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There is an idea I've been toying with for a while, its not well developed yet, but the bones are thus: our obsession with physical attractiveness (heck let's just say it - BEING SKINNY) is in a huge part responsible not only for eating disorders that restrict caloric intake, but also obesity and the pandemic problem of not finding enough time to exercise. Yes, I think people are generally fat because we're obsessed with not being fat.
Appearance obsession is I think, for some people, causing them to hate and flee from their bodies. We constantly dissect and criticise our bodies - my thighs are x, my belly is y, sweet Jesus help I HAVE CANKLES!
One idea floating around is 'The fantasy of being thin', where people image how wonderful their lives will be when they're thin; where when we imagine the future, it always seems to include a better, thinner you. When we attempt to fulfill this fantasy by dieting and apperance-orientated exercise, the majority of people fail because they want to be instantly thin, because they're hurting themselves, physically and mentally, by being driven by body-hate and the shadows of a shallow fantasy.
Our bodies feel neglected, they're not an ally in the change, and they fight back. The more you say "no chocolate", the more your body craves chocolate. The more you say "run you fat ass!" the more your muscles scream for you to stop; I don't think they appreciate being spoken to like that. And finally failure comes, thank god because changing your life based on body-hate and image-obsessed fantasy is cruel to your body and soul.
And with failure we retreat again from our bodies. We're not on speaking terms with our bodies because we feel they're letting us down so devastatingly. And I think, for some people, this is where overeating and sloth take over, cue obesity crisis. Stuffing yourself and lying about for more than a few hours does NOT feel good. But we're too angry with our bodies to listen to them, so instead we seek a quick-fix physical pleasure, and we punish our bodies. It's a nasty, nasty cycle.
Perhaps the only path to good health, for both the individual and society, is through body-love, not body-hate. If we took some time to be nice to our bodies, to listen to them, we would realise they're not actually telling us that they want lard and laziness, but that they want good nutrition and healthy exertion. And in this scenario the same activities - good diet and exercise - are not a painful chore but a pleasurable fulfillment of a physical need. So in order to be healthy we need to stop worrying about what our bodies look like, and start listening to what they feel like on the inside.
I'm touching heavily on ideas of body acceptance, of which there is way more coherent literature than I want to focus on here. However one issue relating to body acceptance that is pertinent here is the power of the fantasy of being thin, where people espouse body acceptance, but in the back of their minds it's still the same - "I'll accept my body with all its 'flaws'....when I've lost 15kgs."
I think body-love makes people healthier, and in some cases that may mean slimmer; but attempting to use body-love to achieve some goal of weight-loss is never gonna work. After all, your body will know the love is shallow, cos your body is you! lol.
Anyway, that's just the first rambling on this issue, I'm sure there'll be more to come.
(Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting obesity is caused solely by image-obsession. There are significant issues relating to socio-economic status and access to healthy foods, education about healthy diet, medications and weight, obsessive and compulsive mental illness etc. My musings are based entirely on my own experience, and the experience of my mainly white, university-educated, middle class girlfriends.)
Jennifer Hawkins, former Miss Universe, appeared naked and unphotoshopped on the cover of Marie Claire. She had a crease on her waist *gasp* and apparently some cellulite. It was meant to raise awareness about eating disorders, and help your average woman feel better about herself. Anyway, not only did the feminist blogosphere go mad, but a large portion of the general public weighed in to the debate. In my opinion they rightly pointed out that the picture didn't really make much of a point because a) she's not an average woman, she's a supermodel, and b) she doesn't really look any different when she IS photoshopped, cos you know, she's a supermodel.
There has been a lot of talk about how they should have put on an un-photoshopped image of a woman who doesn't fit perfectly into the current cultural ideal of female beauty. Part of the problem is that we are exposed to so many images of one ideal, and so few positive images of anything else. A positive image of a fat chick for example, may have had a good impact on women seeing that even though they don't fit the ideal, they are still beautiful.
Marie Claire's actions, and the response, was largely predictable. It's been analysed until the cows come home. But as I've reflected, something else has stood out for me....
The whole argument seems to revolve around how a naked picture of Jennifer Hawkins does not make other women feel beautiful, in fact it makes them feel unattractive, which in turn makes the whole thing deplorable because it was supposed to be fighting eating disorders. A positive image of a 'real woman' ('real woman' - that's a whole other side to the debate) who doesn't perfectly fit the cultural ideal is advocated because this, it is presumed, will make women feel beautiful.
I'm going to assume it is believed that women will feel beautiful if they see a naked picture of an average woman because they will appreciate that the female body is quite beautiful even when it doesn't fit a cultural ideal, and that despite media saturation only genetic freaks fit the cultural ideal, so we should all stop worrying.
I think this is a fair enough statement. Working in a bikini shop and seeing women's bodies all day, I did in fact grow an appreciation for the beauty of the female body in all its diversity. But what irks me is that the implication coming across, including from those working to fight eating disorders, is that we must do everything we can to make women feel like they are physically beautiful. The goal is to redefine beauty so that more women fit it because 'feeling beautiful' is seen as centrally important to a woman's perception of self worth.
This is a fundamentally counterproductive approach to women's empowerment in general and eating disorders in particular. Sure, attempt to shift the goal posts so more women fit into the 'beautiful' category, there is merit in that particularly when ideals promote unhealthy behaviours. There is merit in expanding ideas about female beauty to appreciate women's bodies with their cesarean scars, womanly dimply thighs and flabby stomachs. But what would really benefit all women - conventionally beautiful, butt ugly and everything in between - would be to reduce the focus on women's bodies entirely.
Only when female physical attractiveness, however defined, is taken off its pedestal will we get somewhere with equality. And as men are drawn into this appearance obsession, we are not only risking equality of the sexes but a general healthy, mentally and physically, society. Seriously is it that difficult to imagine a society where being fat or ugly isn't the end of the fucking world? My sense of humour isn't to many people's tastes, but its not the end of the world, I just tend to consider the people who do appreciate it as connoisseurs of a fine brew.
"But being fat is unhealthy! And a drain on the health care system!" - it's true, it is. But so is cigarette smoking and sodium intake and not getting pap smears. But smokers, fish 'n' chips lovers, and women with creepy doctors do not center their entire self worth and behaviour around these issues.
I'm gonna put it out there - it's more acceptable for a man to fugly than a woman. Some women would say that's unfair and they resent being expected to hook up with ugly guys, and that's a fair point of personal taste. But drawing men into this insanity is not the answer, what a perverse equality that would be. A promotion of a wider variety of female beauty would be beneficial, but more importantly maybe we should all realise that being, or even feeling, like the opitomy of sexual attractiveness is not the be all and end all of existence.
