Woman loses weight, saves marriage. Gag.

11th July 2007

Woman loses weight, saves marriage. Gag.

posted in Body Image, Fat Bias, Pop Culture |

CNN has debuted the first of eight CNN.com I-Reporters’ weight-loss stories. Over the next several weeks, the site promises it will reveal “their secrets, the defining moments that motivated them to lose a combined total of 1,167 pounds and how the weight loss has changed their lives.”

Yes, yes. How very nauseating.

Normally, a story like this wouldn’t even blip on my radar of things to post, seeing as the “I was so miserable before I lost weight and now I am so, very happy at a size 4″ stories saturate every women’s magazines, television shows and commercials, websites galore and even the daily news. But, as I prepare for my own July 25 wedding, something particular in this story caught my eye.

I think there must exist some sort of homogeneous weight-loss success story template all writers are mandated to use. The regurgitated stories all begin with a visual description of just how very fat, sad and miserable a person was because of their gigantic girth and end with the classic perky quote, “If I can do it, anyone can.”

I would have expected CNN to have higher standards that this, but I would assume wrong.

CNN’s story is no different, illustrating how wretched poor 227-pound Sharon Twitchell was at a size 22-24. Adding to Sharon’s misery, she reports, her ballooning weight was also wreaking havoc on her 31-year marriage. She says her husband was embarrassed by her weight gain and insinuated their sex life had all but disappeared.

But after losing 110 pounds to fit into a size 2-4, Sharon says weight loss has proved to be the proverbial magic beans, solving all her marriage-related woes.

“I have a marriage again,” said Sharon. “When I finally reached my goal (weight), my wedding ring was two sizes too big. I had already had it resized twice and the jeweler was hesitant that I might lose more weight. Rather than resize it, my husband bought me a new beautiful diamond ring and when he gave it to me he said this was a renewal of our wedding vows.”

Sharon says her husband keeps telling people that he’s got his wife back. This August, the couple will celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary and say they couldn’t be happier.

Got his wife back? Oh, puh-leeze. It sounds as if Sharon’s husband doesn’t want a life partner, he wants a trophy wife. Perhaps the weight Sharon should have lost ought to have been her dead-weight oaf of a husband, whose love for her seems exponential to the numbers on her scale.

Was it so much of a renewal of the marriage vows, I wonder, than a divorcing of the old, fat Sharon and remarriage to the newly thin and “improved” Sharon?

Stay tuned to CNN.com for more nauseating tales of “As the World Turns… Skinny.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Body Image, Fat Bias, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On July 11th, 2007, Jeanne said:

You have got to be kidding me – this was on CNN?? Have they nothing better to do?

And I second the thought that the weight she should have lost was the husband.

I continually tell my husband that I didn’t marry him for his looks. In other words, I don’t care what his size is, I love him for the wonderful, caring, thoughtful man that he is.

posted on July 11th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

2 On July 11th, 2007, JeanC said:

Yup, front page CNN I didn’t bother checking out the story, saw the little blurb for the video and figured it was going to be the same ol’ “I lost XX pounds and instantly everything that was wrong with the world is right again” stories.

“Nauseating tales” is correct.

posted on July 11th, 2007 at 5:26 pm

3 On July 11th, 2007, emily said:

110 pounds in 10 months – 11 pounds a month. About 2.6 pounds a week.

I wonder how her heart muscles are doing. That’s some very fast weight loss, there.

posted on July 11th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

4 On July 11th, 2007, littlem said:

Jeanne, that’s what I said somewhere else. This is CNN, and you’d think they’d have some opinion on, oh, whether global warming will sufficiently change the world’s food availability/scarcity balance so that being “fat” will once again be in vogue — or whether the current executive branch and Supreme Court are in the process of quietly decimating the U.S. Constitution, since it’s apparently “just a piece of paper”.

But noooo.

posted on July 11th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

5 On July 11th, 2007, Sarina said:

Hah! I thought the exact same thing when I read this article! What’s so wrong with a size 22? Granted, weight loss is great, but to think that this woman attributes “getting her marriage back” to this drastic of a drop is terrible! Her husband sounds like a real Prince Charming.

posted on July 11th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

6 On July 12th, 2007, Rachel said:

CNN just recently redesigned its front page, placing real news lower below all these video features and even stupid stories from theonion. I guess this is part of their new master plan: report on weight loss instead of Iraq. I sent them an email when they redesigned it, telling them how I thought they they ought look like a news organization’s site, not MySpace.

posted on July 12th, 2007 at 12:09 am

7 On July 12th, 2007, PastaQueen said:

I always hate that fat-to-thin story template too and I hope no one ever trys to stuff me into it. I think a lot of journalists are just lazy though, or have to meet a deadline so they don’t research things as well as they could.

posted on July 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am

8 On July 12th, 2007, Rachel said:

I can vouch for that. I cover about 15 communities and am literally drowning with stories. Then, at a staff meeting Tuesday, bosslady says she wants us to do even more and in-depth news stories in addition to our current workload.

Still, I try to make each of my stories unique and free of cliches.

posted on July 12th, 2007 at 12:10 pm

9 On September 9th, 2007, cynthia said:

Why do you all have a problem with the weightloss stories

posted on September 9th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

10 On September 10th, 2007, Rachel said:

I have a problem in which weight loss stories are presented as the end all, be all of happiness Cynthia. Happiness is not found in the junior’s department.

posted on September 10th, 2007 at 9:49 am

11 On September 10th, 2007, miles2go said:

The woman is happier -and healthier- at 117 than she was at 227. Instead of tearing down her experience, why not just be… happy… for her. I don’t get the impression that she thinks that her world is now perfect. Her context is how weight loss has improved her life. Maybe her 12yo car still needs to be replaced and her boss is still a jerk. etc. etc. Feel better now?

posted on September 10th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

12 On September 10th, 2007, Rachel said:

Miles2Go – I think what everyone who has commented here and I are opposed to is not that the woman is empowering herself, but that she felt she had to whittle her body down to some pre-conformed notion of beauty in order to find “happiness.” Her husband too seems like he values her more for how she looks on the outside than who she is on the inside.

I lost more than 175 pounds in a year’s time. I found that much of the same self-esteem issues that plagued me at 300 pounds, were still very much present at 125 pounds. I’m not opposed to weight loss in general, everyone has a right to do with their body what they want. But what I am opposed to is:

1. Dieting, in general. Dieting is code for disordered eating, and isn’t healthy or conducive to long-term weight -loss.
2. The “If I can do it, you can too” diet mentality, a.k.a the social pressure to encourage other people to diet and if they don’t, to feel like failures who lack willpower. I find this to be just as unhealthy as the peer pressure kids face to smoke and do drugs.
3. Presenting weight-loss as the magical cure to life’s problems. As I said before, dieting and weight-loss do nothing to remedy psychological problems surrounding one’s self-image, and in some cases, food.

By constantly showcasing these type of weight-loss stories, what we are doing is further denigrating obesity, when what we should be doing is lauding people who have healthy self-esteem and promoting body acceptance – of all sizes. We should encourage fitness and a healthy relationship with food, regardless if it results in weight loss.

posted on September 10th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

13 On August 27th, 2008, David said:

You guys are being too hard on the guy. You can’t help what you are attracted to and what you are not.

posted on August 27th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

14 On August 27th, 2008, DollyAnn said:

David, while I understand what you are saying to a certain extent, if all a guy (or a girl) is attracted to is how thin his/her spouse is, then there isn’t really a serious foundation for love or marriage. People are criticizing the husband in this article because he called a renewal of *wedding vows* purely because his wife decreased in size–that’s a huge reason to celebrate for something that shouldn’t matter THAT much in an already committed, loving relationship. Attraction isn’t limited to the size of someone’s waist band; a person could marry a hundred people if all that mattered was body size/shape.

posted on August 27th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

15 On January 26th, 2009, Cessie said:

I used to know the Twitchell family very well…It’s important to note that Sharon Twitchell went through HELL with her “husband” for years—she was completely emotionally and mentally abused by him when she was heavy. He also abused their son in much the same way, but for other reasons. The comments that the weight she should have lost was her husband are right on the mark…

CNN really should have done their homework when they picked her story…it’s not inspirational…it’s sad and pathetic and sets the women’s movement back a hundred years.

posted on January 26th, 2009 at 2:54 pm