The-F-Word.org

Ever since Brandon and I turned the cable back on, we’ve become addicted to HGTV and TLC. But the price of our beloved do-it-yourself home improvement shows and What Not to Wear is a total bombardment of dieting commercials, notably those for NutriSystem.

For those of you who have lives, the NutriSystem program touts its “success” due to its pre-packaged (heat and eat) meals shipped to your door. Cost of food costs about $10 a day and subscribers must supplement meals with their own fresh fruits and veggies and dairy products.

Basically, for any real and lasting weight loss, you’re chained to NutriSystem for the rest of your natural life.

NutriSystem commercials are Slim-Fast meets Girls Gone Wild. A bevy of scantily clad women, all claiming to be mothers and/or grandmothers, ballyhoo their extraordinary weight loss to the program, while 5-point-size disclaimers of “Results not typical” flash quickly across the bottom.

“Look at me, I’m a size 2!” exclaims one smiling woman. “Any diet that lets me eat chocolate is the diet for me,” gushes another.

Egad! Where’s the mute button?

As if the bikini-model commercials aren’t nauseating enough, NutriSystem has begun airing an entirely new series of commercials aimed at men. But don’t think it’s a case of Speedos-clad men jumping up and down about their newly discovered 28-inch waists.

Nope, the first thing spokesman burly football legend Dan Marino asks is, “Guys, has your sex life slowed down or come to a screeching halt?” And while guys are left to pontificate on the sexual action or lack thereof in their own lives, flashes of manly foods – burgers, fries, pizza, even beer! – skip merrily across the screen.

On the NutriSystem website, Dan further clarifies what is and, by proxy, what isn’t “man food.”

“Hey guys, let’s be honest. A man wants to eat real food – hot dogs, burgers, pizza and lasagna. You know, man food, big taste, hearty portions.”

So, why do I bring up these utter and complete wastes of TV airtime? Because the NutriSystem commercials are a prime case of the genderization of food in America.

Psychologists Paul Rozin and Carol Nemeroff coined the “you are what you eat” principle: the belief that people absorb characteristics of the foods they eat. Think about it: when was the last time you saw a hefty linebacker of a man order a dainty salad, eat half, and then declare himself oh-so full?

As children we learn that boys are made of such carnivorous delicacies as snakes and snails and puppy dog tails while girls are made of sugar and spice – everything “nice.” Manly foods like pizza, burgers and fries are substance foods; meant to “stick to the ribs,” while eating meat infers ingestion of strength, power and vitality, often times reinforced by the connection of meat and women’s bodies – see Carol Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat.

Traditional female fare like salads, fruit and candy, by contrast, connote a sense of purity, delicateness, and sweetness and in the case of chocolate, lusciousness and delectability.

By claiming different characteristics and attributes to food, men and women define what is masculine and what is feminine. These embedded gender definitions continue to reinforce and reproduce male power and female subordination through food.