Plus Size Pregnancy Bias Alert!

[chalupamom]

I've been overweight (and healthy!) pretty much my whole life and I'm generally pretty impervious to negative messages about me and my body. Yesterday, though, I was leafing through the latest issue of FitPregnancy and was brought up short.

The August/September issue has a section entitled "Overweight and Pregnant" which is fine because the magazine often ignores women who don't look like their models (I read FitPregnancy for good healthy recipes, product reviews and exercise tips and pretty much leave the rest be). However, the "Overweight and Pregnant" article is accompanied by a photo of a pregnant women (who is not obviously "overweight" to me) standing in front of an open fridge. The caption reads: Eating for two doesn't mean eating as much as you want.

Here is the note I sent to the publishers of FitPregnancy (my original note was a bit longer, but their site limits the number of characters):

I am appalled by the photo you chose to accompany "Overweight and Pregnant" in the August/September 2003 issue. The image, of a woman standing in front of an open refrigerator, did little more than reinforce the most negative stereotype of overweight women. Why not show the woman enjoying a pre-natal exercise class, chasing after her toddler, walking her dog or conferring with her doctor? These healthy activities, all engaged in by overweight pregnant women every day, would have effectively underscored the point of the article without promoting the (incorrect) idea that overweight women cannot also be healthy and active. FitPregnancy should know better.

[SueZVudu]

Good for you, chalupamom! I'm not sure whether I fit into the plus-size category -- at size 14, I consider myself normal, but looking at those pregnancy magazaines makes me doubt myself. For some reason, my body image is worse when I compare my pregnant body to other women's pregnant bodies than it is when I compare my "normal" body to other women's (did that make sense?) I HATE those pregnancy magazines!

[Annais]

Yea, chalupamom! Great letter!

I've heard that those mags use regular, non-pregnant models with fake pillow bellies for their photos. Well, obviously, except the bare belly photos I'm guessing! So it sets a "standard" that pregnant women feel they need to achieve, which is impossible! Blah!

[Boobiemama]

I saw that! LOL
Good for you!

But... I was rather impressed with the mag, for coming from the mainstream point of view, as they had an article about delaying vax written by Dr Jay Gordon, and a thing about cloth diapers!

[Viola]

Eating for two doesn't mean eating as much as you want.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how to take that. Does eating for two but not eating as much as you want mean that you leave the table still hungry? Do you need to monitor caloric intake to make sure you aren't eating too much? If you are overweight, should you be eating fewer calories than a pregnant woman who is thin? Or are they saying that overweight women are more likely to overeat during pregnancy than non-overweight women.

I actually have noticed that I have a tendency to eat less than I normally would while pregnant, making me wonder if maybe some of my overeating might be due to hormones or something. It's hard to say, though, because ever since giving birth to my first child, I've felt like I've been eating more. She pretty much weaned in December and at that point I noticed I had a more normal appetite again, finally. Then I got pregnant. For awhile I didn't have much of an appetite, but it comes and goes these days. Some days it is very strong, but then as soon as I eat a little I am sated. It still doesn't mean I eat all the right things, however. Another issue entirely.