz5''s statement represents the constant social pressure womenconfront in order to conform to the thin ideal even at the expenseof 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 toanorexia:

Claudia: If I was 50kg though, I wouldn't be happy with that,I'd have to be thinner . . . I'd rather be thin thanworry about my health. It doesn't scare me to haveanorexia . . . If I had anorexia, it wouldn't bother me. . . but I know that I like food too much to be



anorexic, but I know I could probably border onanorexia. Like I've tried laxatives and stuff, but Iknow it doesn't last.

Discussion: the discourses of dieting

Wolf (1990) argues that women's eating pattems are a public andpolitical 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 awayfrom individually based psychological explanations of dieting, tofocus on the public sphere. She maintains that the thin idealshould be conceived of as a pre-emptive strike at women because'fat' is inherently feminine - to deny it is misogynistic - womennaturally have breasts, buttocks, rounded abdomens and hips.However, Wolf presents an overly deterministic and simplisticview of the way women respond to the pressure to conform tofemale appearances norms. The voices of the women in this studyrepresent a myriad of reactions to the thin ideal in terms of howthe dominant discourse is accepted, modified, resisted or rejected.The subjective experience of women who diet can be characterisedin women's contradictory relationship with food, where theyderive both 'pleasure and pain' from food and dieting. The quali-tative methodology employed in this study reveals the complexityof the dieting process. Three main themes to emerge from thedata are: the diet/health trade-off, women play a significant rolein reinforcing the thin ideal, and the reverse discourse of sizeacceptance. 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 foodrather than sex (Sternhell in Rothblum, 1994: 53).

Seid notes the parallel between Victorian attitudes to sex andmodem attitudes to food, where 'food rules have become as dourand inhibitory as the sex rules of the 19th century' (1994: 8). Themodem message bypasses sexuality and prescribes control overbody shape through dietary regulation. The focus group results



added to the growing empirical findings on the 'morality of food'where women classify it into good and bad categories, reflectingits nutritional composition (Charles and Kerr, 1988; Santich,1994; Chapman and Maclean, 1993).

Associated with the morality of food was the general attitudethat health concems were sacrificed to achieve weight loss. Thediet/health trade-off may reflect the anti-health views of the agegroup of the women, but the clear message from those whodieted was that they would do what ever it took to lose weight.Eating in a consciously unhealthy way to lose weight embodiesthe seriousness with which some women view the need to disci-pline their bodies. The diet/health trade-off exposes the linksbetween food and the sociology of health and illness. The bi-polar notion of good and bad foods can be contrasted with thethin/fat dichotomy; where it is good to be thin and bad to befat. Health and fitness industries, supported by govemmenthealth promotion programs, have reinforced the notion of 'slimequals healthy' which could be seen as promoting dieting.However, it is clear that health concems take a back seat whenwomen diet to improve their body image. Whilst such a findingrepresents a serious challenge to health education campaignswhich use the promise of health gains to change people's eatinghabits, of even greater concem is the link between illness andweight loss. Mitzy's annoyance at people congratulating herweight loss due to a recent illness is reminiscent of rewardingfemale invalidism in the Victorian era. In this case, it is hypothe-sised that the sick role can be a reward for women, not only asa feminine trait, but also as a reflection of women's relationshipto food and their body. This is epitomised in the development ofthe ultimate state of thinness - anorexia nervosa. The acceptanceof illness-inducing behaviour as a health/weight trade-off requiresfurther investigation.

Bodiiis under surveillance

The regulation of the female body has existed for centuries.Tumer (1992) outlines the historical role of dietary managementin producing a docile and disciplined body by punishment andpenance to purge oneself of excess. The links between religionand the self-starvation diet regimen have been discussed by vari-ous authors in relation to eating disorders (Banks, 1992; Bynum,



1987; Bell, 1985; Brumberg, 1988). Today dieting is no longerabout religious spirituality, but sexuality and longevity: the bodyis now the 'aesthetic body', where for some women the pleasurederived from dieting resembles the fervour of religious practicesfor spiritual salvation. The thin body is an 'ideal type', wheresuch a goal reflects a desire for secular purity of the soul throughsalvation from stigma. The 'aesthetic body' has become the newreligion, 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 adagethat 'women dress for other women' or that 'women are theharshest judges of other women' was recognised by the women inthis study. It is no accident that some women actively participatein stigmatising women who do not conform to the thin ideal.Bartky (1990) uses Foucault's concept of micro-power relations totheorise why some women voluntarily impose a continual bodysurveillance on themselves and other women. She argues that it isthe internalisation of patriarchal norms, rather than external coer-cion, that is the dominant form of power relations. This results inself-regulation and self-disciplining of female bodies in the pursuitof the thin ideal. The dispersion and anonymity of patriarchalpower relations through internalisation, makes the aim of over-turning the thin ideal a difficult task; the demons are within andpower is exercised through and by the very individuals who arethe subjects. The internalisation of the thin ideal by individualwomen 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 bystructural interests such as the fashion, weight loss, fitness, healthand cosmetic industries.

The feminist critique of the patriarchal construction of thefemale body can also engender resistance from women. Therewards of compliance to the thin ideal can be a greater (or atleast easier) lure than acts of defiance. Also, as noted earlier,some women may actually enjoy the dieting process. As Bartkyargues, the thin ideal is so entwined with cultural prescriptions offemininity that:

any political project which aims to dismantle the machinerythat tums a female body into a feminine one may well beapprehended by a women as something that threatens her withdesexualization (1990: 77).



Seid (1994) argues that feminism initially embraced the slender,super-fit ideal because health and strength were seen as symbolsof femininity - in contrast to previous centuries which conceptu-alised women as invalids. Westem women have made significantsocial, economic and sexual gains; the overt repression of pastgenerations and eras is gone. The regulation of the female bodynow focuses on the external body; on appearance and achievingthe 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 cutacross socio-economic barriers, as implied by the similarity ofresponses from the two focus groups. Body regulation is the mostabsorbing of tasks since the achievement of the thin ideal is animpossible goal for the majority of women; and therefore the self-discipline and self-surveillance required is ever more vigilant. AsBartky puts its: 'a tighter control of the body has gained a newkind of hold over the mind' (1990: 81). Bartky's conceptualisationalso helps to explain why even executive level women may pursuethe thin ideal as an attempt to assert authority through 'bodycontrol' in the male dominated public sphere.

A number of authors have argued that it is no accident thatwomen's appearance norms have intensified with the political andeconomic 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 femalesexual liberation with the rise of the thin ideal, where part of thebacklash against the gains of the feminist movement has been theincreasing emphasis on women's appearance.

Body of resistance: the reverse discourse of size acceptance

Nonnalised standards of female body shape may be internalisedby individual women, but this does not occur without resistance.Most women do not passively absorb the cultural imperatives ofthe thin ideal. The discourse of size acceptance represents thosewomen, and often their male partners, who distinctly reactagainst 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 theUnited States, based on the ineffectiveness and detrimental effects



of weight loss programs. In westem countries, anti-dieting, sizeacceptance and 'fat rights' groups are emerging and modellingthemselves on previous civil rights movements. It is important tostate that such movements are social, rather than health ledmovements. Despite the direction of this social movement and theequivocal nature of evidence that obesity leads to ill-health, gov-emment funded initiatives and activities of health professionalsare still advocating weight loss as a desirable activity and goal formany people. A significant diet backlash is not yet in evidence, ifthe 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 isestimated at $55 billion, with over 65 million Americans on a diet(Brownell, 1993).

Whilst the discourse of size acceptance is marginalised, itnonetheless represents a competing discourse which may gathermomentum, just as other minority movements have in the past. InWeedon's terms, such 'reverse discourses' lead to the 'productionof altemative forms of knowledge . . . [which may result in] win-ning individuals over to these discourses and gradually increasingtheir social power' (1987, 111). As Foucault (1978) maintains,where there is power, there is resistance. Therefore, it would be amistake 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 womenas 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 clearlyreact to and resist 'patriarchal discourses' in varied ways. Forexample, in this study some women permanently modified theireating to maintain their weight, rather than dieting to lose weight,whilst others had stopped dieting altogether. Reverse discoursessuch 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 dominantcultural sources of control and manipulation of women's bodies.The cult of slimness remains the key reason why women attemptweight loss diets, despite the resistance to this dominant dis-



course. This study documented women's voices and illustrates theimportance 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 throughsurveillance of other women.

2. Size accepting women have actively rejected the thin ideal inresponse 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 anever-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 ofattempts at regulating women's public bodies. However, the self-surveillance and intemalisation of this ideal by women, as well asovert external coercion by men, is a field which qualitative, socio-logical inquiry is yet to fully explore.

University of Newcastle Received 20 August 1995Australia Finally accepted 18 June 1996

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants, the research assistance of Jane Potter; andHelen Belcher, Lois Bryson, Peter Khoury and Deidre Wicks, for their insights onearlier drafts. The research was made possible by an intemal grant from theUniversity 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 theliterature.



References

Abraham, S. and Mira, M., (1988), 'Hazards of attempted weight loss', MedicalJournal of Australia, 148: 324-5.

Banks, C.G., (1992), 'Culture in culture-bound syndromes: the case of anorexianervosa'. Social Science Medicine, 34 (8), 867-884.

Barber, S.A. and Bull, N.L., (1985), 'Food and nutrient intakes by British womenaged 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 ofOppression, 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 lossindustry'. 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.



MacSween, M., (1993), Anorexic Bodies: A Feminist and Sociological Perspectiveon Anorexia Nervosa, London: Routledge.

Maurer, D. and Sobal, } . , (eds), (1995), Eating Agendas: Food and Nutrition asSocial 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, NewYork: Guilford Press.

Santich, B., (1994), 'Good for you: beliefs about food and their relation to eatinghabits', Atistralian Journal of Nutrition artd Dietetics, 51 (2), 68-73.

Schv/artz, H., (1986), Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies andFat, New York: The Free Press.

Seid, R.P., (1994), 'Too "close to the bone": the historical context for women'sobsession 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 examiningrelationships 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 Sexual Division of Dieting

Documents

Transcript of The Sexual Division of Dieting