F-A-T. I don’t know what you think when you see that word, but I, like most of modern day society, think “I do not want that”. I do not want to eat it, I do not want to feel it, and I certainly don’t want to be it, at least that’s how I felt before reading the first half of Fat Shame. Here’s the thing, just because I am in this Bodies class doesn’t mean I am not susceptible to society and the media, and I am sure you can all understand that.
Growing up I was never “skinny”, but I was very active, so I was never generally worried about my health. Then due to a serious injury I couldn’t play sports for an extended period of time and had gained a lot of weight because of that. One day, I just stopped and said “I don’t feel healthy anymore”, so from that day on it was my quest to lose weight and become healthy, which in Fat Shame can be noted as two completely different things (11). Some days I felt more unhealthy in the way I chose to lose weight, then I did being overweight. I didn’t get body altering surgery, but I also did take great care of my body, but in my mind I was still on track to be healthier. Looking back healthier connoted a prettier, thinner self, and perhaps aiming towards trying to fit in to a sorority. Losing weight is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I was literally in “the war against fat” because I did feel it was my greatest enemy (10). “Women bear the brunt” of the society’s standards for “perfect” bodies and that can take a toll on any of us physically, emotionally, and mentally (19). It was not just my body that was changing because it consumed every part of me. I was constantly telling myself “you can’t eat that”, “you’re eating too much”, “do you want to be fat again” and that was honestly one of the most emotionally/mentally draining things I have been through. Weight loss was responsible for my highest highs and lowest lows, and I knew my body and mind were forever changing.
My feelings of self were not the only things that have changed, so has the American standards of the body over the years. In Namibia, fat would be paired with the word attractive and in France in the 1800’s a stick thin figure would be unattractive. In our American history when food was scarce, being pleasantly plump was an indicator of a higher class. Because you had the leisure of laying around and eating, you clearly were a higher member in society’s hierarchy. Those who were thin and frail were written off as lower class because they could barely afford to nourish themselves. To me, this concept makes sense, NOW 180 that concept and you have the general concept of modern society’s ideas. Fat portrays “lazy, gluttonous, greedy, immoral, uncontrolled, stupid, ugly, and lacking in will power” (4). If you ask me, I would say most of those words could describe characteristic of someone living in the way upper class because they don’t have monetary constraint in their lives so there is no need to be frugal. The thing is, people would link these words to a lower class or at least lower standard of living. In some ways society has built us to be shameful of an imperfect body, but is any body perfect? Who makes the rules of what is and is not acceptable? Where is the line drawn between healthy thin/fat and unhealthy thin/fat? Does health really matter…?
I hope this doesn't sound weird, but the exact same thing happened to me. After being an athlete for the majority of my childhood/adolescence, in the middle of high school, I blew out my knee and couldn't do more than rehab for over a year. Despite my best efforts to prevent it, my weight jumped up and it felt like my world was falling apart. I think our experiences make total sense from the perspective of our environment. Particularly in the culture of athletics (but also the culture at large), body size and weight are incredibly intertwined with perceptions of success (or failure) and self-worth. What good is a soccer player who's too fat to have the agility necessary to perform? At least in my experience, fitness and performance as an athlete defined my self-worth and when that was taken away from me, I was left wondering if there was any part of me that was still worthwhile. Luckily, I've come to realize that there are lots of things that are worthwhile in my life, but only after a critical examination of both myself and the culture that produced such narrow-minded beliefs. I wish more young athletes were more exposed to such thinking rather than just a competitive, body-centric environment.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely right in questioning whether or not healthy living and eating even matters any more. In some circles, it absolutely does. Vegetarian and vegen food movements typically emphasize indulging in healthy alternatives to the crap that is often heavily marketed on television.
ReplyDeleteThen, there are the circles that emphasize physical fitness over anything else. Eating thousands of calories is perfectly okay if it's followed up with a daily work-out routine. Or, getting out of shape is fine when there are diet-pills and cosmetic surgeries available that can wipe away any signs of fatness.
Still, both of these emphasize skinniness as signs of health. Which just sort of reveals how skewed our perceptions of health have become in America. Where, if at all, does fat fit in amongst all of this?
I know that one can be fat and healthy and, conversely, people can be skinny and unhealthy. The thing is, in America, we often associate fatness with poor health, failing to recognize that it is perfectly acceptable and certainly possible for someone that is considered 'fat' to be healthy.
Which is why we need to start changing our perception that skinny=healthy. Until then, health will most likely be that thing in the back of our minds that might surface a few times a week to nag us about or eating habits, but, for most of us, it probably won't be of the utmost importance.
But maybe I'm just overgeneralizing, too.