Bordo and Hunger

While reading Susan Bordo's chapter on women's relationship to food, I couldn't help thinking about how confusing and contradictory that relationship is in our everyday lives.  I, myself, love to eat and love to cook.  Different tastes and flavors, all rich and delicious, are some of my favorite things to enjoy and even talk about.  Yet at the same time, all the messages which are being sold to me, day in and day out, are all about how women should be watching their calorie intake and trying to lose weight.  It certainly spoils the mood of a wonderful home-cooked meal when in the back of your mind you're thinking about that fat free yoghurt in the fridge and how much thinner you would be if you ate that instead of the pot roast and mashed potatoes in front of you.  Bordo talked about how the advertisement industry was perpetually creating an image to sell to women, not only about how their body should look, but also about what their relationship to food should be.  Cook and feed the men, gals, because if you eat any of it yourself you'll blow up like a balloon and be tossed out on your backside.  Such a strange world we live in where a message like that can be fed to us and we believe it.