"Losing weight is what I consider to be my greatest accomplishment." - Oprah Winfrey
I want you to go back and read that again. And then ask yourself what your greatest accomplishment is. Maybe it's finishing school, or doing a bang-up job on a project, or raising wonderful children, or being a good friend, or doing something no one else thought you could do. I hope it's not attaining a set of "ideal" numbers, where you had to count each gram and calorie to attain that number and then had to continue counting to keep that number. I hope it's not not eating something because it wasn't on a list of "approved" foods. I hope it's not the coveted "compliment" of "Oh my God, you look so skinny! Almost anorexic!"
"Anorexic" isn't a compliment. I know that if any pro-anas come across this site, they'll accuse me of being jealous of their willpower and lithe figures. And maybe I am, a little. But I also know the other side of the coin--the eroded tooth enamel and holes in the esophagus, the heart palpitations, the light fur on the body, the social isolation and fear, the hospitalizations, and even the funerals where girls (who should have been women, by all rights) were so thin they were put into caskets made for children.
The fact that Oprah lists this as her greatest accomplishment--a set of numbers--perpetuates this cultural disease, this cult of thinness. She's provided scholarships for countless students, opened schools and orphanages in towns across the world, has prompted people to read, to leave abusive relationships, to conquer their fears; has run a marathon, and has risen to heights previously unavailable to anyone, much less a Black woman from the South.
Look, I'm all for the fact that Oprah is encouraging people to live healthy lives. But you don't have to be thin, or reach a certain number, to be healthy. Active people are healthier than inactive, regardless of weight. Which is more important: healthy and happy, or thin, sickly, and miserable? So give it up.
You are more than a number.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
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?
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?
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The Real Mystery of the Da Vinci Code
(Warning: Contains spoilers)
I've read the book, and I saw the movie last weekend. I still have some unanswered questions, though. Namely: What's the big deal?
Both in the book and in real life, the Code has rocked some worlds. People are floored by even the idea that Jesus might have had a wife and child. In the book, this leads to the deaths of several people. In real life, this has led to thousands of books written refuting the fictional Code and protests outside several movie theaters showing the movie. And still, what's the big deal?
Sure, the idea that Jesus might've been a husband and father deviates from traditional church teachings. But so what? If Jesus was a husband and father, does that make him any less divine? To me, it makes him more accessible, and it gives the story of the crucifixion even more impact. It's not as if the book and movie say that Jesus was a manwhore, flitting from town to town and impregnating women across the Roman prelature.
Is the idea so rocking just because it's not what we're used to? Church teachings have changed in the 2000 year history of organized Christianity, so the things we're absolutely certain about now weren't so much so one thousand years ago.
More than that, it's startling how much hoopla there is about this because it's a work of fiction. Meaning not real. It's not an historical document, so are people so worked up about it because it makes them think? Because it encorages people to ask questions they might not have before? If so, it really is a revolutionary book. Any book that can get people talking and researching and questioning is.
Even if it's not very well written.
I've read the book, and I saw the movie last weekend. I still have some unanswered questions, though. Namely: What's the big deal?
Both in the book and in real life, the Code has rocked some worlds. People are floored by even the idea that Jesus might have had a wife and child. In the book, this leads to the deaths of several people. In real life, this has led to thousands of books written refuting the fictional Code and protests outside several movie theaters showing the movie. And still, what's the big deal?
Sure, the idea that Jesus might've been a husband and father deviates from traditional church teachings. But so what? If Jesus was a husband and father, does that make him any less divine? To me, it makes him more accessible, and it gives the story of the crucifixion even more impact. It's not as if the book and movie say that Jesus was a manwhore, flitting from town to town and impregnating women across the Roman prelature.
Is the idea so rocking just because it's not what we're used to? Church teachings have changed in the 2000 year history of organized Christianity, so the things we're absolutely certain about now weren't so much so one thousand years ago.
More than that, it's startling how much hoopla there is about this because it's a work of fiction. Meaning not real. It's not an historical document, so are people so worked up about it because it makes them think? Because it encorages people to ask questions they might not have before? If so, it really is a revolutionary book. Any book that can get people talking and researching and questioning is.
Even if it's not very well written.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Theological ramblings
I’ve only been vaguely aware of the “confessing movement” in the UMC. Recently, however, I came across the organizational website and learned of the perceived crisis in the United Methodist Church. This came right after a conversation I had with Jeff the other night about the “hey, you know…whatever” attitude of many in the UMC. Part of it has to do with us not having a figurehead to definitively say what it is that we believe. (You can find the general guidelines here.) I think a lot of it is dependent upon individual churches, as each church is dependent on a district that may be hundreds of miles away, in contrast to having an archdiocese in a nearby city. (The exception, of course, is with Kentucky—there are only two archdiocese, so many Catholic churches in Kentucky are hundreds of miles removed from their governing body.) When your ecclesiastical authority is hundreds of miles removed from you, not only do they not have a real finger on the pulse of their congregants, but their congregants aren’t particularly inclined to abide by the letter of the law that the church has proscribed. This makes it very hard to know what the church believes, and if I don’t know what my church believes, I’m not sure what I can accept or reject. It makes the faith journey hard, and my faith journey is complicated enough as it is.
All this has come up recently because of my disillusion with my church at this time. For quite some time, I’ve been having objections about our pastor. He’s a very good preacher, and he definitely knows his stuff. But his people skills are so lacking that people have literally fled the church in droves. This isn’t just regular church members—his reach has extended into the loss of our youth pastor, our director of family ministries, and our church secretary. Fortunately, his time with us is almost up. (UMC preachers in the South Indiana conference are appointed for six years at a time.) And for some of us, it’s none too soon. However, there’s a petition circulating to keep him. I suppose it’s the theory of “better the devil you know…”
I tell you all this to place my faith struggle in the larger context. I haven’t been to my church since Easter, though I have been to Mass with Jeff nearly every weekend. And I find a bit more meaning in Mass, though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m surrounded by people who I love, and who love me, when I’m there. (Which is not to say that I’m not surrounded by love when I’m at my own church—in that case, I love the choir so much that the thought of leaving that church makes me exceptionally sad.) The first church I went to (that I chose myself) was a very conservative Episcopalian one. (So conservative, in fact, that they later went to Roman Catholicism.) Perhaps being familiar with that, I have a more ecumenical view of faith. The book that I’m reading right now (Why Be Catholic) asks the question, “What’s the difference in being Catholic these days?”
Since Vatican II, the Church has been more focused on healing the rift between Catholics and Protestants. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have given communion to Protestants in ecumenical services (including the funeral of JPII). Early in his ministry, Pope John Paul II wrote:
“It is a source of joy to note that Catholic ministers are able, in certain particular cases, to administer the sacraments of the Eucharist...to Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church but who greatly desire to receive these sacraments, freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes with regard to these sacraments." John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, reiterated in Ecclesia Eucharistia).
As I understand it, the main reason for withholding communion from faithful Protestants is because of the doctrine of transubstantiation. That’s one piece of doctrine that the UMC is actually very clear on:
Article XVIII—Of the Lord's Supper
“The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped.” (From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2004)
(Lest we forget, John Wesley was an Anglican priest his whole life. He never “converted” to United Methodism. The Anglicans have always had an issue with the RCC. That’s their basis.) Yet here’s my issue with rejecting transubstantiation: Who am I to limit the mysteries of God? Clearly, history and modern times have both reflected God’s presence in the world. Now, I imagine it would be a bit creepy to find actual fleshy tissue in one’s hand as one received Communion, but what’s to say that God will not make God’s presence accessible to the faithful in this manner? I think there’s more of a problem in those who receive communion thoughtlessly, without preparing themselves to participate in one of the loveliest expressions of faith.
Based on that, you’d think that I should just go ahead and become Catholic. There are a few things I’d miss, though. I’d miss my hymns. The Catholic hymnal does have a few hymns by John Wesley, but there are no hymns by Fanny Crosby, whose work speaks to a deep place in my soul. I would miss that. I would miss the sermons, since RC priests give short homilies rather than sermons. (That’s what actually makes some UMC services longer than RC Masses.)
I’ve always thought that faith is a continual process, and belief that does not grow and change is a stagnant, useless faith. But I do wonder what is “too much” change, or when it’s appropriate to change. I do wish I had a sign, or at least a better way to understand where the path on my faith journey leads.
All this has come up recently because of my disillusion with my church at this time. For quite some time, I’ve been having objections about our pastor. He’s a very good preacher, and he definitely knows his stuff. But his people skills are so lacking that people have literally fled the church in droves. This isn’t just regular church members—his reach has extended into the loss of our youth pastor, our director of family ministries, and our church secretary. Fortunately, his time with us is almost up. (UMC preachers in the South Indiana conference are appointed for six years at a time.) And for some of us, it’s none too soon. However, there’s a petition circulating to keep him. I suppose it’s the theory of “better the devil you know…”
I tell you all this to place my faith struggle in the larger context. I haven’t been to my church since Easter, though I have been to Mass with Jeff nearly every weekend. And I find a bit more meaning in Mass, though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m surrounded by people who I love, and who love me, when I’m there. (Which is not to say that I’m not surrounded by love when I’m at my own church—in that case, I love the choir so much that the thought of leaving that church makes me exceptionally sad.) The first church I went to (that I chose myself) was a very conservative Episcopalian one. (So conservative, in fact, that they later went to Roman Catholicism.) Perhaps being familiar with that, I have a more ecumenical view of faith. The book that I’m reading right now (Why Be Catholic) asks the question, “What’s the difference in being Catholic these days?”
Since Vatican II, the Church has been more focused on healing the rift between Catholics and Protestants. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have given communion to Protestants in ecumenical services (including the funeral of JPII). Early in his ministry, Pope John Paul II wrote:
“It is a source of joy to note that Catholic ministers are able, in certain particular cases, to administer the sacraments of the Eucharist...to Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church but who greatly desire to receive these sacraments, freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes with regard to these sacraments." John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, reiterated in Ecclesia Eucharistia).
As I understand it, the main reason for withholding communion from faithful Protestants is because of the doctrine of transubstantiation. That’s one piece of doctrine that the UMC is actually very clear on:
Article XVIII—Of the Lord's Supper
“The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped.” (From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2004)
(Lest we forget, John Wesley was an Anglican priest his whole life. He never “converted” to United Methodism. The Anglicans have always had an issue with the RCC. That’s their basis.) Yet here’s my issue with rejecting transubstantiation: Who am I to limit the mysteries of God? Clearly, history and modern times have both reflected God’s presence in the world. Now, I imagine it would be a bit creepy to find actual fleshy tissue in one’s hand as one received Communion, but what’s to say that God will not make God’s presence accessible to the faithful in this manner? I think there’s more of a problem in those who receive communion thoughtlessly, without preparing themselves to participate in one of the loveliest expressions of faith.
Based on that, you’d think that I should just go ahead and become Catholic. There are a few things I’d miss, though. I’d miss my hymns. The Catholic hymnal does have a few hymns by John Wesley, but there are no hymns by Fanny Crosby, whose work speaks to a deep place in my soul. I would miss that. I would miss the sermons, since RC priests give short homilies rather than sermons. (That’s what actually makes some UMC services longer than RC Masses.)
I’ve always thought that faith is a continual process, and belief that does not grow and change is a stagnant, useless faith. But I do wonder what is “too much” change, or when it’s appropriate to change. I do wish I had a sign, or at least a better way to understand where the path on my faith journey leads.
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