In Part 1 of my interview with Jenny Gardiner, we talked about her novel Slim to None and the body image issues the main character Abbie deals with.

During our conversation, we also spoke more broadly about body image issues. Jenny and I discussed how body image issues affect so many women and how hard it is for us all to deal with them.  As Jenny said herself:

Find me a female in the United States who doesn’t have body image issues. You could be tall, short, thin, fat, average, whatever and you’re not happy with what you have. This is certainly not helped along by our culture that promotes being emaciated, young and perfect. I think it’s even sadder when you see how women feel so paranoid about aging- – it’s hard to find women who aren’t having some sort of procedure done to stave off the process.

I live in a neighborhood with a lot of newly-retired couples and you’ll see these women you might have seen at the gym or at book club looking every one of their 55 years, and then they show up looking like The Joker from Batman with this weird uplifted pull on their mouths and a perpetually surprised look in their eyes because their faces have been pulled back from so much plastic surgery. When I see older actresses on screen looking their age I silently applaud their rejecting the pressures they must feel 100 times worse than your average woman to try to pretend they’re still young.

Cristina: Have you always had body image issues yourself and how have you dealt with them?

Jenny: When I was growing up there was SO much emphasis in my household on how I looked. My father would always warn/threaten me that if I wasn’t careful I was going to look like this aunt who was pretty overweight. It was dangled in front of me all the time (“you have such a pretty face,” the inference was I was going to be a fat ugly cow). And I was a very active, athletic, healthy kid growing up.

But I was always told I was pretty, and there wasn’t all this reinforcing going on about what was inside of me, rather the superficial me. I probably went to the other extreme with my kids and NEVER told them they were pretty or beautiful or handsome, rather emphasized what wonderful people they are. Perhaps I could’ve thrown in more of the “you’re pretty” stuff but I wanted to send the message that how you are in the inside matters far more than what you look like on the outside.

As far as how I’ve dealt with body image issues? God, in some ways that has been a defining thing for me, which is despicable, isn’t it? But one thing I have always known is I am happiest when I am in good physical shape. If I’m exercising daily and feel strong I’m a much happier person. If I’m in a pissy mood, all I need to do is exercise and get those endorphins flowing and I feel much better. This is something I’ve tried to instill in my kids as well.

Cristina: What do you say to your children about body image issues?

Jenny: I’ve actually been really overly conscientious with my kids (we have a boy and two girls) about this stuff. I had a roommate in college who–unbeknownst to me and her other friends–had an eating disorder that she ultimately died from, which was so damned tragic and needless. She was so fun and smart and clever and witty and here she was so obsessed with her body that she actually destroyed it. This was back in the early 80′s. We all knew enough about anorexia back then because of Karen Carpenter dying from it. But no one knew about bulimia which was what Annie had. As far as we knew, she ate just fine. But we didn’t know that she was taking laxatives and likely also throwing up much of what she ate as well. She binge-ate but we actually laughed about it because we had NO idea this was something indicative of a far deeper–and deadly–secret. It wasn’t till she dropped out of school that we found packages of laxatives underneath her bed and started learning the truth.

But because of this I have been downright obsessive in teaching my kids to be happy with their bodies and to practice moderation in their lives. Last time I looked no one ever died from moderation. We’ve worked hard to try to get our kids to eat as healthily as possible (though with three kids with very different eating habits I am convinced much of what people are inclined to want to eat is predetermined and I know you can’t force-feed someone vegetables!).

When my kids were little one of the girls was friends with a girl across the street who was 10 years old and whose mother was OBSESSED with her body. She had a fabulous one and she flaunted it. But she was always going on these cabbage soup diets and fixating on her pencil thin daughter being skinny–so much so that this child would only drink diet sodas and would join her mother on her frequent cabbage soup diets. The girl was emaciated yet was dieting. Ridiculous.

Losing Weight

Jenny and I also talked about body image in general. I told that I wanted to write about Slim to None for my blog because the weight loss and body image topics it deals with are a constant battle and fixation for so many women. Abbie’s story resonated with me and I felt it would with other readers.  We shared our mutual significant weight losses over the past year with each other (60 pounds for Jenny!)

Cristina: What inspired you to lose the weight?

Jenny: I guess it’s sort of ironic that I had hit a bad spot in my life just like Abbie, shortly after Slim to None was released [in 2010]. It seemed that just about everything was imploding in on me last year and on top of that, I’d been super unhappy with my weight for ages. When I turned 40 I was in great shape and felt terrific but then I had a succession of injuries that waylaid me and kept me from going to the gym and I got so fat (I HAVE to work out or I gain weight so easily). So over the course of several years I’d put on so much weight and just felt so trapped that way.

Cristina: How did you go about losing the weight? Continue reading →