The Cookie Cutter

Remember last week about the Japanese study that overweight people lived longer that those who weren't?  Well another study came out from Canada stated the same thing. 

How many studies do we need before it's okay to have meat on our bones or understand that being fat isn't evil.  Another study from last year said that being fat didn't necessarily mean being unhealthy, and thin doesn't always mean healthy.

To me a dangerous message is sent when fat is associated with unhealthy and thin is associated with health.  A fat person might resort to dangerous diets and surgery just to lose weight (say the author of this blog), even if that fat person has no health issues.  A thin person may think "It's okay, I'm thin" to not engage in healthy habits.  

However that being said.  If you are 'normal' or 'underweight please don't try to gain.   We live in a world (especially America) that says we must all come out of the same flawless cookie cutter.  No one is flawless.  Beauty is what society makes it.  For example another fat "venus" statue was found. She is about 35000 years ago.  She was the image of beauty back then.

So beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Health as well.  I don't want thin to be the image of health and beauty. However I don't want fat to be that, either.  I want us to stop looking at a person and judging them.

Comments

[Sammy]

"A thin person may think "It's okay, I'm thin" to not engage in healthy habits."

My mom does that. She eats candy all the time, and was shocked when her dentist told her to stop, because she's thin, how could it be bad?

[jaed]

It's an interesting point, about gaining weight. Do we ever urge clinically underweight people to gain weight "for their health", other than those with outright AN? I consider that it's possible to be naturally "underweight" - to be in that weight category when you eat naturally.)

Imagine if thin people faced similar pressures in the doctor's office and in the media to gain weight. Imagine if people in the "normal" category were pressured on the grounds that they were at risk for underweight. Imagine we had categories - underweight, emaciated, morbidly emaciated - that embraced over half the population.

Even if this research becomes generally known and accepted, I have a hard time thinking thin people will be urged - by whatever means necessary, up to and including self-imposed eating disorder - to move their weight unnaturally into the "optimal health" category.

[Lauren]

I am very much in support of health at every size. Whether you're fat or thin, it's what you put into your body and how you use it that counts. I'm a big girl, but I love working out. I'm probably a good deal more active than my thinner counter-parts. But because of my size I will always fall into the "lazy, gluttonous, illness riddled" stereotype.

[lee cole]

I am losing weight with dieting but surgery is still a open option. I have lost 60 pounds in three months and countinue to diet and excercise in hopes to avioding surgery.My surgeon told me that I have a 1 in 5 chance of dying from complications after the surgery.Those odds are scary but being obese at the age of 48 is just as risky.I am trying hard to avoid surgery but fighting obesity is so hard, thanks Lee

[RandomQuorum]

Lee, I very much doubt that you'll ever come back here to read this, but you seem to have totally missed the point (did you even read any of this blog?).

Being obese does not have anywhere near a 1 in 5 risk of death in the immediate future, which is what you claim your surgeon told you as the risks of (I assume) weight loss surgery. If it did, my mother and grandmother should both have been dead many years ago - but they're not, and nor do they have any problems with their health. Would you really choose a 20% chance of dying very soon over the possibility of living to a ripe old age as an obese person?

I'm not going to tell you not to diet or exercise if that's what you feel you need to do, but I think its important that people realise that being fat is NOT a death sentence.