It’s very hard in this society not to hate fat. I don’t mean the saturated or unsaturated kind, but body fat. Much as it’s nearly impossible due to institutional racism to be White and non-racist in this society, it’s difficult not to get sucked into the cultural and institutional bias that condemns fat as one of humanity’s worst transgressions. You have a choice, however, to buy into this absurdity or opt out. Stop for a minute and think about why you hate the fat on your body or anyone else’s. List the reasons by saying, “Fat is…” or “Being fat means…” or “Fat people are...” Now comb through your list and decide if there’s actual evidence to back up your claim. For instance, say you think, “It’s terrible that fat people are out of control.” Folks are out of control in lots of ways in this society: they work, spend, watch...
Karen's Blogs
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Karen's Blogs
Last month I went to the beach with a friend and, there, on the blanket next to us was a woman—in her early 20s, I’d guess—who most folks in this culture would assess as having a “10” body. Evenly toned and tanned, she also had a pretty face and straight, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her bathing suit, a shocking neon blue, could probably be seen for miles. She certainly looked as if she had it altogether body-wise. Why, then, did I feel so sad for her? For all of you who think you’d beg, borrow or steal to have a perfect body, think again. For example, compare this woman to the young women who had set up their chairs and beach umbrellas on the other side of us. They had far from perfect, plump, soft bodies. I don’t recall their bathing suits or their hairstyles or anything else...
It’s a real drag that most women’s assumptions about their bodies run on only two channels: either positive or negative. Positive thoughts go something like this: Boy, I look great today, I’m really thin, That new wrinkle cream makes me appear years younger, You can hardly see my cellulite when my weight is down, I love how slim this dress makes me look. Negative thoughts go like: who am I kidding—we all know too well the evil thoughts about our bodies. It seems we’re either at one extreme or the other. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply take our bodies for granted in a healthy way (like most men do) and stop living our lives around how they look to us and others? Although it’s a lot healthier for us not to obsess about how bad we look and dump on ourselves for having fat, flab, love handles, or cellulite, it’s...
A fascinating discussion about sexuality and body size is occurring on my message board (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings). Even though we live in a culture that’s considered out there with sex, the sad truth is that sexuality and intimacy get talked about very little among women. The subject gets raised even less frequently by women who are ashamed of their bodies because of their size. Hats off to those of you who are willing to take the plunge and think and talk about sex and weight. No matter what their weight, most women have lots of conflicting feelings about sex, sexuality, and intimacy. After all, we’re supposed to be demur yet seductive and other mutually exclusive traits all at once. Then there’s the bombardment of cultural messages telling us that fat is repulsive and thin is alluring. Women who feel comfortable in their bodies at any weight are few and far between. I don’t...
Last night I saw Eve Ensler’s The Good Body here in Sarasota. If Ensler’s name rings a bell, it’s because she’s the creator of The Vagina Monologues. From its title, you might guess that The Good Body is about women’s quest for one and you’d be right. In fact, perhaps the show should have been called The Perfect Body. However, the word “good” works because many of these women are struggling desperately to be good girls as well. Sound familiar: trying to be good woman and have a good body? The show’s main character, Eve, is overweight and obsessed with her fat stomach. We meet her critical father, in the ice cream business of all things, and come to see how her disturbed relationship with food and body came about. Eve diets and overdoes it on the treadmill, but can’t get rid of her round mound of a belly. She even...
A client recently told me about a great YouTube video called A Fat Rant by Joy Nash. You can find it at . For all of you—fat, thin or in between—who simply cannot imagine feeling good about yourself at a weight society deems unacceptable, it’s a must-see. Frankly, it’s a must-see for everyone on the planet because it says what Gürze (and other) authors have been maintaining for decades: fat is neither a sin nor a crime. It’s nothing more than a descriptive term. I suggest you view the video and return to read the rest of this blog. So, what did you think? I bet some of you felt terrific, seeing this self-admitted big (though she doesn’t look 220 pounds on the video), beautiful woman oozing self-confidence and self-love. We need more role models like her who are willing to put themselves out there and say, “Yes, I’m fat. So...
Body shame is an interesting phenomenon. Some people have way too much of it, so much that if they’re three pounds up and can’t fit into their jeans, they’re miserable and abhor their own flesh. Other people who are overweight, don’t view themselves that way. When they look in the mirror, they don’t see extra-large, but instead see the thin or average-size body they used to have. In both cases, shame has gone awry and is not being used effectively to foster physical and mental health. Let’s take the first scenario when you really aren’t fat, but have put on a few pounds due to vacation, holidays, or simple bloating. You (hopefully) know that your life won’t go down the tubes because of a couple of extra pounds, yet you feel intense hatred for your body and enormous shame about its appearance. Remember, shame is meant to signal that you’ve done...
Often times I run into women—in my practice, in my life—who have everything going for them, look great, seem full of pep and energy, yet are stuck on losing weight—they insist—in order to be happy. Maybe it’s three pounds or fifteen or 100. Sometimes it’s enough that people would notice and sometimes no one ever would. Anyway, the point is that I wonder what would happen if these women let their weight loss dreams go. The “excess” weight doesn’t necessarily inhibit their being attractive, healthy, or successful, so what is it really all about? My guess is that there are a couple things going on. First is that we have few if any role models of women feeling okay about their bodies. When was the last time you heard someone, a female someone, say she liked her body just as it is? I don’t honestly recall ever hearing that comment. Even...
Women are taught to change themselves to fit into the world—get a new hairstyle, learn some tricks to dazzle your guy in bed, do what you can to make people comfortable, try an exotic recipe, forge a perfect body—but how often are we encouraged to create a better world, one in which we can be just ourselves? Rarely. We could do more with the Sixties mentality which prodded us to question authority, fight back, and be part of a revolution. In fact, one of the best antidotes to an eating disorder or problem is to practice saying yes to what’s right with the world and changing what’s wrong. Although disordered eating seems like a personal problem, it affects us all. It’s generated by unhealthy cultural attitudes towards women’s beauty and bodies (sorry, guys) and is a major cause of health problems—undernourishment and overweight. Not to mention how miserable women feel about...
Whether you grew from an adorable toddler into a knockout or morphed from an “ugly duckling” into a “swan,” you may have become addicted to looking good. Because this culture worships and rewards beauty, if you’re attractive (especially if you’re female), you may be so hooked on receiving admiring glances and gushing compliments on your appearance, that you may not realize how attached you are to them. You even may be greedy for praise and convinced you can’t live without it. If you were cute as a button as a child and blossomed into a striking adult—with classic or eye-catching looks—you may have been complimented and rewarded all your life for nature’s gifts. Receiving too much praise for appearance, especially if you get none or few compliments for other innate qualities and learned skills, may make you believe that you are nothing more than a pretty face or an ideal body....
A recent blurb in the newspaper has me agog. According to an online survey by Transformulas, a British beauty company, women look at themselves in the mirror every 30 minutes on average daily when they’re awake (Did they really need to add “the awake” part?) and men check themselves out every 27 minutes. My guess is that statistics in the US are about the same, but I fear they may be even more outrageous. The Transformulas survey says that when women are mirror-gazing, they’re reapplying makeup—11 times a day. Obviously this is not the case for men, so what is it that draws us repeatedly to our own image. I’m wondering, when we look in the looking glass or pass a reflective store window, are we looking at or for? Are we checking to see if there is something out of place that needs to be fixed—we’ve left a roller in...
As if we don’t have enough gender disparities in this society, I’ve been noticing lately how thin men and women are viewed and treated differently. Skinny men, whether they perceive their physique as unmanly or not, are basically left alone. Perhaps they’re not adored as hunks or hotties, maybe they’re covertly envied or even laughed at, but no one has all that much to say about or to them regarding their bodies.Thin women, on the other hand, are too much talked about and talked at, on constant display. They are perceived as having it all together and often are the recipient of envy and resentment. One day I overheard a store cashier say to a slender woman, “Oh, lucky you. You can eat anything. I wish I looked like you.” Another day I heard a trim woman mention to her friend that she’d gone to a spa. Her friend laughed and...
If you have been heavy your whole life (or most of it), you may believe that your main problem is getting your body to a healthy, more comfortable weight. You may be convinced that your life will be dramatically different when you’re at your ideal size and that you can then kick back and enjoy life. If you are so obese that your size restricts mobility and activity, you may find that life does vastly improve when you reduce your size. Being more comfortable in your body and able to do more may be enough to change how you feel about yourself and put your life back on track. However, even if you lose the weight, you will still have many issues to deal with. My concern is that people who loose a tremendous amount of weight are not changing enough of themselves to become emotionally healthy. It is certainly easier...
I’ve been thinking lately about a comment an overweight client made in an offhand way that seems to capture the intense emotions women have about their and other women’s bodies. She mentioned that while shopping she’d seen a middle-aged woman with a “good figure” who was wearing short shorts. Her first reaction was envy that a woman in her 50s still looked so trim and “like a teenager.” However, when my client looked more closely, she admitted to experiencing “enormous satisfaction” that the woman had some cellulite on her highly visible thighs. My client went on to say that she felt terrible wishing cellulite on someone, but that that emotion was better than the self-hate that overwhelmed her looking at the woman’s seemingly perfect legs. In that moment of “satisfaction,” my client could finally quash the hate she felt toward her body by finding fault with that of another. I would...
Attending an event when you’re feeling crummy about your body can be highly stressful. You may refuse to go, waver back and forth on a decision, engage in a shopping frenzy to find the exact right thing to wear, or say yes and be filled with dread. The occasion might be a wedding, anniversary, birthday party, or some other family gathering that’s bound to include all the relatives. Or a high school or college reunion or get together with a group of colleagues or old friends. The big worry is how you’ll be judged if you’re above average size or if you’ve lost a major amount of weight regained it. You feel badly about yourself because you believe that people with think badly of you because of your largeness. This belief is partially accurate in that there may be people at the event who are judgmental or obsessed with thinness who...
Once again, I’m grateful for the messages boards of Diet Survivors (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dietsurvivors) and Food and Feelings (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings) for giving me ideas for my blogs, this time on the difference between feeling fat and being fat. As a person with dysregulated eating and/or distorted body image, when you feel fat, you’re describing eating or believing you’ve eaten too much, being bloated or stuffed, and/or experiencing your clothes as tight, making it seem as if you are too large for them. Feeling fat does not necessarily correspond with weight or being fat. At 102 pounds, you can feel fat from “normal” eating, overeating or wearing clothes that are too small. Yes, feeling fat, a subjective, internal experience, can be associated with being fat, an external one. However, as a nonfat person, you don’t have the actual sensations of carrying around excess weight, being judged, stared at, stigmatized, or discriminated against because of your...
As we get older, most of us put on weight or have body shifts. If you’ve been slender most of your life, it can come as quite a shock to try on a garment you haven’t worn in a while only to find that it no longer fits. Or you may realize that you’re now more comfortable in a larger size than you previously wore, but find no major change on the scale. Either situation may generate an uncharacteristic, new focus on food and weight, even when you’ve not been previously concerned about them. Some people who’ve never had eating or weight problems make the transition to a larger clothing size and higher scale number fairly easily. They figure they’ve been fortunate for a long time and attribute body changes to age, decreased activity, and hormones. They may watch what they eat a bit more carefully and cut back somewhat on...
In her new book, Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting, Gina Kolata puts forth a version of set point theory, maintaining that for mostly biological reasons, the body has a natural weight that it will return to again and again. She presents case studies and scientific evidence based on research that the body “fails” at dieting because it simply cannot drop below a minimum weight. If she is right, how can you learn to accept your so-called set point—when you’re eating both “normally” and nutritiously—even if you wish it were lower? The fact is, even if you can’t change your body, you can always change your mind. Many heavy people get on with life and don’t become obsessed with losing weight or being fat. They know they’re large, might or might not aim for fitness, and weight is not the focal point of...
Not everyone feels the same way about their appearance. Some people could care less what they wear and how they look. They’re too busy with other things to fuss about clothes, have low self-esteem, or are depressed and lack the interest or energy to make a big deal about appearance. Other people are obsessed with how they look—striving for a perfect body, spending oodles of time and money on the right clothes, unable to leave the house without taking their appearance into account. Some of these people, as well, may suffer from low self-esteem and only feel good about themselves when they think they look their best. In the middle of the continuum are people who have a reasonable pride in appearance, but don’t go overboard . Much of attitude about appearance comes from what we learned in childhood. Think about how your parents viewed their looks. If you had a...
Whether you’re learning to legalize foods and enjoying them for the first time (or the first time in a long time) or are putting on weight because you’re not paying attention to your food intake, your clothes may be getting tighter. A waistband digging into your belly, a zipper that won’t quite close, or pant legs that bind your thighs all can lead to physical discomfort. And if you’re someone engaged in ongoing battle with food and weight, snug clothes can bring on feelings such as shame, disappointment, and panic as well. People put on weight for a variety of reasons, including inability to exercise, aging, food allergies, medication, vacation, “the holidays,” and hormonal changes. “Normal” eaters might be a bit frustrated, surprised or perplexed by putting on a few pounds, but most take it in stride without an intense reaction. They might try cutting back on treats, increasing exercise, talking...
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