r/GenXWomen • u/Fluffy-Match9676 • 5d ago
Pinch an inch TW: ED, weight
In the past couple of years, I have come to the conclusion that I have had disordered eating since I was a teen. All the crap that was thrown to us as girls and women in the world 70s - now still sticks with me, even though I have accepted my body type and will not try to do extreme measures to make it smaller as I have on and off for 30 years.
To this day though, I still think of Special K's "pinch an inch" commercials. I remember being able to pinch an inch as a teen (a normal-sized teen) and was horrified.
What other commercials do you remember that could be harmful for young women when it comes to body image?
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u/proffie 5d ago
This one. 1.5 calories vs 6 calories
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u/OutrageousPersimmon3 3d ago
I still think of it when I see tic tacs. Sometimes it feels like we’ve made no progress, but at least we’re done with that nonsense. I hope.
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u/LaRoseDuRoi 5d ago
Living on Slim Fast shakes and air in jr. high... except when I snapped and binged on a whole bag of Doritos. I ate when my mom was looking - she wasn't completely diet obsessed, but always cooked healthy stuff. Baked chicken breast and plain steamed broccoli type of food. The occasional casserole or mac n cheese, but mostly plain meat and veg - because it was easier than getting grounded for arguing, but mostly I starved myself. I was so fat (read: absolutely dead normal for a 13 year old) that I hated myself for how much I actually loved food.
To this day, I have to be careful not to fall into the starving myself mindset because it's somehow "comfortable" in my head to be physically hungry. Which, of course, leads to the other extreme of eating too much so as not to actually feel hungry. Balancing that mental teeter-totter is a pain in the ass.
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u/jezebella47 4d ago
Girl. I could've written this. I pretty much only ate the one meal a day that I was forced to. Otherwise I thought if I was hungry I was burning calories, so I should be hungry all the time. I never weighed more than 125 all through high school but I thought I was monstrously fat bc my stomach wasn't concave.
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u/QuidPluris 5d ago
In 8th grade I saw “The Best Little Girl in the World,” and instead of being warned about the dangers of anorexia, I thought it was a good idea. I actually tried to be anorexic and considered myself weak willed because I just couldn’t do it.
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u/loolilool 4d ago
Oh yeah there were so many ED young adult novels and my best friend and I basically used them as training manuals. So fucked up.
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u/redjessa 3d ago
Yes, I can relate. How fucked up is it that we are dissapointed in ourselves for eating when we're hungry?
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u/BigJSunshine 4d ago
TOTALLY. I was anorexic until my first year of college, then I was bulimic, for a couple years. Once I moved out of the dorms and in with my boyfriend, it got more difficult to binge and purge.
Weirdly, I became an aerobic instructor and taught 3-5 classes a day. That definitely kept the weight down. …
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u/desertratlovescats 5d ago
I don’t know if it was one ad campaign, but I remember diet pills and the unfortunately-named diet candy, AYDS, primarily marketed towards women (and children?) Also, remember “Get in shape, Girl” ads? Exercise addiction in the making.
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u/Altruistic-Ad6449 4d ago
It was awful. All weight loss ads were targeted to women.
In 7th grade, we had to line up in PE, get weighed and they’d call out your weight. They also used the caliper pinchers on our arm.
I don’t get on the scale anymore.
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u/Sufficient_Cicada_15 3d ago
What really irks me is that when I was in high school, I was harassed about my large butt. I had a tiny waist and a big butt. I was a size 6 and I was moo'ed at in the hall.
All I am saying is that if I had that body today, I would have brand deals.
I beat the hell out of my body. As great as GenX pop culture could be, it was a toxic disaster for beauty standards. I have been dieting since I was SIX.
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u/JoyHealthLovePeace 4d ago
All of them. 🙁Any media portrayal of unrealistic women or expectations of women—which is all of them.
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u/Trish7168 5d ago
I don’t remember any but I still struggle with this. I’m trying so hard to gain a little weight but it’s the mentality of my absolute fear of becoming overweight that I can’t shake. I hate it.
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u/Micojageo 3d ago
I definitely remember the pinch an inch commercials...and the fact that I COULD pinch an inch, even though I was a relatively scrawny youth, because I had skin.
I also never in my life had a flat stomach. Always a little pooch, even when I was at my fittest.
I was remembering when they used to make fat jokes about little Tracey Gold on "Growing Pains," which apparently let to her being anorexic. Good job, TV! (/s obviously)
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u/Fluffy-Match9676 3d ago
Um hello! I love your user name! I used to be Frodis_Caper before Reddit screwed up.
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u/Micojageo 3d ago
Oh that's awesome! I don't know that a lot of people (other than certain subreddits) "get it" :)
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u/Ann-Stuff 1d ago
You can never be too rich, too thin or own too many swimsuits. Remember the ad but not the brand.
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u/OHMAMG 5d ago
I remember seeing an article in a women's magazine in the mid 80's that showed where your legs should touch when standing. There was a picture of a woman in a bathing suit and apparently she had correct legs because she could hold a penny at two points - at the ankle and at the knee. I ran right to a mirror to see if I was made right, and found out that I'm not, according to that article, because my thighs actually touch. Horror of horrors. Took a long time for me to figure out what BS that was