As little girls, we loved to dress up and play fairy princess, but as we got older we realized how sexist and damaging many of these fantasies are. The women are always weak and helpless and the men are always strong saviors. But thanks in part to Amy Adams and her wonderful performance in Enchanted, little girls all around the world are starting to see more updated princess role models to look up to. We liked that movie's subtle spin on typical fairy-tale princess stories and how it encouraged women to find what's right for them instead of just marrying the first handsome prince they meet. It was also nice of them to have the "normal" girl end up with the prince as part of the happy ending. Kudos to Disney for removing the toxic message of most fairytales that a man will save you from everything in the end and for replacing it with a healthier, more empowering story. Enchanted represented a good step forward in children's entertainment, and even made us want to sing and dance around our house and make dresses out of our throw rugs.
Unfortunately, though, thanks to a ridiculous new video game, playing princess has just been taken to a more disturbing level than ever before. Forget about fairy godmothers, magic wands and pretty dresses, a new video game called Fat Princess involves locking a skinny princess in a dungeon and then stuffing her face full of cake until she's so fat that the enemy can't possibly drag her away. And we thought that video games full of violence and bloody decapitations were bad enough! Now video games not only encourage kids to be violent, but they're also teaching our youth to torture and look down on people with weight issues.
One of the most disturbing things about this game is the fact that it was created by a woman, but in a way that makes sense. Women who are constantly dieting and torturing themselves about food can use this game as a new outlet for their negative feelings. Instead, we wish that women would work to remove those negative associations and think of food as positive, enjoyable nourishment. This is why we wrote How to Eat Like a Hot Chick. Our book is not about avoiding certain foods. It is not about looking a certain way. (We define a "Hot Chick" as a sexy, confident, empowered woman, no matter what size she is.) And it is not about saying to women, like some diet books do, "You are weak if you eat cake; you are cheap if you don't buy organic."
Instead, we want women to remove the negative association from food so that they can make choices from a place of confidence rather than a place of guilt, and so that they can think of cake as a fun indulgence rather than something damaging. From the tabloid magazines and the super-skinny celebrities to the new crazy diet tools that hit the market every day, there is enough pressure on us women not to indulge in the foods we love. And now every little girl who dresses in a fairy princess costume and watches her little brothers play this game will start her life as a woman with a direct association between yummy birthday cake and becoming a fat princess. We hope that moms out there will think twice before buying this game for their little boys or little girls. This is a lesson we do not want any children out there to learn.