Rant: The weight of it all

"Fat is not a four-letter word." - Camryn Manheim

I read an article yesterday that really did seem like a good idea at the time. Dr. Matthew Anderson, a psychologist, emphasizes the role of body image in weight loss. I'm not going to argue that body acceptance isn't important to losing weight, but I will argue that body acceptance is important, full stop. Why does this acknowledgement of the mind/body connection come from a weight loss doctor on a weight loss website?

Then I read another disturbing article about people's perception of overweight and obese people, which disturbed me even more. The article doesn't talk about how self-loathing can damage a person's self-esteem, turning them toward extremely unhealthy, dangerous weight loss measures to acheive some ridiculous goal. Instead, it focuses on how the negative stereotypes and self-loathing can help patients lose weight.

Even the "fat positive" articles have a strange sort of bias to them. "It's okay to be overweight, but not too much." What's "too much"? For that matter, what's "overweight"? I stopped trusting BMI charts when I learned that the entirety of the women's Olympic rowing team was obese, according to their chart. Of course, there's the little disclaimer of "not for use with athletes or pregnant woman." But who really pays attention to that?

Women's Health magazine, which I normally like, is running a blog of its editor's "weight loss journey." Her most recent entry is about sneaking food and binging. Surprise, surprise: the most common result of dieting is binging.

I'm not saying that eating healthy and exercising is bad, or anti-feminist, or a sign of self-loathing. But is dieting really the way to be healthy? Is being thin a reliable indicator of health? (Hint: It isn’t.) I’ve been thin, and I’ve been fat. Both measures are based on my own opinion and my frame and body type. What I know is that I was most unhappy and most unhealthy when I was at my thinnest. I think this awareness is the beginning. So the next time you get on the scale, think about it:

• Are you exercising because you want to, or because you feel the need to punish yourself?
• Do you eat what you want, when you want, because you want to nourish your body?
• Do you enjoy your food, or are you just enjoying the control you’re exercising over it?
• What would you be doing with your time if you didn’t spend it obsessing over your body?
• How much do your physical and intellectual role models have in common?
• What would happen if you stopped counting calories (or carbs, or fat grams) for a day? A week? A year? What if everyone stopped?