Charlotte Howells continues her quest to do what she shouldn't, by eating...
Women aren't supposed to eat. Ok, so maybe they can eat something, like the occasional stick of no-calorie celery and periodic sips of diet coke. But eating a three course meal with dessert won't win you any admirers. The media is often criticized for perpetrating this ideology, what with the size zero documentaries, waif-like models and the hero-worship of Kate Moss. But I don't believe they are entirely to blame, in fact, I think we are. Do we ladies not look aghast at the girl scoffing down a triple burger while we pick at our salad? Do we not praise our friends and celebrate their gorgeousness when they've lost weight, and keep schtum when their favourite jeans no longer fit? Let's be honest: we believe thin is better and eating is bad as much as any newspaper.
So, faced up against all this evidence that eating is a sin if you have a vagina, I did exactly the opposite. I ate. A lot. In public.
I should point out that this isn't exactly unusual for me. No one could accuse me of bordering on size zero, and it's a commonly referred to fact throughout my family and friends that I eat more than my boyfriend by a long way. But that still didn't prepare me for peoples' reactions when I purposely ate all the pies. Or in actual fact, all the giant, gooey, deluxe chocolate cake.
You see, when it comes to food, the sexes are divided in much the same way as when it comes to sex. Girls that have a lot are bad, boys that have a lot get bought pints in the pub. Proving this theory was simple - back to that chocolate cake. That very good looking, very large, and very satisfying chocolate cake. A whole one, I should point out. In sight of several males, I plonked it on the table, and began to enjoy it. Sans forks, I got down to business with my fingers. I got through one slice before the comments began.
'Are you going to eat that whole cake?', 'Do you want to put that away now before it's all gone?', 'Aren't you full yet?', 'Are you having any dinner?'. The females in the room were silent, but I could feel the disapproval. Three pieces in, I gave up. I was no longer enjoying it, and felt like I couldn't carry on the in presence of others. Faced with this kind of obvious disapproval of a healthy appetite, albeit a slightly exaggerated one in this case, it's easy to see how some would turn to binging and purging in private.
But what about the men? After one of my commenters had consumed five oversized burgers in one stomach busting session, there was no 'well meaning' comments like I'd received, only murmurs of respect. Then whenever friends came round, they were regaled with the story of how he could put away five burgers. My cake? It was never mentioned again, or maybe it was that I never heard it mentioned again. If we convert food-speak to sex-speak, I was the slag, he was the stud.
But scrap that - I've got a new theory on eating. It comes thanks to US Glamour magazine, who ran an article which posed the question: when you're 80, how would you like to be remembered? The woman who abstained from bad food and spent all her time worrying about her weight, yet was skinny as a rake. Or the woman who ate healthy food (topped up with treats aplenty) and actually had a good time. I know which I'd like to be. So throw away the celery and diet coke, and bring on the chocolate cake.
Charlotte Howells is the editor of Kiss and Makeup and Nollie, and enjoys cake, chocolate and calories as much as any man.
