Thursday, October 16, 2014

JLaw Against Gluten-Free

So. I absolutely, 100% adore Jennifer Lawrence. I am not a huge celebrity follower, but I have my favorites - people I think are absolutely talented, gorgeous, quirky and interesting (Jennifer Lawrence and Jared Leto, really! Hahaha, don't judge me.)

 

Anyway.

 

I have been reading a few news articles where Jennifer Lawrence is bashing gluten-free diets as the "new cool eating disorder." And where she is against dieting. She is quoted as saying "I think that people are built the way that they're built" and "There's that Kate Moss quote that's like 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' and... I can name a lot of things that taste better than skinny feels: bread, potatoes... a Philly cheesesteak and fries." And she is LAUDED for eating spaghetti and meatballs for breakfast and a cheesesteak before some awards show.

 

Okay.

 

Well... that's all realllllllllllly easy to say and do when you look how SHE looks. Even when she is slightly "heavier," she is drop dead gorgeous and the perfect American ideal - men and women drool over her, want to be her, want her. She poses almost naked for magazines and in movies, completely unself-conscious. Which, again, is really easy to do when you look like her.

 

I still love her, think she is awesome and funny and, yes, beautiful. But I think she does not get to be on a high horse about people who diet or choose to be gluten free (for their health or their weight or for whatever reason they want to).

 

Would she be against eliminating more carbs if she was 50 pounds overweight? Would she be against eliminating gluten if gluten gave her awful acne and cysts on her face? Would she have eaten a cheesesteak before the awards show if it made her look 4-5 months pregnant in her slinky skin tight dress?

 

It's always been hard for me to hear women with idealized, Hollywood-approved bodies claim that we should all love our bodies exactly how they are, stop dieting, stop trying to change them.

 

And I know she has faced more body bashing than usual for young starlets - she is NOT stick skinny and refuses to GET stick skinny, which I applaud! But even when she weighs a few pounds more than usual and an agent says something unkind about her needing to lose weight, she still is not in the same position as those of us who have been or are obese.

 

No one gets to say others have an eating disorder because of the way they eat when they don't know THEM personally or their struggles or how food affects them. Especially when you are a Hollywood starlet.

 

I don't know - her comments rubbed me the wrong way, I think, BECAUSE I have looked up to her. I loved her strong, athletic body in the Hunger Games (exactly how Katniss should have looked - she was a hunter in the book who ate enough and was super active - not a starving waif). She is curvy and strong and looks extremely healthy. But she doesn't get to tout body positivity at any size, when she is THAT size! She doesn't get to tell us that we should be eating pasta and cheesesteaks and whatever else because SHE does - if I ate the meals she says she eats, I'd be 20 pounds heavier in about a month. I'd feel less energetic, less healthy, and would be more self-conscious about my body - it certainly wouldn't be a body that would pose naked on a magazine (it isn't that way NOW!).

 

I think her comments would rub me wrong even if I didn't love her. There is a weird feeling I get when people who look like models tell us dieting is stupid, or watching what we eat, or choosing not to eat a certain type of food, etc, is wrong. She should walk a mile in 20 year old Jeanette's shoes and THEN tell me that she would eat pasta for breakfast still.

 

That's my rant. Just had to get it off my chest :)


11 comments:

  1. She's young and stupid. (I like her a lot, too.) I DO agree re the 'gluten free' bandwagon thing. Gluten free is processed, chemicalized shit food, if it's not natural (meaning NOT processed.) So in that regard, I agree. But to bash grain free or low carb diets; stupid, naive, and dumb. Hopefully she'll grow up. I said and did really stupid things at her age, too.

    You are FAR more mature than her, certainly nutritionally, Jeanette! So YAY YOU.

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    1. Yeah, I guess I'm TECHNICALLY gluten free, but also processed good-free... Big difference!

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  2. Really??? You take seriously anything that girl says?? C'mon J...Stop reading People

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    1. I don't actually read People (or magazines at all).. I have hours of free time at work and I read online news a lot.. Eventually get tired of Ebola/ISIS/shootings/kidnappings and click on a fluff piece-- the reason I care is because she has a HUGE platform of young and old people who listen to her/look up to her... I've always liked her too!! But her words have weight in the world because she has cultural power. And I don't think those statements she made should go unchallenged.

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  3. Yeah I'm kinda with JLaw though...I can name a bunch of things that tastes as good as skinny feels...ha! I've always hated that quote...but being a foodie is apart of my passion for life. And I agree that everyone is jumping on the gluten free diet band wagon not because of the issues you addressed in your personal life, but because it's being pushed so much. People who don't have a clue what celiac disease is all the sudden are saying "I can't eat Gluten". It's one thing to want to cut it out due to true allergies...it's another to be gluten free because all the sudden all the cool kids are doing it. What is hilarious is when you see packaging with "gluten free" on the label when it's a food that would have never had gluten in it anyway...it's all marketing and it's ridiculous. BUT that is not your situation and you've cut it out for real health reasons...I don't think that's what JLaw was attacking...but I didn't see the whole article.

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    1. I never really like that quote either, but in the end, I do choose my health over how good anything in the world tastes. I think the choice of the word skinny is a bad one. But what do you expect coming from Kate Moss? But I think my problem with her statements comes more from her flippant idea that we should not diet, not look for other ways of eating, etc. in order to change our body shape, that we should just be happy with the body that we have. That is way too easy for her to say in the body that she has!!!

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    2. I don't have celiac, but it's like I do. I finally got off the yo-yo diet train, the binge eating, and the haters line up to hate. "I would die if I stopped eating bread" "I binge eat when I restrict" they say.... All irrational beliefs for ME, I had to crush those for myself to be well. One persons cure is another persons disease.

      They are going to hate, but I'm zipping up size 6 jeans, not binge eating and feel 28 not my 48 in solid menopause. Gluten free (no junk food) for the WIN!

      I do get a little bothered by the bashing. I suspect that many people do need to be gluten free for long term health and that will blindly follow the lemmings over that moderation theory cliff. That probably means they need a different kind of help....

      Sigh! Thanks for letting me mini rant- you are not alone Jeanette in your feelings. Much can be done about the body we have to live a better life.

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  4. Even in weightloss blog land there are people who absolutely do not understand about

    Insulin resistance
    Food sensativities
    Secondary conditions in general,
    As they relate to what we eat, when we eat it, how it is prepared.

    Not everyone is insulin resistant, but in weight loss blog land a HIGH percentage are, and they do not understand it.

    There also seems to be little understanding of impact on joints while still carrying very large amounts of weight. What I see people doing to themselves is very troubling.

    It is always very interesting the number of people (bloggers) who write on topics which I would consider secondary conditions related to what they eat and their weight, ENDLESSLY, and do not get the correlation.

    I had no concept I could live pain free, complications free, blemish free, etc. But if I had been reading about people who had figured it out, while I was still in the midst of it, I would have seen the light.

    There is really no reason someone like Jennifer Lawrence would understand. (And hopefully it stays that way for her and she does not find herself with terrible complications later.)

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    1. Well said, Vickie! My hope is that more of us blog about what health conditions have gone away by changing our food template. One stop shopping. What turned out to be weight maintenance turned into really good overall health. One stop shopping. I'd do this for life just not to have migraines and acne!

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  5. Are you working on your dissertation in your free time at work? Or is that not possible?

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    1. Not really - I'm even pushing the envelope reading the news!!

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