You're Beautiful: Carrot Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

It's nice to know that despite some of the frightening legislation being passed out there affecting women, there was one bright spot last month: the Israeli law banning underweight models in ads.  We're not talking about women who are just skinny, but who would be considered malnourished by World Health Organization standards.   The other interesting piece of the law requires that advertisements disclose when they use altered digital images, Photoshopping women into something they're not.

Then again, this is another attempt to legislate women's bodies, positive though it might be.  Should I be more concerned than I am about a slippery slope?

I've struggled with weight and body image for my entire life.  While I'm not "fat" by most standards, I also don't fit into Ann Taylor skirts.  I have curves.  I grew out of my "chubby" phase later than most other girls did, but I was a dancer: muscular on the bottom, small on top.  In graduate school in LA, I starved myself--for a variety of reasons, I guess, some of which had to do with how much money I had to spend on frivolous things like food, some of which had to do with feeling a lack of control about everything else in my life, some of which had to do with the skinny, beautiful people who seemed to be everywhere around me, swilling their lattes without a care in the world.  I came back to the East Coast weighing in at about 20 pounds less than I had in high school, and gained it back (and then some) once I settled into a job and a place of my own.  Since then I've become more fit: I used to kickbox, I run (my paltry little 5 miles on a really good day), I do yoga, I work out regularly when I can.  Still, I've gained and lost and gained weight again with my pregnancies, and grown, intelligent, self-confident woman that I am, I still poke and prod at myself, frown disapprovingly in the mirror.  I wonder, would a law about the images of women that get portrayed in the media do anything to change that?

Should women be able to choose how to treat their bodies?  (Please note: I am not suggesting that anorexia is healthy; this is a much larger question, I think)  A few days ago Pinterest also banned pro-anorexia images: it now expressly forbids content that “creates a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement or physical or mental illness to yourself, to any other person, or to any animal.”  How does one measure this kind of risk, especially risk to others?  Who should decide?  While I don't want my daughter to grow up looking at images that make her doubt her body (heaven knows there are already too many internal, invisible reasons for women to doubt their bodies: see Kir's great post yesterday about accepting our bodies despite infertility), should people have the right to look at these images and share them if they want to?  How do images of anorexic women compare to, say, pornography? 

I'm teaching a class at my church for the young people who will be celebrating a coming of age ceremony, and as part of the journey, they all undertake a small social action project.  One of the young women wanted to do a day of post-it blitzing around her school with positive self-image messages for other young women.  We all thought it was a good idea, but worried about the follow-up.  What effect would a single day of anonymous messages have in the long run?

I've been baking a little bit less lately in an effort to eat better.  After my daughter was born, I gave myself permission to eat pretty much anything, and (in case you couldn't tell) I have a weakness for sweets.  And breastfeeding only balances out so much cheesecake and chocolate.  The problem with baking, of course, is that unless you're baking for others, you wind up eating what you make ... and when there are a lot of homemade baked goods in the house, my willpower goes out the window.  My son has noticed the dearth of cake and cookies, though, and plaintively asked the other day when I might be making more.  I decided that if I made something half-healthy, maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty about eating it.  Kir, these are for you.  And for everyone.  In case no one has told you today: you're beautiful.

And, for the record, I will be pinning chocolate chip cookies on my Pinterest site, not anorexic women.  Because I have a thing for beautiful, and not always entirely good-for-you, food.

Carrot-Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
adapted from Cooking Light, August 2003

1 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 c. sugar
6 T. vegetable oil
1/3 c. low-fat buttermilk
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (you could also use about 1/4 c. raisins)

Preheat oven to 350.

Process carrots in a food processor until finely minced.

Combine carrots, sugar, oil, buttermilk, and eggs in a large bowl. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, level with a knife. Combine flour, soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk. Add flour mixture to carrot mixture, stir until smooth. Stir in chocolate.

Spoon batter into 22 muffin cups lined with paper liners. Bake for 22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, and remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Frost with cream cheese frosting or dust with powdered sugar.