THINKING HEALTHY Women stand proud

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
USAN POWTER IS outrageous, outlandish and out on the road.
The 1990s "Stop The Insanity" TV fitness guru and best-selling author has taken to the highway in a red Winnebago, which she says looks like a "traveling bordello," to promote her new book, "The Politics of Stupid" ($14.95 from Crone, Inc.).
She brings along her message of physical wellness and her vision of a woman-led society.
In addition to her new one-on-one approach to meeting her fans in small venues such as book stores, she is also sporting a new look.
Not to worry. She is definitely still slim and trim, as evidenced by the picture on the cover of her new book. And, except for a thong, aided by strategically placed arms and hands, she is also definitely ... naked.
She has replaced her butch hair cut with a more stylish and longer do, and has further updated her look with a nose ring and a tattoo.
But the basic message is the same: Eat, breath and move -- or to translate, eat the right foods, do aerobic exercise and lift weights -- to look and feel good.
To that mantra, she has added "think."
"When mothers get lean and healthy, their brains will come back," she says.
In a phone interview, Powter says good health and fitness were not her primary goals when she decided to lose weight.
"It was to look better than my husband's 18-year-old girlfriend."
At the time, she couldn't pay her bills, had two children under the age of 2, was 130 pounds overweight, and was an alcoholic.
She lost 133 pounds, which she says she has never found, transformed herself into the dynamo who wrote "Stop The Insanity" and several New York Times best sellers, and became a national TV and video fitness personality.
"The Politics of Stupid" is her latest effort. Instead of national sponsors and publishers, she self-published and is self-promoting the book and her brand of estrogen politics.
"I worked 11 years to be able to self-publish. I waited until the Internet permeated the country. I fired everybody. Now, I can go direct to millions of people. I'm not controlled any longer by the marketing strategies of some moron in an office," she said.
In "The Politics of Stupid," Powter rants against a patriarchal American food system (and every other male-dominated system ... politics, religion, business, medicine, education, etc.) that she says is poisoning the nation's children.
She also aims a few verbal kicks at the fannies of the women (mothers) she says are doing the work of the "food boys, the diet boys, the psychological boys, and the medical boys" by buying into what she says they are saying: that women are too stupid to think for themselves.
It's not women who have placed soft drink machines in schools and marketed triple-size burgers, she said.
But, she said, it is women who make most of the food-buying decisions. Consequently, if women decide to not drive through, the fast-food restaurants would disappear.
"Women have the power to effect change. Mothers rising and acting like mothers is the way to change more than you could ever imagine possible. Righteous rage is the only response to the biochemical warfare that is going on," she said, referring in part to use of antibiotics in raising beef.
Being a mother
Powter defines "The Politics of Stupid" as women buying into the message that they are incapable of living their own lives. "Do you actually believe you don't have the ability to put high-fat food down? It's Parenting 101: Make them feel stupid and they'll act stupid," she writes.
"You see, it's cellular. The work of the food boys, the diet boys, the psychological boys, the medical boys, is done for them by YOU."
On a personal note, Powter said the most fun she's had is being a mother to her three sons, and the "women in my life, the ones who are in my company. You have no idea how happy I am."
Now, she invites women around the country to join in on the fun.
"It is a fabulous 90 minutes that readers need to know about. We talk about burning fat. There is camaraderie and so much laughter. It's real," she said.
While she is traveling around the country on a seven-month tour, accompanied by her 5-year-old son, she is also doing a documentary about obese children.
"It is being done in a mother's voice. It is a project that demonstrates the canyon-size gap between what the American dream promises and what is. It is no laughing matter.
"You cannot deny the picture. It is killing them, and it has been going on for over 60 years. The system is no longer working. It has to stop, and it's the mothers who can stop it," Powter said.
"I don't expect to change anything. I just want to annoy the hell out of people," she said.
"This is what I do. I incite 'thinking riots' in the minds of millions of women. I am a communicator."
One piece of advice to the men who may be dragged along to Powter's book signing/presentation, and don't want to become a target: Don't mention male bashing. The least Powter will do, through gales of sarcastic laughter, is tell you that the concept is "so 1980s."
"Male bashing is one of the most ridiculous sexist phrases. It's like a fake tan. Because I am interested in standing with women, that makes me a male basher?"
And she was just warming up.
alcorn@vindy.com