To Have Your Cake and Eat It: International No Diet Day
Today is International No Diet Day. Seriously. It came of Mary Evans Young watching a program in 1992 about 3 women who opted to have their stomachs stapled in order to achieve the body-size & weight they desired; then learning a teenager committed suicide, shortly after this, because she had been bullied at school for being fat (she was size 14/American 12). This was the era of mad liquid food diets and Oprah's fat-busting-regain odyssey; and the deaths of Lena Zavaroni & Karen Carpenter to anorexia. She decided to call together 12 women, ages from 21-76, to share a picnic wearing 'Ditch the Diet' stickers. Feminists took up the cause, and the idea caught on.
The following year Canadian Linda Omichinski published the book: 'You Count, Calories Don't'. I keep coming across these one day; one idea; one event items that grow rapidly - a positive contagion: the man who wanted to celebrate his birthday by inviting friends to his home at 4am to hear the Dawn Chorus together became International Dawn Chorus Day celebrated by over 80 countries. The Red Hat Society - one woman; one red hat; now there are hundreds of chapters all over the world. It surely must make you wonder: What can I do?
What 'mad' idea can I implement that raises awareness of an important issue, or, is just good fun to be shared with others?
When I was in Budapest, I visited the Baltic Art Centre where I saw the work of Katarzyna Kozyra. It was very simple: after drawing aside a curtain I entered a space where a huge screen showed, in real time, scenes in a Budapest Bath House. The initial shock of being confronted by larger than life naked bodies - all sizes; all shapes - very quickly wore off. The bodies 'became' beautiful - they always had been! but it took a while to acclimatize. The unself-conscious naturalness added to the power of women just being their natural selves in each other's company. it shouldn't be so hard, but in the face of media (mis)representation, is.
The painting is: 'La Belle Rafaelo' by Tamara de Lampicka, 1927 Beautiful. Voluptuous.
I found a poem by Anne Sexton: 'Woman with Girdle' 1962, to match this painting by Beryl Cook: 'Corselet':
I wanted to play a part in celebrating the day - with art & poetry, but can add:
https://www.checkiday.com/2c8ea27…/international-no-diet-day - which has other ideas on how this day can be celebrated. Pass the cake!
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