New World Notes - Beauty and Diet Part Two: The War on Obesity

This week on New World Notes: radio program #343, September 30, 2014, from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m. (and on Wednesday from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m.), host Kenneth Dowst spotlights the forces that profit from women's sense of inadequacy.

The big publicity for New York Fashion Week (September 3-11)--featuring models who look not only skinny but grim--inspired this week's show. Rebecca Anshell Song is the speaker. She gives a wide-ranging and interesting talk about our bizarre standards of beauty. And about women's feelings of inadequacy that result. And--importantly--about the causes and purposes of these weird standards.

While Song includes some abstractions in her discussion--sexism, objectification of women--she doesn't pin the blame on abstract forces. In large part, women are persuaded to dislike their bodies because actual people, organized into business corporations, have learned that they can make money from that dislike.

This week, Song focuses on the weight-loss crusaders (including Michelle Obama) and the so-called War on Obesity. The medical science behind the anti-obesity crusades is iffy at best; diet techniques and diet drugs seldom work, long-term; and the health risks of repeated dieting are substantial. She finds this "war" to be a classic case of blaming the victim (often the working poor) while the perpetrators--the 1%--rake in the profits.

Song ends with several suggestions for organizing and fighting back against the whole crazy system.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "leaky roof") of WWUH-FM, a community service of the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both A-Infos Radio Project and (from #90 onwards) the Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chronological listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page; each page has links to the recorded audio; and a handy table of contents will quickly find the installment you want.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want--and what they're trying to make us settle for.

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