Sarai Walker - Dietland

For their valuable editorial feedback, I would like to thank Susanna Jones, Michelle Walker, and my French editor, Aurélien Masson.

During my London years, which were equal parts exhilarating and traumatizing, three scribbling women—Lindsay Catt, Theresa Lee, and Carol McGrath—provided friendship and support when I needed it the most. I would also like to thank the Fat Studies community in the U.K., whose ideas and fellowship enriched my life and work immeasurably.

Callie Khouri used the term “crossed over” in her brilliant screenplay for Thelma & Louise, which I shamelessly adapted for my own purposes in the spirit of sisterhood and consciousness-raising.

The Virginia Woolf line “It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality” appears in her essay “Professions for Women.”

This book owes a debt to second-wave feminists, those women who changed the world in such a profound way. I don’t have space to list the writers who have been so important to me, since that would require pages and pages, but I would like to make two acknowledgments: Sandra Lee Bartky, whose essays completely altered my reality, and the feminist novelists from the 1970s and early 1980s, whose work I turned to when I feared I might lose my nerve.

An early and important source of inspiration for Dietland was Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel and the film adaptation directed by David Fincher. I would like to think that Dietland would exist even if Fight Club hadn’t provided that initial spark of an idea, but I’ll never know.

Big love to my family, especially my parents, J 2, and my late maternal grandparents, and to all the friends and mentors I don’t have room to mention here. Thanks to the many kindhearted people—some of whom I have never met—who offered encouragement and research help during the millions of years it took me to complete this novel.

Finally, thanks to Alicia Plum. She never abandoned me.

SARAI WALKER received her MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. Her articles have appeared in national publications, including Seventeen and Mademoiselle , and she served as an editor and writer for Our Bodies, Ourselves before moving to London and then Paris to complete a PhD. She currently lives in the New York City area. Dietland is her first novel.

Within a year, Mama began to regain the weight she’d lost. Since she had invested our family’s savings in Baptist Weight Loss, Daddy foresaw disaster and agreed that Mama needed her stomach stapled. It was the only answer. After the surgery, Mama developed an anal leakage and had to wear diapers. ( Adventures in Dietland, Chapter 1: “The Birth of Verena, the Birth of an Empire,” p. 27.)

Baptist Weight Loss pioneered the “photo-bursting” technique. See J. Lucas, “Ripped to Shreds: Advances in Weight Loss Advertising,” Adweek, June 9, 1986. See also H. Whelan and M. Burns, “Baptist Weight Loss and the ‘Before and After’ Photograph,” Journal of Female Psychology 4, no. 2 (1993): 42–65. ( Adventures in Dietland, Chapter 1: “The Birth of Verena, the Birth of an Empire,” p. 54.)

Memorandum: From senior vice president [name redacted] to Eulayla Baptist (October 24, 1982): “People who only imagine they’re fat are a huge market for us. Fat, thin . . . these are meaningless distinctions, except at the extremes. What is fat? What is thin? Who cares.” ( Adventures in Dietland, Baptist Weight Loss Internal Memo Index, p. 329.)

Some Baptists claimed to have suffered kidney problems as a result of the diet, but this was never proven in a court of law. Mama threatened to sue her accusers for slander, but she never did. Under oath she couldn’t have denied that the diet gave some Baptists bad breath and constipation and made their hair fall out. ( Adventures in Dietland, Chapter 2: “The Baptist Plan: Not Everyone Is a Believer,” p. 138.)

Mama’s personal assistant, [name redacted], blackmailed her in the summer of 1990. She had recorded a phone conversation between Mama and her, in which Mama said that the Baptist meals “tasted like shit” and “you couldn’t pay me to eat them.” ( Adventures in Dietland, Chapter 2: “The Baptist Plan: Not Everyone Is a Believer,” p. 141.)

Memorandum: From senior vice president [name redacted] to Eulayla Baptist (August 1, 1980): “A diet that produces slow and steady weight loss will not hook new customers, Eulayla. How many times do I have to spell this out? People want immediate results, and an 850-calorie-a-day regimen will give them just that. Baptists will lose a significant amount of weight in the first few weaks [ sic ] and become addicted to the high of dropping pounds. When they fail to keep up this momentum, they’ll only blame themselves. Trust me on this. I worked at [name redacted] for five years, remember? That’s why you hired me!” ( Adventures in Dietland, Baptist Weight Loss Internal Memo Index, p. 332.)

Memorandum: From senior vice president [name redacted] to [name redacted] cc: Eulayla Baptist (February 3, 1982): “Pay attention, [name redacted], we’re not going to get sued! (That lady in Tucson notwithstanding.) 850 calories a day is adequate for human survival. Ignore those World Health Organization stats. There’s a big difference between a starving African and a fat American. Besides, our literature says it’s a 1,200 calorie-a-day regimen, which is perfectly safe.” ( Adventures in Dietland, Baptist Weight Loss Internal Memo Index, p. 333.)

Memorandum: From senior vice president [name redacted] to Eulayla Baptist (November 12, 1985): “I cannot emphasize enough the importance of using moral terms when talking about dieting to our clients and the media. The Baptist name makes this even more effective. When Baptists lose weight, they’re ‘good’; when they stray from the plan, they’re ‘bad,’ as in: ‘Were you good or bad this week, Rosemary?’ Every clinic must implement this language immediately.” ( Adventures in Dietland, Baptist Weight Loss Internal Memo Index, p. 337. N.B. See also D. Montrose, “American Dieting Culture and Its Roots in the Christian Narrative,” Journal of Weight Loss Studies 1, no. 2 [1999]: 124–46.)

Memorandum: From senior vice president [name redacted] to Eulayla Baptist (February 14, 1998): “Pursuant to our last meeting, those fat feminist cunts in Michigan with their ‘Love Your Body’ bullshit are still chanting outside our clinic in Ann Arbor. This movement cannot be allowed to spread. We’ll counter them with our health jargon (did you approve those pamphlets yet?). They won’t be able to refute our death stats with their feel-good crap. We might want to get a couple MD-for-hire types on the payroll to farm out to the media. That cardio guy in Miami would be perfect for this. Can you authorize payment, please?” ( Adventures in Dietland, Baptist Weight Loss Internal Memo Index, p. 351. N.B. See also A. Adamson, G. Hoyt, and O. Rodgers, “‘I Don’t Want to Be Thin—I Choose Health!’: Baptist Weight Loss Advertising and the Birth of Obesity Epidemic Rhetoric,” Eating Disorder Quarterly 14, no. 7 [2004]: 97–119.)