The Starving Heroine
January 27th, 2010 by Adele Dubois
I’m reading yet another novel featuring a “too thin” heroine who doesn’t know how to eat a decent meal. In this book, though she’s told the hero who’s taken her out to dinner that she’s starving, and readers know she’s eaten only once in two days, she “picks at her barely eaten salad” and leaves the food she ordered on her plate. WTF? Is this normal behavior?
Why is it that in so many novels the heroine skips meals? Is there something wrong with having a healthy appetite? If I read one more story where the heroine “isn’t hungry,” though we know she hasn’t eaten more than a handful of nuts since the day before, these wall-bangers will fly across my family room at warp speed. Enough is enough.
Failure to eat doesn’t make a heroine chic or sexy or smart. It makes her TSTL as in Too Skinny To Live. If she’s hungry, she’s probably cranky and less effective. Lack of nutrition causes ill health; just as eating too much can cause health problems. Give me a heroine who knows the importance of a wholesome breakfast. Who actually eats her salad when her stomach rumbles. Enjoys a satisfying dinner. Or who… dear god, actually orders dessert.
I want to read about heroines who savor a piece of chocolate without guilt. Who eat an occasional burger with fries. Whose lust for life is as obvious in bed as out of bed.
The heroines in the books I write are beautiful women of normal weight. They love their heroes and enjoy sharing a healthy meal with them. A recent poll states that most men don’t like skinny women. Men prefer softness. Why, then, do some authors insist on proliferating the too-thin archetype? How can we, as readers and authors, create change? Do we want to?
What do you think?
I agree Adele. All my heroines are normal sized or plus sized. (not that plus sized is any healthier, I know) I think it’s important to show you don’t have to be a size 0 to be attractive or sexy to some men.
I remember reading a category romance years ago when I was a kid. The hero commented to a friend that the heroine would be attractive if she wasn’t so big. Upon overhearing this hurtful conversation, the heroine immediately enrolled in a weight loss program and lost weight over the next two years. They even commented she could stand to gain a pound or two. So when the hero saw her again, suddenly he was attracted to her.
That has always stuck in my head and it’s always iritated me. It makes me glad I can now write my own.
I’ve written skinny heroines, normal weight heroines, and plus sized heroines. I think most of my heroines enjoy food. Now the vamps can’t eat a lot of human food LOL. So they do pick at the serving but that’s because they are vampires.
I do think it’s important and I like books that take time to have the hero like the heroine for who she is, not because she’s a size 0.
Talya and Mechele–
If there’s a reason a heroine can’t eat–like she’s sick or she’s a vampire–I agree that makes sense.
What irritates me is when fictional heroines SAY they are hungry and don’t eat, or they skip meals for days at a time for no apparent reason. I’ve never met a woman who ate once in two or three days.
Most fictional romance heroines are defeating villains, having awesome sex, and managing careers. A girl needs her strength!
Thanks for playing.
Best–Adele
[Here from EREC blog -- wave]
I think it’s also important to remember that what American society considers “plus sized” these days covers a very large range which used to be considered “normal adult woman” size. Some people seem to believe that anything over a size 6 is unhealthily “fat.” If you’re 5’10, being a 12 or 14 is perfectly normal and healthy and good looking; anything less is noticeably skinny. Look at the Renaissance master painters to see what female shape was considered normal until just a few decades ago, with a brief hiatus during the Flapper Era. Women are supposed to have curves; the fashion for a broomstick with a couple of tennis balls wired in at the middle is a very recent fad, considering the entirety of human history. We can only hope it’ll be brief.
Angie–I’m in total agreement. The average American woman is a size 14. I didn’t know there was a size 0 until a few years ago. Madness.
Thanks for visiting and posting!
Best–Adele
Sorry, just got here, but here’s a scene I’d LOVE for someone to write:
Him (the morning after): Look at me! Agh! I’m a mass of bone bruises!
Her: But I look so good in my size 2 jeans!
Him: Your hips should be registered as lethal weapons! (applies poultices to damaged body)
Her: But…but… wibble
Him: Go eat a hamburger, dammit!
Her: nom nom nom
Him: Rrrrrrrrr…..