Our 'Song To Chew' this week is called "Dyin' To Be Thin". I wrote it as the title song for a 1986 NOVA documentary on anorexia and bulimia that won an Iris Award for excellence. In the US, an estimated 8 million people suffer from anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorders and that includes at least three out of every 100 adolescent girls. "Dyin' To Be Thin" was used in a musical version of Aristophane's play "Lysistrata", presented at the Theatricum Botanicum in the summer of 2003. It fit so well with the play's theme, where the Greek woman agreed to withhold sex from any soldiers who wouldn't stop fighting in the wars. It's staged at a modern-day gymnasium with the women working out to look their most attractive! (check the YouTube link below!) My sister-in-law, actress Melora Marshall sings this one, along with the other actors in the cast. Like Lysistrata, we're all concerned about wars and countries taking over other countries, and racial injustice, patriarchy and the systems and conditions that we live in. Our economic and social systems create stories for our youth, who in order to feel good about themselves, have to constantly diet and exercise to lose weight and look more attractive, rather than simply eat a healthy diet and exercise to stay fit. I'd love to change those stories! Help spread the word! See you next week with another Song To Chew.
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* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHmsgbZ8UOQ&t=19s ~ "Dyin' To Be Thin" video
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Dyin' To Be Thin