Fat-Shaming vs. Health

Hi, all.

Now that application season #1 is (finally) over, I can return to the blog, my taekwondo studio, and hilarious things on the interwebs.  Here, I relate thoughts on a (rather inebriated) conversation at the Thanksgiving table.

Fat-shaming has been getting a lot of attention in the past few years, thanks to a disturbing prevalence of eating disorders and the pejorative use of the word “fat.”  Here, I relate my feelings on the subject.  Bear in mind that it applies to men and women equally.

It seems that in many circles, discussing one’s body shape has become an utterly taboo subject.  There are reasons for this, of course; eating disorders are an all-too-real concern, and despite what advertising would have us believe, healthy body types come in many shapes and sizes.  Fitness should be a personal decision, and we cannot fit all body types into a single mold.

Nonetheless, the rendering of fitness as a completely taboo subject worries me.  The simple fact is that, as a society, we are overweight.  I use the royal we, of course; I suspect that most of the people reading this are perfectly healthy.  However, my social circle is very much an intellectual elite; we went to college, most of us will go to graduate school, we pay attention to events in the wider world, and we have been raised to consider our health and fitness.  But, despite the jokes, statistics don’t lie: some 67% of the United States population is clinically overweight, and around 30% is obese.

Now, it’s popular to blame large corporations, poverty, lack of education, metabolic differences, the loss of time, and any of a dozen other things for this.  Those are all factors, and they should be addressed.  Nonetheless, in many (not all, but many) cases it is a lifestyle choice.  Options for healthy living are available, particularly in urban areas; the spread of healthy food and active lifestyles has been slow but real.  It’s a question of using them.

Now, here’s the bit that concerns me.  In the United States—and, I can only assume, many other Western nations as well—discussing personal fitness is something of a taboo subject.  We’re afraid of offending someone by noting an extra few pounds, and we’re afraid of triggering an eating disorder in “fragile” people.  Some have gone so far as to make overweight “normal,” or beautify it, or make it positive.  That concerns me.  It’s one thing to oppose using “fat” as an insult; it’s quite another thing to make it positive.  The science linking weight with a host of health problems is long, detailed, and damn near ironclad.  When we have a 60% overweight population, “fat” should not be positive; it should be a description of a solvable problem.

I feel that I’m trying to pull off a rather delicate balancing act here.  It’s vital to note that there’s a huge range of healthy body types; I’ve met attractive people who were stick-thin, voluptuous, and everything in between.  Anyone within the “normal” BMI range is almost certainly healthy and has nothing to worry about (yes, I know that BMI is imperfect, but it’s a start).  We can’t all look like supermodels; frankly, many supermodels shouldn’t look like supermodels.  And, as many people note, there are more important things than having a perfect body; a career path, healthy friendships, and a social life come to mind.  

I think an honest discussion of the problem, along with supportive suggestions, might be a good start.  It might help address the obesity epidemic if the sufferers were told of their affliction.  Aristotle once said that ignorance is the worst disease, because the afflicted does not know of the affliction.  To get to that point, however, will require some delicate maneuvers.

First of all, I don’t like the use of “fat” as an insult.  It’s a physical problem, not a mental one.  Like most problems, it can be fixed with dedication and hard work, and there are no shortcuts.  So one step would be to stop the use of “fat” as an insult, and use it instead more like a diagnosis.  If you think that’s impossible, well, cancer and AIDS used to carry stigmas.

This might might help the other end of the spectrum as well.  The use of “fat” as an insult has led to the assumption that “non-fat” is a good; saying “You’re looking skinny” is automatically considered a complement.  This is not always the case; I’ve seen a number of people where my immediate reaction was, “Someone needs to tell them to put on a pound or ten.”  Frankly, I think we should be more willing to say “You’re skinny; are you eating enough?”

I should clarify that, to my mind, thin is a body type: the flesh is sparse, but proportionally distributed on the frame and, well, healthy-looking.  Several boys and girls I know have been thin as long as I’ve known them, and they’re all healthy individuals.  Skinny, on the other hand, suggests that there’s not enough flesh to cover the frame.  I’ve seen people like that as well, and being ten pounds shy is at least as unattractive as being ten pounds generous.

I guess what I’m saying is to have an honest discussion about weight and healthy eating.  Being overweight is not something to be proud of or to glorify, but neither is being unnaturally thin.  Too many calories are bad, but so is too few, and so is the wrong kind.  Personally, my extended family comes in all shapes and sizes, but the healthiest tend to follow the Michael Pollan food rules: Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

Final note: I understand why billboard supermodels are taken as “standards of beauty.”  They’re perfect.  So perfect, in fact, that I can’t find anything to like in them.

That last sentence may sound strange, but the fact is I do not find advertising models attractive.  They look like statues or gods, not humans; they radiate haughty detachment, not welcome.  I have no desire to befriend or love a statue.  Imperfections, to me, are a door; they make a person approachable.  Flaws make character, and character counts for more than perfection.  I wonder how many others feel the same.

On Doing Nothing

Sometimes we need to do nothing at all.

Sometimes we need to stop and think for a time.

Sometimes we need to reexamine our road.

And that’s okay.

Because sometimes, the only way to find yourself is to stop looking so hard.

It’s been a while since I my last post.  That’s largely because I’ve been driving myself to drink with job applications, master’s applications, doctoral applications, and wondering how I’ll buy Christmas gifts (or anything else) when I’m unemployed and broke.  It’s about as miserable as you’d expect…I loathe applications.

That said, I have had free time for the first time in a very long time.  For the first time in my memory, there’s no homework, there’s no social pull, there’s no responsibility after 21:00.  For the first time in my life, I can spend time researching and considering future options full-time, rather than feeling the push of the rat race again.  For the first time in memory, I can stop and think for a while.

As part of that research and reflection, I’ve reexamined my future path.  I assumed that I would hurtle down the doctoral path at full speed, looking for a neuroscience Ph.D with the shortest possible lag time, so that I could start my research career as soon as possible.  Since starting full-time graduate school research, however, I’ve been plagued by doubts.  Basically, it came to the following: how much do I love physics and engineering?  To what extent, if any, am I willing to leave physics behind?  Do I want to jump straight into neuroscience, or take a longer but more mathematical and physics-based route?

The answer, somewhat to my surprise, was that no, I am not willing to sacrifice physics as completely as I believed.  Strange and slightly masochistic though it may be, I liked physics.  I like the surety of it, the sense of accomplishment in solving problems, the mathematical certainty of equations and manipulations.  Yes, there was pain and struggle involved, and I certainly wasn’t the best in my class (on a related note, anyone who says girls are bad at math or physics is either living the 1950s or has their head inserted up a particularly unpleasant part of their anatomy).  But, despite all that and some spectacularly bad instructors, I liked my physics education, and I want to make use of it.

As a direct result of this conclusion, I’ve revamped my job hunt, reexamined my educational plans, and rebooted my plans for the next couple of years.  My initial assumption was a year or two of work, followed by neuroscience doctoral research.  Now, I may delay the doctoral work in favor of a M.Sc. in biophysics or biomedical engineering, to be followed by a Ph.D.  I’m still not sure where that Ph.D will go; although neuroscience remains the most likely suspect, I like the clarity of mathematics and physics much more than the wetwork of biological dissections and chemistry.

This seems like a minor change, and in the long term it is, but it’s one that I was certain would never happen a month ago.   A month ago, I had not questioned the swift, certain road to neuroscience, and I was ready to fly towards it.  I would not have questioned this approach, had I not had the time to think it through.

Here comes the point: I never thought about this before.  Or, more accurately, I never thought deeply about it.  I had assumed I would follow the neuroscience route directly, never considering what that might entail or whether it was the best fit for me.  I only considered the consequences and what best suited my needs and skills when I was forced to stop and think for a while.

You’ll notice that I used the word “forced.”  This is because, well, I was forced.  Given my druthers, I would have jumped straight into the work environment and never thought twice about my path ahead.  I hated, and still hate, having nothing to do.  Yet sometimes, that is what we need.

This is a largely anecdotal piece, obviously.  Yet I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that this time to decompress is not only valuable, but absolutely and vitally necessary.  In fact, The Economist ran this piece on this very subject; modern businesses encouraging their workers to stop and think for a while.

In today’s world, we feel a constant pressure to work longer, harder, and faster.  Increased competition means that, to land a job or a studentship, we must be far more qualified than our parents were.  The miracle of modern communication means we are connected to employers and friends 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no respite.  This has its advantages, one of which is that you can read this, yet the pressure to be always on can make us forget how much it matters to unplug.

Deep insight, personal or otherwise, seldom comes in the midst of constant bombardment.  It requires time, and thought, and quiet.  I never fully appreciated how necessary that time is until I found it again.