Milo Boyd: Yes
Samantha Brick has done more than any other women, with the possible exception of Ayn Rand, to encourage the people to hate her. If her 2012 article, There are downsides to looking this pretty: Why women hate me for being beautiful didn’t send enough negativity her way, Brick, ever the glutton for punishment, has once again spoken out. This time she has directed her silver tongue towards the issue of dieting.
For Brick, dieting is an essential part of any woman’s life. In her own words, “I am 42 years old and have been on a permanent diet for the past 30 years. The logic is simple and irrefutable: any self-respecting woman wants to be thin, and to be thin you need to spend your life on a diet. “
It would be a feat far beyond my journalistic expertise to defend the character of such a woman. If her crawling, self -congratulatory and promotional tone does not render her beyond saving, anecdotes of refusing chocolate gifts seals the deal. It is far too easy however, to disregard Brick part and parcel. Yes, she’s awful, but she has a point.
British society is currently stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy in terms of health. On one end of the spectrum we have Gok Wan, a bastion of inner beauty. On the other, we have government health initiatives and 10 Years Younger, enforcing the notion of an obesity epidemic.
Such contrasting ideals force people into a contradictory limbo of self-acceptance and self- loathing. Being pulled from two directions does nothing to promote self confidence and makes it near impossible to settle on a size and feel happy within it.
Samantha Brick offers an alternative. A strong, forthright statement, Brick’s ideology is blunt and, whilst we may not want to accept it, healthy. Britain is, to borrow a hyperbolic phrase, in the midst of an obesity epidemic.
Yes, Brick’s comments are anti-feminist in the way they target only women and yes, they come from a bad place (dieting for the husband’s satisfaction being a terrible reason), But if we ignore these setbacks, a strong argument arises.
Being slim is healthy and one of the sure fire ways to achieve such a state is to diet. Dieting can of course go to far and become, as it clearly is for Brick, an unhealthy obsession. Conversely, it can be a focus for people, can encourage discipline over one’s body and lengthen a life. Naturally, eating disorders are prone to occur following too much of a bodily focus, but a healthy line must be drawn.
Lilith King-Taylor: No
Any self-respecting woman wants to be thin’- yet another reassuring comment from the infamous Samantha Brick. It’s bad enough that we still live in a patriarchal society where women feel immense pressures to meet the ‘perfect’ standard set by supermodels and celebrities, but it’s even more depressing when women themselves reinforce this mentality.
Women do many things to make themselves more attractive to men, but claiming that being fat is the ultimate failure and that ‘overweight is never attractive’ is a step too far. Not only are comments like hers judgmental and narrow-minded, but also detrimental for our gender as a whole. If you ask me, any self-respecting woman isn’t happy merely bowing down to what men want, instead being content finding a healthy weight, whatever that may be. She boldly states that her husband would leave her if she got fat, showing that not only is her marriage built on aesthetics, but highlighting that it is the women’s role to stay attractive and please the superior man. In a world where women are seeking equality, it’s sad that a woman feels it’s the acceptable norm for personal relationships with men to be so imbalanced.
Her comments also derive from a supposed concern for health, not just looks. Granted, this country may have an increasing issue with obesity, but the answer is not to encourage women to opt for the opposite extreme and be on a diet their entire lives (Brick’s has apparently been on a diet since she was 12). Brick’s comments are not merely an insight into her own troubled past, but add strength to a growing trend of younger and younger girls concerning themselves with their looks and weight. If Honey Boo-Boo was the absurd extreme, Brick represents the increasing normalisation of this idea.
Obesity is caused by a deeply unhealthy attitude towards food and naivety about nutrition, and Samantha Bricks’ attitude is just as damaging and misinformed. It’s deeply sad that her everyday life seems to revolve around what she can and cannot eat, claiming she ruined an ‘expensive box of hand-made French chocolates’ to stop herself from eating them. Not only does this imply that she does not have the self-control to deter her from binge-eating, but that she cannot enjoy an occasional treat because of a constant, shallow obsession with the way she looks. Samantha Brick does not have a point, her outrageous comments are attention seeking and frankly, very sad.