weighty matters

Garance Doré Shares Her Thoughts on Vogue’s Diet Mom

Dara-Lynn Weiss with her slimmed-down 7-year-old daughter in <em>Vogue</em>.
Dara-Lynn Weiss with her slimmed-down 7-year-old daughter in Vogue. Photo: Christopher Katke/Vogue

Blogger Garance Doré has previously lamented New Yorkers’ weird fixation with food and dieting, noting that being surrounded by such obsessive behavior resulted in her getting a “muffin top” when she first moved here. (In case you were worried, she says that she’s gotten back on track and is happily eating like her skinny French self again.) But having seen how many New Yorkers — particularly those who run in fashion circles — think it’s totally normal to juice all the time, she thinks that Dara-Lynn Weiss’s (deeply disturbing) Vogue story about putting her 7-year-old daughter on a diet is actually refreshingly honest. Writes Doré:

So of course, some can be shocked that that mother exposed her food obsession and her daughter’s weight problems (not anonymously at all, and with happy-happy post-diet pictures), but to me, it’s a testimony, not a life lesson.

And I find it good that Vogue, through that testimony, breaks the silence of one of those “normal” women that live with a food disorder all their life.

What do you all think – do you know a lot of women who have this kind a relationship with food ? Do you have a complicated relationship to your weight (I did at a certain moment). Do you feel free to talk about it around you ?

Doré is certainly correct that Weiss’s piece reveals much more about her own problems with food and weight than her daughter’s (whether Weiss is aware of that is up for debate). And while it’s nice to hope that Weiss will seek help for her own food disorder before continuing to impart it to her 7-year-old, the Vogue piece doesn’t indicate that she will. Yes, it’s true that the backlash against Weiss’s piece — in addition to landing her a book deal — might shed light on the deeply disturbing relationships with food that have become commonplace in our country, but for Vogue to endorse and glamorize these relationships with pretty photo shoots is still a twisted and irresponsible way to go about it.

Related:
Moving to New York Made Garance Doré Gain Weight
Forcing Her 7-Year-Old Daughter to Diet Landed Dara-Lynn Weiss a Book Deal
A Mom’s Reaction to Vogue’s Story About a ‘Fat’ 7-Year-Old Girl  

Garance Doré Has Thoughts on Vogue’s Diet Mom