I Feel Pity, Mostly

Thanks to a twitter post, I found this article about MeMe Roth discussed on Life on Fats.  Bree discusses how MeMe has gone so offensive as to compaire eating with rape.  There are more offensive things to say, but ths is pretty offensive.

What I want to discuss though is towards the end of the article. 

When I ask her if she’s ever been anorexic, she gasps: “No! I’ve never even been on a diet!” So I ask her what she eats in an average day. On this, Roth is reticent. She now runs a private nutrition counselling business, she says, and because of that, “I don’t spend a ton of time telling people what I do personally. What works for me may not work for other people.”That’s fine, I say, but just as an example?

“I eat beans like nobody’s business,” she says hurriedly. “I eat more black beans than anyone else I know.”

I try to pin her down to something more specific. Let’s just do a sample day, I say. What about breakfast? Roth grimaces. “I hate to say this, because I think it’s counter to what most people should do, but I never in my whole life have enjoyed breakfast. For me, it doesn’t work as well as other things.”

Right, I say. So how about lunch?

She squirms visibly. “You’re taking me where I don’t want to go … What works for me doesn’t work for a lot of people.”

Well, you’ve said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. “I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I’ll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don’t let a whole day go by without running four miles.”

OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn’t work out until four o’clock in the afternoon – would you not eat until after that?

“I might.”

I look at my watch. It’s 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?

Roth is a little quiet.

“No,” she says.

There is a pause.

“But I feel great!”

She’s never been on a diet, but when pressed about what an average day of eating looks like, she starts feeling uncomfortable and doesn’t want to answer the questions.  Earlier in the interview, it’s stated that her whole family is fat, and she tells a story about how embarressed she was as a child when her fat mother was bringing cupcakes to her class for her birthday.  She was embarrassed because everybody would see she had a fat mother.  And while she’s never even been on a diet, she uses techniques to keep her away from food that would grace lists on a pro-ana board.

I can’t hate her when I see how screwed up she is.  I feel pity for her.  I want to see her get into counseling and learn how to love herself.  And I want to see her retract all the insulting and offensive stuff she’s ever said (natch). 

Hate her?  How can I when she appears to hate herself so much more than everybody who is already hating her combined could.

 

Oh, and this is just my opinion, but people sending death threats and hate mail saying they hope MeMe’s children get cancer?  If it’s true, if she really is getting death threats and people targeting her children and wishing horrible life threatening diseases on them?  It’s not going to help.  Hate can only lead to more hate.  Sending things like that to her is just feeding the hate fire she already has going.  The only way to combat hate is love.  Whether it’s internally (combat self-hate with self-love) or externally (every time you want to send something nasty, send something telling her how she’s okay just as she is), repaying hate with love is the only way to maybe help somebody stop hating.