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A Feminist Walks Into A Diet Clinic

Samantha Schoech is a writer and co-editor of the book<em> The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater.</em>
Courtesy subject
Samantha Schoech is a writer and co-editor of the book The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater.
A Feminist Walks Into A Diet Clinic

Samantha Schoech has struggled with weight for most of her life.

"I am sort of a lifelong yo-yo dieter and like many women, weight is a frustrating topic for me," she tells NPR's Arun Rath.

As a feminist, she faces another struggle — the tricky prospect of balancing society's expectations of body image, without giving into them, and also wanting to be healthy.

She wrote about this tension in a piece for Ozy.com.

"I live, as many women do, in sort of this frustrating dichotomy between wanting to be filled with self-acceptance and a sense of power and efficacy and value, and being constantly told, 'All that's great, but if you're overweight, you're sort of a loser.' "

Recently, she crossed the line into clinical obesity. She'd successfully lost weight before, but felt that she couldn't do it alone this time. She sought out a diet clinic in the San Francisco Bay area, and on her first visit, she was prescribed a diet pill called phentermine.

Phentermine is one half of the infamous diet pill fen-phen, which was hugely popular in the '90s. Fen-phen was taken off of the market after multiple lawsuits and mulitibillion-dollar settlements. But phentermine remains a widely popular drug in the United States.

"I chose to take it, because I felt like anything that might help was welcome," Schoech explains.

"The truth of the matter is, you know, I have a certain amount of vanity and I care about how I look to a certain extent. I am not trying to be a supermodel, by any stretch of the imagination. I am trying to be a healthy 43-year-old mother of two."


Interview Highlights

On her first time taking phentermine
Honestly, I took that pill without a backwards glance. I was sort of at a point of desperation, mostly because I was tired of how much brain space my weight was taking up in my life. I have a family, I have a career, I have a marriage, I have friends; I don't have time to spend 50 percent of my time loathing my body. Plus, I just honestly didn't like the way I look, so you know there's vanity in there too. ... I didn't take the time to do any research before I started taking phentermine, and it was only after I dropped about 25 pounds that I went and found out what the side effects are. I personally have not had any negative side effects, so I'm still taking it.

On keeping the pills private
I didn't tell anybody. I didn't even tell my husband, in part because I didn't want it to lessen my accomplishment. I felt like if people saw my use of phentermine as this crutch, they would write off my efforts. ... I was a blogger for a long time, and I've sort of had it with people weighing in on my decisions and my life.

On reactions to her piece
Mostly it's been overwhelmingly positive and people have been grateful for me stepping into this conversation about feminism and body image and dieting and health and secrets we keep, and all of that. But there's been some criticism, too. I mean, somebody told me that it was irresponsible of me as a mother to take phentermine. ... I got a comment on the story saying, "Don't listen to the lies! Go on an ego diet and binge on love!"

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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