Response to Pam's Oddity from Week 5, Week 5

Pam, I love the details in this post. Instead of saying "low calorie foods" you say "spinach, diet soda, black beans, and brown rice." Instead of saying women "cheat" on a diet, you give the example of "sweet tea and red velvet cake" at a baby shower. You do an excellent job of showing rather than telling, but the telling you do, ie the mantra "fails by association" to "Moose Tracks," "yeast rolls," and "fettuccine alfredo," hints toward the deeper reflection we've been talking about being missing from much of our drafting. While short, this piece is really working toward not just a reportage of weight loss attempts, but a critique and a discussion of the practice with which most women can easily identify. A question I would ask of this draft, and perhaps a way to expand it, is: How many weight-loss programs has the speaker been on? Bringing in details about different plans, could be a way to further explore the cultural phenomenon which keeps these companies in business, our inability to actually lose, and keep off, all the pounds we want to. What about American culture, and its women's perceptions that make these such lucrative businesses. Or as a way to get off subject, maybe this piece becomes about the food, and why we eat it, rather than just the attempts to deprive ourselves. What does food mean to us? Why do we beat ourselves up for eating the "wrong" thing?