Page 36 - TA Magazine Winter 2022

GOING THERE T OGE THER

women to have an 18-inch waist. Or, you know, “36-24-36.” Hol- CARRIE: In middle school and high school, you were quite CARRIE: I was in a New York City all-girls’ school during a I knew that wasn’t healthy. I do remember feeling pressured.
lywood starlets in the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s were all teeny. Marilyn active with gymnastics and track. But was there a moment really difficult cultural moment for women and girls, when the I remember eating lots of bagels with Philadelphia strawberry
Monroe was considered curvy. But if you look at her, she was tee- when your attitude toward exercise changed? An internal shift media seemed to glamorize eating disorders. For us, being cream cheese on a Sunday with my boyfriend and just feeling
ny, too--but had more of an hourglass, voluptuous figure. that made it no longer just a fun activity, but more of a thin to the point of sickliness was something to aspire to. so mad at myself.
way to lose weight or “maintain your figure”?
In the ‘70s, it was the advent of all kinds of diet sodas like Fres- KATIE: I know that “frail” was used as a compliment. CARRIE: Because you were thinking about how you
ca and Tab. And there was also cottage cheese! KATIE: I think in college, that was when jogging suddenly would look on TV?
came in vogue, and then in my early 20s, aerobics were big. CARRIE: Which is so disturbing! And we were so competitive
CARRIE: And skim milk! Which was marketed to young When I lived in Atlanta back then, I would go to step aero- about who could eat the least, whose clavicles were most KATIE: Partially, but also just about how I would look in general.
women and girls. bics classes. I did start to see exercise as a way to manage my prominent, who had the willpower to say no to baked goods
weight. I’d go to the gym in college and run around the indoor on their birthdays. Is that kind of competition among CARRIE: My peers and I, who grew up on Facebook and have
KATIE: Yes. In the late ‘70s came the low-fat craze: things track. I never really did it regularly, but I tried. I was never a friends something you also witnessed as a young person? been taking, viewing, and sharing images of ourselves since
where the fat was taken out and the sugar was added in. It al- very good distance runner because I’d get winded. I think I childhood, now often talk about how we feel dissociated from
ways seemed like there was some kind of trendy diet. might have exercise-induced asthma. KATIE: I think it was more subtle. I think that women proba- our own bodies. As John Berger wrote in “Ways of Seeing”
bly compared their bodies and were secretly envious of other almost 50 years ago, I feel “almost continually accompanied
Add that to Twiggy in the ‘60s, when the waif look was very in. CARRIE: You write in the book about how your people’s physiques. But the competitive nature of that was not by (my) own image of (my)self.” Like I’m never really alone
Or Jean Shrimpton. It wasn’t until later when curvier Christie immediate response to getting rejected by Smith, where both as overt as it was for girls your age. It was much more secretive because I’m always watching myself. Berger, who is discussing
Brinkley types came into vogue. of your older sisters had gone to college, was to make and much more private. women in Western art, writes that “men act” while “women
yourself throw up. Why? appear.” He talks about how women walk through the world,
There was a lot of emphasis on bodies. I know that when I CARRIE: Can you talk about the effect Karen Carpenter’s met by glances, which act as mirrors.
started to develop as an adolescent, it was very hard for me KATIE: I think it was an extension of self-loathing. More than I death to anorexia had on you?
22 to be comfortable in my body because I was always such a was disappointed in myself, I was worried other people would KATIE: I think I heard she’d died on the radio. I loved her. I KATIE: Well, that’s interesting because I’m reminded of when I 22
Y ANDERSON WINTER 20 grocery store. I think she probably starved herself because her KATIE: Yes. But it also became this cycle because I was depriv- somebody and talked to them about it. I asked about Karen KATIE: I know. Y ANDERSON WINTER 20
was in college, and I went to a bar in Georgetown and some guy
scrawny kid. And then suddenly I had adipose tissue where I
be disappointed in me. I just didn’t feel very worthy.
tried to sing like her in junior high. She was only 32 years old
said to me, “You’d be you’d be really cute if you lost 20 pounds.”
hadn’t before.
I’d previously tried to get some help with a social worker in
to rejection or feelings of worthlessness?
34 There was really a culture of dieting around me. I write about CARRIE: Did that become a pattern? Purging as a response and she died in 1983, so that was when I was 25 years old. CARRIE: That’s an awful thing to say. 35
how my mom would bring a big Hershey bar home from the
a church near where I lived in Georgetown. I went and saw
Carpenter, about my own eating issues.
ing myself of nourishment, and then I would be understandably
body type was a lot different than her own mother’s.
hungry. I would not eat to the point where I was famished.
CARRIE: When you became famous and you started to see
self-loathing for the decisions I made. And then I would start
lot about it. I came to understand how physically damaging it
or in Today Show ads, did you feel like you were losing
KATIE: She would buy it to have it for everybody. You know,
is, bulimia in particular. That it could ruin your esophagus and
eating everything as a way to both punish myself and say, “Well,
C CARRIE: Why would she bring home a big Hershey bar? Then I would make terrible decisions and be filled with more I also did a story on disordered eating at CNN and learned a your own image everywhere, not just on TV, but in magazines C
ownership of your own image to public perception?
TRA one of those giant ones and put it in the refrigerator.She would I wasn’t ‘good’ today, so I might as well.” Then I would purge. destroy your teeth. That it was hard on your heart. TRA
then pretty much binge on it and eat the whole thing. I’d say, KATIE: No, because I think that as I matured and got older, I was
“What happened to the chocolate bar?” And she’d get all em- I think that that cycle was super unhealthy because if I had just Of course, I knew at any given time that it wasn’t healthy, but more accepting of my body and felt less pressured to be skinny.
barrassed and say, “I ate it.” not deprived myself of food, it would have been much better, when Karen Carpenter died it made me realize that it was so
but I really saw food as my enemy. I demonized it. self-destructive. That it wasn’t worth dying for. I think that was because part of my appeal was as an “every-
CARRIE: What were dinners like in your house growing up? I got trapped in this cycle of what it meant to be “good,” and woman.” In the ‘90s, people related to me because I wasn’t
What did Granny cook? what it meant to be “bad.” CARRIE: This is around the time you started to appear conforming to idealized beauty standards. I grew to be more
on TV, in local news and then on CNN. How did seeing yourself comfortable with imperfection.
KATIE: She was a pretty basic cook. She cooked a lot of eye- CARRIE: I think what people sometimes don’t realize is that on TV, and the awareness you were being watched by
of-round roasts. She was pretty much a ‘50s housewife cook. binging is always a result of restricting. others, affect your sense of self? CARRIE: That’s interesting because I’d think that as you’re
She’d go on these kicks where she’d make turkey tetrazz- constantly getting your picture taken, you would feel less con-
ini--leftover turkey with cream sauce and noodles. Or she’d KATIE: I remember at one point, I would set these unreachable KATIE: I was self-conscious about how I looked. Very self-crit- trol over your image, almost in a philosophical sense.
make these things called “porcupines,” which are meatballs standards for myself and think, “I don’t want to eat anything.” ical. I remember doing a dopey show on CNN called “Real
with rice and Campbell’s mushroom soup. And if I made one transgression, like if I ate a piece of gum that Pictures” and feeling chubby. So, I got these diet pills that I KATIE: I think because I felt validated for other things, not just
wasn’t sugarless, I would get mad at myself. took for a few days, I guess they were appetite suppressants. my body, but for my personality, intelligence, competence,
She wasn’t very adventurous and she wasn’t particularly gour- And I remember getting them from some doctor. and sense of humor. Those were the things that were making
met or exotic. But we’d always eat dinner together as a family. I also obsessively counted calories, and I knew how many were me successful in my job, so I worried a little less about it.
I remember she made a lot of chicken where it was just swim- in everything. I knew a Mary Jane, which you could get at the CARRIE: A legitimate doctor?
ming in melted butter. And I would take white bread and dip it candy store at college, was 52 calories. I knew an apple was 85 CARRIE: Was there pressure, either from the network or
into the Pyrex dish that the chicken had been in because it was calories, depending on the size. I knew a half a cup of cottage KATIE: A legitimate doctor. I was taking them for a few days from your audience, to lose weight quickly after having my
about an inch and a half deep. cheese was 100 or so. and was losing weight. But then I didn’t want to do that because sister and me?