Since 1976, the frumpy, pear-shaped working woman in the comic strip “Cathy” reflected women’s feelings about their bodies and their love-hate relationship with food. Cathy, who started as a comic strip character, and grew into a series of books and an Emmy-winning television show, tried every fad diet but remained consistently pudgy. She indulged in cookies, cake and chocolate and then wondered why she hated shopping for bathing suits.
The strip’s creator, Cathy Guisewite, 60, wrote and drew the strip, which ended Sunday, for more than half of her life. When portraying her character’s struggles with weight and body image, Guisewite knew whereof she cartooned.
“I pretty much ate my way through college,” Guisewite says. “I gained 50 pounds between freshman year and graduation. My career evolved a lot from my weight gain in college.
“My parents are tiny,” Guisewite adds. “I come from a thin gene (pool). It was an act of rebellion to get overweight.”
But in recent years, Guisewite has shed those pounds. How did she do it? “I don’t have any miracles to offer,” she says. “It just took time.”
It helped that she was able to get over one vice. “I finally got immune to frozen M&Ms. I used to hide them in the freezer” but then came to prefer them that way, she says. “I developed a whole rationale: Frozen M&Ms have fewer calories because of the extra effort” it takes to chew them.
Still, maintaining her weight requires vigilance. “My weight goes up and down,” Guisewite says, “but now by five pounds, not 40.”
And she has her weaknesses. “I can’t be in the same ZIP code with a box of granola,” she says, “or certain rice cakes that taste like shredded cardboard.” Such foods may be healthful, but, says Guisewite, “I think they’re good for me, so I overdo it.”
Nowadays, the strikingly thin Guisewite says: “I always need to apologize when I meet people. They count on me to be plump.”
Still, she’s “never far from the memory of what (being overweight) was like and the impact it had on every minute of every day.”
As for “Cathy,” Guisewite didn’t plot a course parallel to her own. The character plays an important role, she observes, serving as a touchstone for women who contend with weight issues, whether they ultimately conquer them or not.
“At the very least, women can feel better about doing better than Cathy on a given day,” Guisewite says. “Those women have moved on, and I applaud them. But there are still many women whose whole sense of themselves depends on which jeans they can zip up and the number on the scale. Those people deserve a friend.”
Guisewite agreed to let the character Cathy, whose full name since marrying longtime beau Irving is Cathy Andrews Hillman, speak for herself about matters many women obsess over: moms, men and 100-calorie snack packs. Here’s what she had to say:
Q: How has your mom influenced your eating habits over the years?
Cathy: I eat when I miss Mom. Eat when I’m annoyed with Mom. Eat when I’m worried about Mom. Eat when I’m guilty about Mom. Eat when I’m happy with Mom. Eat when I’m rebelling against Mom. Eat when I’m with Mom. Eat when I come home from Mom’s.
Does Mom influence my eating habits? Don’t be ridiculous! My mother does NOT control me!
Q: If you were to find a miracle diet and finally get skinny, once and for all, how would your life be different?
Cathy: If I were skinny once and for all, my purse would become organized and 10 pounds lighter, the trunk of my car would be cleaned out, the piles on the kitchen counter would disappear, the heaps of photos would be popped into trim little albums, the bathroom cabinet would contain half of what’s in there now, my e-mails would be answered and deleted.
I pretty much imagine that if I were thin, everything in my life would get reduced.
Q: How do you feel about posting nutrition facts on restaurant menus?
Cathy: I hate it. I don’t want to know that the Chinese chicken salad I ate for lunch every day for a year because I was being “good” has more fat grams than a Big Mac! I also don’t want my waitress to know that I know that the Caesar salad I’m ordering has 1,100 calories! Who needs the extra conscience staring at me and counting how many of the croutons I eat?? At home, a salad is a salad, and anything named “salad” is innocent.
Q: Do you think people can be healthy even though they’re overweight?
Cathy: I think I can be healthy and overweight, but I’d still rather not be overweight.
Q: As the documentation of your life via comic strip comes to an end, what are your parting words to all the other women out there who continually struggle with their weight and their relationship with food?
Cathy: I want women to know I’m always going to be right there with them. Right next to them in the grocery store, wasting another lunch hour trying to decipher fat grams on the microwavable meal boxes . . . right there with them, weeping on the floors of the swimsuit and lingerie dressing rooms … right there with them at the kitchen counter, making exercise promises as we open our ninth 100-calorie snack pack of the evening.
