The Obesity Myth

It's been an extremely busy month for me at Lingua Espresso, as well as at school. So I just finished reading a book that has been on my list for several months now: The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health by Paul Campos. The book is actually four years old, but I hadn't heard of it until I read Potatoes Not Prozac and became involved with author Kathleen DesMaisons' Your Last Diet program (which ISN'T a diet at all). Hmmmm, wonder why I hadn't heard of it? After all, if nothing else, it's a ground-breaking, muck-racking take on the American diet industry. Well, after reading it, a few possibilities certainly occurred to me.

For example, could it be that a book chock-full of empirical studies that show that most of the hype over weight and weight loss in America is a load of crap would not be popular in a media culture that rakes in the bucks by feeding the fear and loathing of most of weight-worried America? Surely not. In any case, as I researcher, I was impressed by the data the author had gathered and by the points that he painstakingly made. On a more personal level and as a woman, I was reminded of the role weight has played in my own life, a role that has been almost totally negative. And because a lifetime of weight delusions, resentments, frustrations, and anger were stirred by the book, I would not even presume to try to do a complete, dispassionate review of it. But I would like to point out the points that stood out to me:

Fun Fact One: Crunching the numbers reveals that it's healthier to be at least 75 pounds "overweight" than five pounds underweight.

Fun Fact Two: There are many "thin," sedentary people who are much less healthy than active "fat" people. Unless you are grossly, grossly overweight for your height (5'5", 500 lbs), you don't have any built-in health risks. Oh, unless you are smoking/drinking/stressing about your life/weight.

Fun Fact Three: America ideals have been getting smaller, even though America as a whole has been gaining weight for about 100 years now. Could that be because our culture has evolved around the office desk rather than the pick and the hoe? I mean, the people who want flat tummies might try picking cotton in 100 degree heat, but somehow I think they're looking for an easier fix. Besides, the harder to get, the better to have. We have LOTS of food now, and don't even have to chase it before we eat it. Gwyneth Paltrow is quoted as saying that if she looked like she does now100 years ago, she'd have been a freak and no one would have thought her beautiful, just skinny and unfed.

Fun Fact Four: How many Americans diet because they want to be "healthier." Not many. Most of us diet because we want to look good and in this culture, that means chasing a certain ideal, even if it is totally ridiculous given age, activity, genetic factors, and gender (it is usually hard for a 35 year-old woman of any build to naturally look like a 14 year-old boy).

Fun Fact Five: Someone is making a killing off of "The Diet Wars." Well, lots of someones. In everything from clothes to makeup to gym memberships to cosmetic surgery.

Fun Fact Six: The author is an average American who has gained and lost, gained and lost, like many of us over the years according to age, stress, etc. And his book is dedicated to his little girl who he would rather see grow up in a world where 2-year-olds don't worry about being fat and where a smart, loving human being might actually be valued for those qualities, not a "good" number on the scale or the BMI chart.

Fun Fact Seven: White women are the largest group of dieters, the most terrified of being "fat." Why? Because in politically correct America, you can't judge and eliminate by race or gender anymore. It takes money for all those gym memberships and all that organic food, so the blue collar classes and "people of color" tend to be "fatter." Yay! Weight has become a class issue!

And those are just the points that most stood out to me: the author makes several others that are worth chewing on. In the end, he believes that the only way to win "The Diet Wars," is to stop fighting them. Because studies also show that everyone who diets and losses weight generally gains it all back, plus more. And while I agree, he too notes how hard it is to follow the maxim "to thine own self be true" when everyone around you is convinced that the buck-naked Emperor really IS wearing clothes.

My Christian mother used to often say, in an ironic echo of some Daoist philosophy, "Be in the world, not of the world." Translated, this means "be yourself and do what you KNOW is right, no matter WHAT anyone else thinks/does/says." Easy to say, hard to do. Sometimes easier when you have hard facts on your side, like the ones in this book. Besides, my heart sometimes breaks not just for the unhappy, self-hating girl and woman that I was (even when the photos say I was really thin or slim). And it breaks for every beautiful woman I hear say that she's fat, or ugly, or that she just knows love would come if her upper arms were more toned.

I recommend this book as a good read for anyone: thin, fat, and in-between because . . . the truth is interesting and makes you question your beliefs and those of the people around you. Questions are good for the soul. May you grow fat with truth ;-)