Wednesday 12 August 2009

Puku pride

Campbell Live rubbed me the wrong way this evening with yet another weight loss story. Tonight's was about getting rid of that unsightly tummy that pregnancy leaves in its wake. Some entrepreneurial doctor is pioneering a form of liposuction for the tummies of self-hating mummies. And Campbell Live helpfully offered the guy an informercial. Sigh.

I have a love/hate relationship with my tummy. Until I had kids (and more specifically, my second child) I didn't really understand that children change the shape of your body. Fat goes on - and stays - in places it hadn't previously. Sometimes, I feel a peculiar pride in the fact that my body looks 'lived in'. I'm kind of chuffed that I brought two new people into the world, having grown them inside my body. But other times, I just feel gross. The female bodies celebrated in the media are those of the young. They look untouched by life experience and age - those things that apparently make women undesirable.

The Campbell Live story didn't even question cultural attitudes to women's bodies. It started out from the premise that a flabby tummy is self-evidently ugly - but thanks to surgery, those of us who've 'failed' to restore our pre-pregnancy bodies with diet and exercise now have a chance to be presentable once more. I'm not so immune to cultural pressure that I feel completely comfortable about having a mother's body. But I refuse to think of it as 'failure'. On the contrary: my puku tells the story of the two greatest successes of my life.

5 comments:

A Nonny Moose said...

As for all this fat hating BS, who are we trying to please again?

I haven't had kids, nor will I, but I've certainly noticed an odd body phenomenon in the last 18 months - all my fat has migrated to my tummy, as if it's in protection/preparedness mode. True, my diet could be better, but it reinforces one thing - FFS society, stop fcuking with genetics to suit your penis pleasure!

Frankie said...

This story disgusted me with its shallowness. Comon Campbell Live, you're not 20/20 or 60 Minutes to be showing irrelevant foreign poropaganda to us!

Besides which, I didn't particularly want to see a smarmy doctor giving a piece to camera as he pushed a huge needle around inside someone's belly. He wasn't even watching what he was doing!

Then the before and after shots- as if a bleeding, bruised abdomen is more beautiful than a woman's natural and beautiful belly... I don't buy it.
If only there had been a way to show this taboo sight (a woman's belly post-childbirth) on the Teev without the rest of the woman-hating bullsh*t.

Reminds me why I don't have a TV.

Anna said...

I remember being invited to do a bellydancing class, and said I felt too self-conscious because of my puku. I was told that you're actually supposed to have a belly to do belly dancing - that's part of what makes it beautiful. In that context, the 'mature' figure seems to be erotic, which is kind of cool.

Boganette said...

I'm far too busy being worried about whether I can afford to buy new tyres for the car to think about my belly.

I'm glad Cambo is sending out a reminder that we have to remember to stress about our weight *rolls eyes*

Anna said...

Cambo's being doing a bit of that recently. It seems the programme has some sort of agreement with that Healthy Food (?) magazine (which I actually quite like). There's been an awful lot of healthsome recipes, which gets boring after a while, but I suspect the fatty-hassling is related to mag promotion.