Diet Plans Profit From Women's Self-Loathing

In the final days of 2007, millions of television viewers and devotees of diet blogs watched as actress Valerie Bertinelli made a spectacle of herself over a weight-loss program.

Seated in a kitchen, looking as pretty as ever, she announced that she was just 3 pounds away from her goal of "40 pounds! 40 pounds! 40 POUNDS! " Background music soared like a Disney soundtrack at the moment a bully is about to meet his match.

Bertinelli's voice broke and her eyes welled up because, as she explained, for the first time in 20 years, "I will not wake up on New Year's Day and think about my weight."

She was deliriously happy, which was incredibly sad. But you can bet millions of American women teared up right along with her.

For too many, every glance in the mirror triggers a default button of self-loathing. And that's what Bertinelli's corporate sponsor counts on each time it recruits another overweight actress to diet for public consumption. With holiday feasting behind us, the advertising blitz is on for all kinds of weight-loss programs. The message is always clear, whether it's through a celebrity, usually female, or a just another chunky stranger, also usually a female: "She hates herself, and you should, too. But we can help."

Bertinelli followed in the footsteps of another actress, Kirstie Alley, who lost 75 pounds with the same program. Alley is known for over-the-top theatrics, so her agreeing to strut her pared-down stuff in a bikini on Oprah was hardly startling.

There was something different, though, about Bertinelli's willingness to humiliate herself publicly, month after month. Here was a woman, now nearly 50, whom many of us remembered as the wholesome daughter on the old sitcom "One Day at a Time." Now she was all grown up and heavier than she wanted to be. But she was still down-to-earth — and still beautiful.

Not beautiful enough, though. Last year, a photographer caught an unflattering shot of Bertinelli in a swimsuit. We all know the rest of that story.

So she decided that she had to whittle herself down from a size 14 to a size 8 and that America would suffer all her insecurities right along with her. Fans could track her breathtaking progress with snippets of video updates, which always carried the asterisked disclaimer: "Results not typical."

I don't begrudge Bertinelli her weight loss. I'm not even all that worked up about how many other women identify with her inability to see herself as anything other than a dress size. What gets my head spinning is her potential impact on so many girls and young women who already are hammered on a daily basis to believe that a woman's worth is inversely related to where the needle lands on her bathroom scales.

I am especially mindful of the girls and young women I know who struggle with eating disorders that, left untreated, can kill them. They have horror stories about strangers, often two and three times their age, who sidle up to them in store aisles and whisper, "What's your secret?"

College students with barely enough meat on their bones to stay upright describe compliments from others who cannot hide their envy. One young woman in treatment for anorexia described what happened when she ordered a chicken sandwich in a restaurant. The waitress eyed her up and down and snorted, "Honey, I'm bringing you a cheeseburger. You're making every woman in this place feel terrible."

So no, I don't think it's great that Valerie Bertinelli and Kirstie Alley are publicly whooping it up over their weight loss. They may make "average" women feel comforted that even the rich and famous have their problems, but their pitches for costly prepackaged meals and pay-as-you-go weigh-ins are not designed to promote a cozy camaraderie. They are part of the relentless campaign to reduce women's self-confidence, not their weight, and then exploit the self-hatred the diet programs help to create.

That's what brings tears to my eyes.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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