Letters from Fat Camp

I think diets were designed by people who don't need to diet. Otherwise, why would they be so hard?

A few summers ago, I worked at a women's weight loss facility, and even though I actually had a woman say to me, "What happens at fat camp stays at fat camp" I'm going to go ahead and write about it anyway. I spent every spare second I had in the bookstore. I was enamored by the genre of self-help weight loss books. They had so much in common: similar clean, fresh cover designs, a picture of the thin author on the inside cover with a brief history of her (always HER) weight loss struggles, written at a forth grade reading level, geared 100% towards a female audience, though each book would occasionally and tritely reference men. The one thing none of the books had in common was the actual method of losing weight. More water? Less water? Only meat and cheese? Only raw foods? Only positive thoughts? Only eat when your sitting down, and never at night. But then, maybe it doesn't matter where or when you eat, but only eat when your hungry. They all explored blame; your mother making you think you could only be pretty if you were thin, your father forcing you to clean your plate, your competitive sibling, your stressful boss, your friends making you fat by forcing you to socialize with them. Damn your socializing friends! But its never your fault. You're just a fat product of a fat design.

I read almost every book in that store (not really that impressive. they had like ten books) and I didn't lose a pound. I'm not sure, but its possible that losing weight isn't as easy as reading about losing weight. I'm not sure who these books actually inspire, but they must inspire someone, because the only things getting published more often that weight loss books are Danielle Steel novels. Even if they do inspire, I don't think they're designed to work. If there was a book that fat women could read, and it made them get up and lose weight, they'd stop reading. And the market would crumble. The trick is to inspire them just enough to feel positive, but not enough to take action. Like a movie about global warming.