Never thin enough.

There are always those people who can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and never have to worry. Then there are those who have to constantly monitor what they eat, or they'll gain weight in a split second. A good friend of mine has struggled with her weight for as long as I've known her. I know it must be hard for her to be out with her friends and have to worry about what she's eating when no one else seems to care. She needs to worry about what she eats for health reasons (her parents are diabetics and she has high cholesterol) and for personal reasons. Her body practices include counting calories, obsessively checking her weight, and trying to find the newest fad diet. She doesn't see it, but she actually looks great the way she is. She's never happy with how she looks. It's a pursuit without terminus; for her it will always be five more pounds, another inch off her waist, 300 fewer calories a day. She is a perfect example of Bordo's argument. I'm clearly not a psychiatrist- I don't know the "deep down" reasons for her obsession with her weight. But it's pretty plain to see that the images she is flooded with every day of stick-thin women on the cover of Shape have given her the image of an intelligible body that she won't stop until she gets. Her docile body is just that- passively going along to fit into this stick-thin image, while also strongly acting out in rage against this impossible image.