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Popular Culture Review
occupations are given nevertheless. Brides came mostly from business-related or
professional fields; one could surmise based on the brief job descriptions that
they held desk jobs.
None of the women appeared obese or seriously overweight; their
weight loss goals range from 10 to 30 pounds. In that height and weight
determine ideal weight ranges (Body Mass Index Table), the program bypasses
the notion of healthy weight and uses the bride’s own assessment of how much
weight she would like to lose, rather than how much she needs to lose in order to
be considered medically healthy. The program does not provide blood pressure
readings or other indicators of health other than body fat percentage, calculated
by the brides’ personal trainers using caliper measurements of their excess fat.
Enforcement of the Beauty Ideal
Brides’ body image and unhappiness with their current shape and
weight serves as the most prominent theme of Buff Brides. While the issue of
unacceptable current weight is unsurprising, the degree to which the women in
this program express their dissatisfaction becomes troublesome when the visual
elements of the program add to an even more negative impression of aging for
women, which apparently begins in one’s late 20s or early 30s). Both the
narrator and some of the brides mention that metabolism starts to slow when a
woman hits her mid-20s. The combination of age and desk work results in the
less-than-perfect body. For example, Madhu, who is Indian and “works for a
New York-based women’s organization,” comments, “Somewhere around my
mid to late 20s, my metabolism fell.” She wants to lose 10 to 15 pounds and “fit
into the size 4 red suit that I love.”
In addition to wanting to return to one’s former size, the issue of
dissatisfaction with specific body parts is common among all the brides. Target
“problem” areas are explained and accompanied by brides on camera pinching
their fat. Colleen, a public affairs manager, wants to lose 20 pounds. She
identifies her arms and back as target areas: “Nobody likes flabby arms for a
wedding gown.” Greta, a cosmetics company public relations executive, weighs
141 pounds and wants to lose 20 pounds for her wedding. On camera, she points
to areas she dislikes: “I hate this extra butt that I have here,” pinching her hip.
“This nice little ‘grandma’ arm,” she says, pinching the skin on the underside of
her (rather unchubby) arm. “I have my little tummy I have here,” she continues.
For this bride, however, the issue of being overweight is coupled with her work
as a beauty industry insider: “There is in today’s world an intense pressure on
women and I’m in that world: size 0, size 2 if you’re heavy. And if you’re a size
12 or 14, you just don’t feel good in the company that you keep.” In addition,
Greta has a history of anorexia, further underscoring her concerns about losing
weight.
Bodily disapproval becomes even more reified as brides undergo
weigh-ins and measurements. Fear of their own weight is illustrated by
comments such as, “I’m a little nervous” (Justine, being weighed at the midpoint
of her program); “I’m too nervous to face the scale,” and, “It sucks” (Nadege);