explored further through Anita, who details how her transformation affected the relationship with her partner and her family. In one of the headlines for the article she declares:“ I’ ve moved my wellbeing up on my priority list and my whole family is benefiting”. This statement juxtaposes a sentence revealing how Anita saw herself before weight loss;“ I wanted to be invisible. I even distanced myself from my own family, which is so sad”. This further strengthens the feeling that Anita lived a half-life before her weight loss. Maor comments that this is a common occurrence in such articles in which " the protagonist is presented as an isolated individual”( 2013, p. 97). This comparison of the‘ before’ and‘ after’ on one level presents the notion that overweight women are invisible; invisible from their family’ s photographs, absent from their family’ s memory, perhaps even absent from their hearts. On another level we are reminded that the magazine is intended to sell a diet to readers and everything that success at the diet can bring. Slimming World are arguably using the guilt that many women feel about not being a good enough wife, mother or woman to motivate readers to attain a“ thin-ideal physical appearance” and“ general life satisfaction,”( Evans, 2003, p. 213).
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A health scare can be a blessing
Another strand to achieving“ general life satisfaction”( ibid.) is physical wellbeing. Losing some weight undoubtedly has a positive effect on a person’ s health. Anita and Gill claim their health has improved since they have lost excess weight. Gill firmly states that it was a health scare that“ led to change” for her, after her GP informed her she was damaging her health. Gill explains after meeting with her doctor she asked herself:“ what’ s next, cancer?” This is contextually important, as earlier on in the article Gill pinpoints what led her to bad eating habits: her parents both dying of cancer when Gill was in her early twenties, which she believes steered her to poor eating habits in order to“ run away” from her grief. The article insinuates that being overweight means developing cancer is more likely. Whilst scientifically accurate it is simultaneously a gross overstatement.
Anita also makes the link between weight and cancer, stating that her weight was affecting her health; she details a cervical cancer scare which resulted in a hysterectomy. Interestingly, the article leads with the headline:“ I’ ve got the all-clear after my