Tom's Views

While parusing some blogs lately, I found one where folks were defending their overweight-ness. So, I chimed in as follows:

While the fact that two thirds of Americans are overweight might make obesity seem “normal,” by no means is this the healthiest way to live. Your arguments imply that it’s okay to stay obese, since so many others are the same (safety in numbers?). But just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it right. Whether one person jumps off a 500 foot cliff or a hundred thousand do it, jumping is still as dangerous, because no matter how many people leap, every last one of them will die (no safety in numbers here). The same is true of obesity.  Because a size 12 is   the average, should not make it   the ideal. When it comes to health, what makes a condition truly better is not (or at least, should not) be determined so much by what everyone else is doing. 

Perhaps some overweight people struggle to like themselves because they know implicitly that their condition is not healthy.  They see how much harder it is to distance walk, climb up and down stairs, and perform routine tasks in general, than what less heavy people must endure.  They hate that they must fight so to get slimmer, when the thin seem to achieve this with ease.  Thus, many capitulate in this fight, resenting that they must work so much harder at maintaining a healthy body weight than others.  Then, they come to see the effort as feudal; throwing all restraint away, and then compounding the issue by gaining evening more pounds. 

The problem with just giving up however, is that society expects someone unhealthy, to stop the behaviors that created their unhealthful situation in the first place, as well as to make reasonable and visible efforts to improve it.  But when the condition persists, particularly when that illness appears correctable through some healthful (though admittedly tough) choices, society, fairly or not, looks down upon the unhealthy person for their continued infirmity.  They see him as neglecting his body by choice, and so, creating needless hardship for himself and others by  choosing   to remain heavy.  Since most people, fat or thin, hate being disliked, such negativism directed at them triggers a backlash of rebellion.  They campaign against thinness; resenting those who prefer the svelte, and so have taken to the streets with slogans like, “big is beautiful.”    

But wouldn’t it be healthier for the obese to, instead of arguing against societal preferences, to lose weight so that they more closely resemble society’s thin-and-healthy ideals? Generally, people who match these expectations have the most confidence and highest self esteems. So if you really want to give someone a genuine confidence boost, don’t want to encourage them to be fat by saying that it’s okay to be fat. This sends a harmfully bad message; it promotes unhealthy living because it’s unhealthy to be fat. So we shouldn’t be telling the obese that it’s okay.

Yes, the body, whether fat or thin, is an amazing super machine. But let’s not allow our awe of it to obscure its illnesses. It does a sick person little good to extol his body’s virtues while he’s dying from pneumonia. Typically, only taking the necessary steps to get better will actually cure him. You can list all the positive truths about yourself you want. But in the end, if you were fat to begin with, you’ll be fat when you’re finished. You’ll not be able to mask that truth no matter how many pep talks you give yourself. Society will be out there to remind you of your lacking progress against this disease all the time. Again, the best way to deal with the lack of self confidence that comes from being overweight is to lose the weight.

We tell women that their bodies need to look a certain way (thin), not because we’re shallow, but because thin is a healthy way to be. Proven over and over again, thinner people live the longest and have the highest quality of life. So the thin ideal is not some sort of conspiracy among men to keep women down, or anything sinister like that. It’s merely an expression of what people (males and females alike) want to see. Even the heavy would typically rather date the thin than they would other heavies.

People’s desires for healthy associates probably come from natural selection. Put simply: The healthier you are, the better your chances of having healthy offspring, and passing your healthy values and beliefs to your kids. Evolution weeds out unhealthy preferences (such as an attraction to fat mates) because those who support them are less likely to pass them onto subsequent generations – they often end up dying before ever having children. Anything that interferes with a person’s reproductive capabilities is frowned upon by natural selection. So it’s natural that people on the whole prefer the company of the thin to that of the frumpy.

One poster lost me when s/he argued that if everyone looked the same (thin) then they’d also act, do, and be the same. This idea is ridiculous because it totally dismisses the individuality that comes from our minds. Even if everyone had a thin body, the differences in their upbringings and experiences alone, not to mention their genetic dissimilarities, would make them quite different from one another. Even if we consider just the thin bodies, we can’t say that they’re all exactly the same, just because they’re all thin. They still have different fingerprints, shoe sizes, colors of hair and eyes, and so on. They would be ticklish (or not) in different places, and each would still have their own unique scents. So there’s no reason to think that the “diversity of experiences” that we all now enjoy would be any less in a world without the Rubenesque.

Kids ten years old or younger are right to be concerned about their diets, since establishing unhealthy eating patterns at these ages is very easy, yet so hard to reverse once they reach adulthood. Now if their concern becomes an unhealthy obsession, then this is another matter entirely. But if all they want is to eat only what they must to keep their bodies well-nourished and slender, then we adults ought to encourage that. Because we do not, we’re seeing the highest rates of childhood obesity in history.

On believing that you’re beautiful: This only gets you so far. Perhaps you are. Perhaps you’re not. Who decides? You, or the people around you? When I view myself in the mirror, I see a reasonably handsome guy peering back at me. But I also hear often from women that I’m unattractive. Not all of them feel that way. But many do. So, am I really attractive or really unattractive? There is no absolutely right answer here. If I’m interested in mating with those women, then I’d better at least consider their opinions a little. But their opinions need not affect my self image so long as I keep in mind how relative and non universal it all is. No matter how ugly they insist I am, they can’t change how I feel about that man in the mirror. So while their opinions are worthy of some consideration, it’s not worth allowing them to define your self image. You can master this skill whether you’re fat or thin.

I’m not suggesting that maintaining a healthy weight is easy. I myself have fluctuated between 138 and 194 pounds during my adult years, and I’m currently near the high end of that. But though a healthy weight is difficult, it is for me nonetheless, still the ideal. One day, I’ll get back to 140 and keep it there. Hopefully, that will be this year.

You don’t need makeup or fancy clothes to be beautiful. This part I agree with. Yes, some part of society’s obsession with thinness is driven by the extensive marketing machines of the cosmetics and clothing industries. But though these companies, through their relentless ad campaigns, make society wish it was thin to an excessive degree, the thin ideal itself is right, as discussed above. These companies know it’s right, and they’re exploiting the fact that everyone else, deep inside, knows that it’s right as well.

A person’s sense of his own beauty must come from within. But given how socially interdependent and interconnected we humans are, it’s difficult for even the most resolute among us to be totally insensitive to others’ opinions of us. It seems that if you really want to maximize your self opinion, then you need to make yourself into a person of which the greatest majority of your social circle approves. In our culture, getting thin will move you a long way toward greater acceptance and approval from the crowds.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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