Let’s suppose you were given a prescription for a pill that will mean you lose 2-3 lbs a week, while you eat as much as you want of anything you want.
But it has some side effects. One is getting seized by itching, which seems to move around your body at random. (Cortisone cream helps.) Another is that you can get tense and a bit bad tempered; your partner’s new and strange desire to help with dinner is irritating you a lot. Digestion is not as simple as before, there may be mild hair loss(temporary), sleep can be disturbed easily and you have quite dry mouth. And even with insurance, it is $10 a pill, one pill daily.
Of course, you strongly disapprove of the cultural obsession about women’s weight that is all around you. But then you remember the recent remark on this blog that if you lose 20 lbs, your course evaluations will go up. So it isn’t that you are endorsing these norms; you are trying to survive them.
Not everyone gets all the side effects. How much would you tolerate to lose 15 lbs in 5 weeks? Without ever being hungry, eating what you want, etc.
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By the way, there really is such a pill. Do you know which it is?
Feminist Philosophers 