I was reading a NYTimes article today about obesity and the schools. It suggests that sending information about students’ BMIs home with their grades etc has questionable value, and that rising awareness of weight issues causes ostracization and distress for both skinny and fat people. On the bottom of the article, there was an interesting link to an article about the birth of “fat studies” in academe, which is linked to fat empowerment movements. From what I understand, the fat empowerment movement is trying to model itself after civil rights battles for race, gender, and sexuality; i.e., fat people are marginalized, misunderstood, and discriminated against for their size. The movement has some provocative things to say about health and weight:
Scientists have linked obesity to Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, stroke, hypertension and some cancers, prompting a multitude of government initiatives about food, weight and exercise.
But proponents of fat studies challenge the science behind those conclusions and firmly believe that obesity research is shaped by society’s bias against fat people and that the consequences of excessive weight are not as bad as scientists portray.
Sexual attractiveness to others, employability, and the chance to adopt are some of the large issues at stake.
My immediate response to the “fat movement” is: who are you trying to kid. Honestly. Obviously no one should suffer job discrimination because they’re large. But trying to argue that scientific research is false and that being overweight/obese isn’t bad for your health is just plain stupid.
Unlike race and gender, obesity is not genetically ordained. Tendencies towards gaining weight may be genetic, but it seems unlikely that evolution would allow human beings to weigh 300 lbs. plus and still be healthy, fully functional individuals. We’re set up to be lean, mean, mastodon-killing machines, and you can’t run down prey if you’re heavily overweight.
As far as complaining that you don’t feel sexually attractive–or that other people don’t find you attractive–because society has a fixation on thinness…well. When there’s plenty, the slim are celebrated. When there’s scarcity, the abundant is celebrated. What society naturally abhors is an extreme. Society certainly does lean towards lean at this point in time. However, that’s probably due to a glut of the opposite: obesity.
The main issue that’s being batted around in the chub wars is accountability. Who’s accountable? Society? My genetics? McDonald’s? My parents?
The fat empowerment sidesteps the issue of accountability by throwing up its hands and saying “nevermind! Being fat is not bad for you anyway! Let’s change the focus from trying to save lives to making bad health acceptable and attractive!” That is a deadly mistake.
As a person who is overweight, and who has been through the weight loss process, and for whom weight will probably have to watched carefully for the rest of my life, I find the lack of personal accountability astonishing. First of all, I agree with fat activists when they say that the range of “normal” weights is probably greater than popular science would have you believe. To understand that body types are diverse is a good thing. But don’t go blaming fat people’s lack of success in life and dissatisfaction on society at large. Being overweight does indeed affect your well-being on many levels; if you’re exhausted all the time and have trouble sleeping, how well will you do in your personal or professional life? Luckily, there are, for most people, things that can be done about it. There are vanishingly few people who are destined from conception to be obese.
I was watching a TLC show on the morbidly obese yesterday, and the psychologist (or was it the nutritionist?) said that most people are not completely honest about their caloric intake. Overeaters are totally genuine when they say they only eat a sandwich and some salad and a little bit of this or that when you ask them about it. But when watched closely w/cameras and objective observers, the caloric intake is inevitably much higher. Hence saying that “I’m naturally fat, even though I eat right” is probably someone trying to subconsciously fool themselves.
The only way that I’ve managed to lose weight and maintain it is by recording the calories in (almost) everything I eat. I’m not obsessive to the point where I count each grain of rice, but I eyeball portions, and make sure I note the calories of each ingredient (1 tbsp of oil=120 calories!). I rarely eat out anymore. It was so revealing for me the first few weeks to keep a food diary. I ate much more than I needed. Ergo, I gained/kept on weight. Some people are not blessed with a natural STOP signal regarding food. I’m one of them, so I need to keep track of it much more consciously. (For this I recommend the Excel tools of the Hacker’s Diet.)
Of course exercise is part of the equation, but it’s not as important as nutrition. One personal trainer told a friend of mine: food is 3/4 of health, exercise 1/4. A human body needs (for a woman) about 2,000 calories a day to maintain its weight, whether you’re fat or slim. If you eat less than that, say, 1,500, your body will dip into its fat reserves to make up the 500-calorie difference. If you accumulate a deficit of 3,500 calories, you lose a pound. Voila! Simple math. Exercise can supplement, but walking for an hour is worth about 2 low-fat cookies at best. It’s all in the food.
That’s why programs like Nutrisystems and Jenny Craig really do work. They limit your calorie intake by providing exactly what you need to eat (and no more!). The problem is that people go off the programs having never learned to cook and understand nutrition for themselves and gain it all back.
Yeah, weight loss is managed starvation. Your body doesn’t like it. So, it will suck for awhile. Once you lose the weight, you can eat with a little more freedom, but it’ll still be tough. It’s tough tough tough. I’m still struggling with it. But it’s a million times better than giving up and claiming that being fat/obese is normal and healthy.
