Open Letter to Get in Shape for Women

Dear Get In Shape for Women:

Thank you so much for your congratulations on my new house! Nothing says “welcome to the neighborhood” like a postcard from a company that found me via an automated report from the United States Postal Service. I’m also touched and gratified that you care enough about my health to offer me an affordable, convenient option for losing weight so close to home.

Here’s the thing:

I don’t want to lose any weight.

I have no interest in losing any weight.

And if I decided I *did* want to lose some weight or join a gym, your marketing approach has completely ruined any chance of your getting my business. I’ll spare you the diatribe about the way constant media messages and images screw with women’s perceptions of what constitutes a normal, healthy body. I’ll refrain from quoting the statistics that show how much money the weight loss industry collects from women in their vain attempts to lose weight and keep it off.

I will even take a deep breath and avoid getting hot and bothered as I explain to you the way doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and the Surgeon General’s office manufactured the so-called obesity epidemic overnight — simply by changing how obesity is defined. I will not be getting up on my soap box to rail against the arbitrary, sexist, and scientifically questionable charts and indexes that our society uses to define whether a woman is “healthy” or “overweight.” I won’t be sending you to the Flickr photostream that shows photographs of real people alongside their weight definition on the BMI charts.

Nor will I be getting on my high horse to tell you that companies who try to market their products to women by playing on their insecurities should be rounded up and forced to watch MTV and the Fashion Network for 48 hours straight.

I will simply tell you that I am a healthy, active woman with no need or desire to “lose 10-15 pounds in three weeks.” And I will ask you to immediately remove me from you mailing list. If I continue to receive your mailings, you can expect to hear more from me and from the FCC.

Sincerely,

Me