The 'Love Is Blind' Cuties scene and 'Candy Mom': Talking about food online and on TV
A roundup of high drama.
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Onto the goods.
The So-Called Candy Mom
Philosophy professor Agnes Callard tweeted that she usually throws out her kids’ Halloween candy after they go to bed, which “fills them with rage.”
People called her a “shitty parent,” “cartoonishly awful,” said she was abusing her children, dug up her past to boost their argument that she’s objectively horrible, etc. Some suggested that not letting your kids eat all the candy they want will surely give them an eating disorder.
I don’t know how much candy Agnes let her kids eat before she threw the candy away, or if she even did. If she takes her kids trick-or-treating, tells them they can only eat their candy the following day, and then throws it all out that night as a sick “JK, dummies!” prank—a bit cartoonishly villainous, yes. But there’s no indication that’s what she did. Seems she let them eat some candy on Halloween and then cut it off at that point so they’re not eating from a pile of candy for the subsequent four days.
I’ve written about how demonizing foods can, of course, contribute to disordered eating, but we can still talk to kids about the nutritional distinctions between foods without making them morally “bad” or “good.” Cutting your kids off from a certain amount of candy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re demonizing it. I wrote that I probably wouldn’t keep a lot of hyperpalatable snacks around for my kids to graze on at all times, but I wouldn’t keep them from having treats and “junk food” forever, either. Instead:
I personally think it makes more sense to go out for ice cream once a week, or intentionally give them certain snack foods sometimes, or bake cookies on a Friday rather than keeping a bag of Chips Ahoy! around in perpetuity, or have a special “pick anything you want to eat” dinner a few times a month, or something. I just think it’s too easy to cultivate an obsession with less-nutritious food, like I had for years, when it’s ever-present in the environment. That’s why I don’t keep certain food in my own space and now don’t want it that much, which took a period of retraining my brain and palate.
Kids get pissed off at a lot of things that are neither unreasonable nor abusive. I think it’s fine, actually, to “restrict” [here’s a piece about why that’s not always the big bad word people seem to think it is] something that will ultimately have a negative effect. Agnes has probably seen her kids get sugar-high bonkers from candy, or not eat dinner because of it, or eat themselves sick on it, so she puts limits on candy. On 11/1, the party’s over! That’s not abusive. A grip, people, please—get it.
Parents, let me know your thoughts.
The Cuties Cut
Are you watching the third season of “Love Is Blind” on Netflix? Did you start watching it much to the chagrin of your husband, who rolled his eyes and said, “Come on, let’s watch something else,” but two hours later you found yourself subject to his impassioned proclamations about which contestants are most unhinged (Matt)? Did he get mad when you couldn’t stop yourself from watching the finale without him, so you watched it again by his side, checking to be sure he was having the proper reactions? Isn’t it great when people who Hate Your Show come to Love Your Show?
Anyway, Cole and Zanab, two people who have no business occupying the same table at happy hour let alone getting married, found themselves mired in A Whole Thing at the LIB reunion and all over the internet once it aired.
Zanab said that Cole tried to control what she ate and body-shamed her: She told a story about how she reached for a couple of clementines (“Cuties”) in the hours before the two of them went to dinner one night, and Cole said: “We’re going out to eat later. Maybe you should save your appetite.”
Oof. Cole begged the producers to air the as-yet-unseen Cuties footage because he did not believe he did anything wrong! Zanab said he was lucky the show wouldn’t air it! But in the last minutes of the episode the producers, those messy bitches, did air The Cuties Cut! My husband and I locked eyes, trembling in anticipation of the potential revelations to come.
So: Zanab and Cole are in their kitchen, both grabbing at a snack (I think a bowl of cherries) as Cole talks about how excited he is for their imminent dinner reservation. He’s going on about wedding-related stuff as Zanab eats the cherries (he says nothing about those) and does ask when she grabs the clementines if she’s going to eat two “oranges”—Cole, they’re Cuties, show some respect—to which Zanab replies: “Are you OK with that?”
Cole, with an air of playfulness, deranged showmanship, and total cluelessness about Zanab’s shift in tone, says: “You better save your appetito,” (See? He’s just so silly) and gestures like he’s standing over a yawning cauldron of food. “I’m talking like a big ol’ supper tonight,” he says.
“I have only had a banana and a scoop of peanut butter today,” Zanab says. Aghast, Cole asks why. He also says he offered her a poke bowl earlier that day that she didn’t eat.
“Oh, I could definitely tell you but I probably shouldn’t,” she says.
OK. Phew. Christ.
I am someone very attuned to body image struggles—hello and welcome to my newsletter, Body Type dot Substack dot com—and continue to be sensitive to any perceived judgments of my body or my eating. I have struggled with distressing body-related thoughts and disordered eating for much of my life. I completely get where Zanab is coming from. She has stuff around food. I know that stuff. Underpinning their dynamic is that shithead Cole expressed how hot he thought another woman, Colleen, is (blink twice if you need us to rescue you from your terrifying husband, Colleen!) and that shattered Zanab. At one point she said something like: “I will never be as pretty as Colleen. I will never be as small as Colleen.” Oh, Zanab. My heart.
While Cole does not seem to get that questioning what someone is eating as they’re about to eat it, especially when they are sensitive about eating-related stuff, is not very nice (because he has limited emotional intelligence or situational awareness), Zanab is not expressing what she needs from him or making clear what her struggles are. She says she could tell him but probably shouldn’t. That is, maybe, something you say when you want someone to probe the issue, ask you the right questions, and support you—but I think Zanab knew Cole would fail this little test.
I do not think the Cuties scene proves Cole was shaming Zanab or encouraging her to eat less in general: He’s snacking with her, he’s talking about how excited he is to go out to eat together, he offered her food earlier. I think he was just asking why she was having even more than the cherries before their big dinner. That would annoy me, too—like, shut up, I know what will and will not “ruin” my appetite and two Cuties ain’t gonna do it—but I see no villain here. I see two people who can’t communicate, a man I hope gets more perceptive, and a woman I hope finds some peace where body image and relationship to food is concerned.
Did you watch The Cuties Cut, which belongs in the Criterion Collection? What do you think?
Miscellany:
Roundups
I’m going to start doing roundups of things I liked reading, where else you can find my work, recommended newsletters, etc. Such as:
The latest body image/food-related newsletters I've subscribe to:
andA fascinating take on what “heroin chic” meant in terms of photography and fashion and how it was a kind of rebuke of 1990s-supermodel “perfection,” courtesy of the Every Outfit podcast [starts at 15:05], given the recently published New York Post article about it being “back.” I’ve had about enough of these:
My recent reading:
“Female College Athletes Say Pressure to Cut Body Fat Is Toxic,” New York Times
A piece from earlier this year in
on the trouble with "joyful" movement. From it:“I can’t tell you the number of times someone’s face completely lights up when I say “Look, it’s ok to pick something you hate the least, and do the bare minimum you need to do for the benefit you want to get.” For many people there is liberation in the idea of fitness as something like dishes or laundry – it’s something they do to support themselves, but not necessarily something they love.”
Rabia Chaudry’s memoir, “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom” [stay tuned, I may have a review/interview (!)]
Beachbody has rebranded. Rest in pieces, says
On my list: Rina Raphael’s new book, “The Gospel of Wellness.” Check out her newsletter:
I’m about to start “Fit Nation,” by Natalia Petrzela
ICYMI:
Body Type has an Instagram—I don’t know how much I’m going to do with it, but I do post little body-image related things there. Do you like Reels? Should I be making more Reels?! Sometimes they’re fun!
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