The Balancing Point

Skinny is to beautiful as obese is to… Ugly? Repulsive? Lazy? The ease with which such words come to our minds speaks to the embarrassingly seamless connection that has developed between fatness and all of its negative connotations.

However much our obsession with appear­ance has progressed since the olden days of pow­dered wigs and foot bindings, we can’t ignore the culture of impulsive judgments and first impressions that still dominates today’s social interactions. The standards of normalcy are cutting, and their biggest victims are the overweight. By mainstream logic, skinniness goes hand-in-hand with happiness and glamour, and, inversely, obesity with laziness and illness.

But harsh as the associations may be, are they factually incorrect?

The answer can be found in the same scien­tific evidence that is used to support a slim waist. Essentially, a small size is encouraged because of its relation to a small and, consequently, healthy diet. But when size zero espouses the one-size-fits-all for­mula for health, the logic trumping the small begins to fail. Not only is a supermodel waist size unnecessary for well-being, it is also physically unattainable for some and, as such, must be rejected as a defini­tion of health.

Numbers speak volumes about the correlation between weight and health. Although the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) states that average weights for the population have been steadily increas­ing, average ages of death have also been following in their stead.

This is not to suggest that more pounds don’t come with their own slew of physical illnesses. Heart disease and type II diabetes are but two cholesterol-related diseases that ail the larger individuals of the popu­lation. But a 25-inch waist is not an es­sential component to liv­ing a heart-healthy life.

Ironically, it may even be detrimental to health. In fact, the JAMA defined a healthy weight as having a body mass index (the measure of body fat based on height and weight) between 18.5 and 24.9, proving that the elusive perfect waist size is but an unnecessarily extreme solution to a problem that can be met halfway.

First, we must learn to sort through the health advice that is pro­fusely marketed to the general popu­lation. Rather than tuning our ears to our own bodies, we are being forced to shape our eating and exercise hab­its after advice that actually only ca­ters to the physical predispositions of a fraction of the population. The ma­jority of this propagated information relies on the faulty assumption that bikini-body lifestyles are both readily attainable and essential.

Studies from the American Psy­chological Association actually reveal that socioeconomic class is strongly correlated with obesity. The wealthier a person is, the more fancy, green, Whole Foods groceries she is able to purchase, and vice versa. Racial incli­nations also show that appetite is an inherent predisposition. Some ethnic groups are more prone to gain weight as suggested by infant studies.

The list goes on and on, sug­gesting that weight management is perhaps one of the most individual­ized courses of maintenance we must adopt. Perfect proportions are physi­cally impossible and, more important­ly, unnecessary requirements for long and happy lives—which goes to show that, while magazine features and friends’ weight loss fitness regimes may motivate us to get active, they should not hinder us from developing a personal, and not canned, relation­ship with our bodies.

The human body is also an individuated machine that does not respond to demands and changes con­sistently among people. Contrary to popular belief, appetite is elastic. As defined by an article in the Atlantic, the elasticity of appetite pitches the idea that “we have no idea how hun­gry we are, so we respond to growing portion sizes with growing appetites.”

This explains that while por­tions offered in public diners have grown, Americans’ appetites have grown with them, instead of plateau­ing at a healthy volume. Following this train of thought, establishing good eating habits must involve shrinking our appetite more than our plate. One person’s idea of a smaller portion may be a plate of pasta, while another’s may be a colorful salad. Neverthe­less, that diet change must adhere to personal body proportions and eating habits, not this month’s new diet fad.

But how do we go about re­working psychological associations that have become embedded into men’s and women’s brains since their first Barbies and GI Joe dolls? Some­how, that primeval connection be­tween weight (the number) and health (the state of well-being), must be bro­ken.

Some thinkers out there, both frustrated and motivated by the so­cial prejudices at hand, are already at work. Originating in the 1960s, the “fat power” movement has worked to change the beliefs that buttress many contemporary cultural and political norms. Weight-based discrimination occurs on several levels and in various environments; whether it’s workplace bias, denial of public access, or hiring discrimination, overweight citizens everywhere are being treated unfairly and not for concern of their health.

And although the media may be an easy outlet to blame, other fac­tors are also at fault for stagnating the debate on weight and health. Primar­ily, ourselves.

Some “fat” activists, for ex­ample, have gone to the extremes, burning diet books and verbally bash­ing fellow skinny friends. But certainly such activism is not activism at all.

The problem with such mili­tancy is that it has increasingly gravi­tated toward victimizing the people, and not the system, that underlies this faulty belief system, un­wittingly persecuting an innocent stratum of the population. In the midst of this dialogue, it is es­pecially awkward to be an individual at either extreme of the scale.

If we make the argument that weight is a biological trait over which we have control only up to a point, shouldn’t skinny colleagues alike be equally respected for their weight? While the social and biological pre­dispositions of some may mean more flesh to go around, for others, it may equate to the longed-after stick skin­ny body. Either way, the translation of health must not involve cursory judg­ments of either extremes of size.

The real culprits responsible for confounding the relationship be­tween health and weight are the cul­tural practices, which, through habit and practice, have sneaked upon our subconscious and compounded our harsh judgments of others. Celebrity worship, devious fast-food practices, and superficial nutrition education are just some of the institutions that must replace the scapegoat position that skinny and fat individuals hold in this dialogue.

Rewiring a size-obsessed cul­ture will be difficult, but we can each contribute to a change for the better if we really ask ourselves: since when did being healthy necessarily mean being a size zero?