We have a weight stigma problem, not a weight problem
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Schools, doctors, the food industry, and the federal government often unintentionally perpetuate the lie that our size has a greater impact on our health than any other factor. In fact, we know that health is influenced by many factors: genetics, our environment, medical care, social factors, and behavior.
Yet the one-size-fits-all dieting solution we are offered for this manufactured problem (i.e. our size)—by these entities with whom we place our valuable trust—only serves to distract us from the real issues of toxic weight stigma, poverty, and oppression by demanding that we worship at the altar of willpower and personal responsibility.
An analogy: let’s say you own a van, and it’s running great. Everything works, the check engine light is off, it’s undamaged. But everywhere you go, it’s hard to park. All the spaces are for compact cars. There are signs everywhere with pictures of Miatas, and advertisements telling you how much happier you’ll be if you convert your Dodge Caravan into a Ferrari F150.
Rather than question the validity of this proposition or address the fact that you have been made to believe that your van is inherently wrong, doesn’t belong, and is doomed to break down at any moment, let’s make it your fault when the prescription of less gas and more miles doesn’t magically transform your van into a vehicle fit for Nascar… and all in 30 days, of course.
This is a complex and layered problem, but here is what you need to know: fatness doesn’t predict longevity except at statistical extremes, body mass index (BMI) is not a valuable and accurate health measure, fat is not the root cause of most disease, and weight loss alone does not often improve health.
If these statements feel counter to everything you thought you knew about weight, you’re not alone.
Damaging myths about the shameful moral failings and the dire health consequences of fatness are largely the result of money, politics, and cultural bias.
The real issue at hand is toxic weight stigma and the impact of living with inequality—not the numbers on the scale. It is possible to be fat and healthy. It is possible to be fat and unhealthy. It is also possible to be thin and unhealthy. Yet we learn implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—from a very young age that our size is a proxy for our health. Or worse yet, that our size is a proxy for our worth, health be damned.
The holidays are fast approaching, which is a time when many people feel particularly anxious about their bodies. Many people will resolve to commit—or recommit—to losing weight “once and for all” come January. As an eating disorder survivor myself, for over a decade, I did too.
It is not my or anyone’s job to suggest what someone else should do or not do with their own body. I fully understand the desire to lose fat in a society where the rewards for doing so impact our professional careers, relationships, medical care, sense of belonging, and just about every other facet of our daily lives.
And I fully acknowledge the fact that I write this from my own place of thin privilege.
But what I do hope is that we can approach the year’s end with less body shame, more compassion for ourselves and others, and a commitment to disentangling our own biases related to weight, health, and self-worth.
We are being sold a harmful solution to a misconstrued problem. We owe it to ourselves, our friends, our families, and our kids to identify the real problem—weight stigma and inequality—and resolve together to direct our energies away from weight loss for weight loss’s sake and towards doing the things that bring us alive.
Sources:
Bacon, L, Aphramor, L. Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. Nutr J 10,9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9.
Bacon L, Aphramor L. Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books; 2014.
NCHHSTP Social Determinants of Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/socialdeterminants/faq.html. Published March 21, 2014.
O’Hara L, Taylor J. What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift. SAGE Open. April 2018. doi:10.1177/2158244018772888