Fat

I watched a show on PBS last night called, “Fat: What No One is Telling You“.  I thought it was a pretty interesting show, and one that many people might have a few things to teach many of us. 

From the website:

FAT: What No One Is Telling You explores the myriad psychological, physiological and environmental factors that can make it so tough to shed pounds and keep them off. In this documentary, Executive producer Naomi Boak and producer/director Tom Spain, both Emmy Award honorees, share new scientific knowledge about hunger, eating, and human metabolic operation. This film also explains our psychological responses to food, and shows how external pressures (such as oversized restaurant portions and the unending barrage of food advertisement) make fighting fat so difficult, both on the personal and national levels.

FAT’s engaging personal narratives create snapshots of our national struggle with obesity:

  • Meet Rosie Dehli, a Minnesota grandmother, battling to get fit so she can enjoy an active, playful relationship with her grandchild.
  • Meet Mary Dimino, an actress and comedian, in New York, NY, who exemplifies the hard work people must do to lose pounds and stay healthy once they’ve been obese.
  • Meet America Bracho, a public-health professional in Santa Ana, California, who is educating families about nutrition while encouraging her Latino community’s children to move, both in school and at home.
  • Meet Rocky Tayeh, a Brooklyn, New York teenager grappling with the very personal (and highly criticized) solution of undergoing Lap-Band surgery.
  • Meet Dr. Lee Kaplan of Harvard University Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, who is a clinician, researcher and above all an empathetic warrior in the battle against obesity

The voices of these and other real Americans tell the story of the biological barriers, cultural habits, and economic realities that contribute to our nation’s expanding waistline.

Although I am thin (not as thin as I was 20 years ago, but heck, I’m 41…what do you expect?), there are many people in my family who are not.  I grew up with this issue.  My mother yo-yo dieted all throughout my childhood, to the point where I honestly don’t notice when people I know and love gain or lose 20 or 30 pounds.   If you’ve been working hard at losing weight, and wondering why I don’t say something to congratulate you, I haven’t noticed.  If you’ve fallen off of your diet, and you think I’m judging you because you’ve gained? I’m not.  I haven’t noticed.  I am SO USED to seeing peoples’ bodies change, I just don’t see it until it’s mighty drastic.  Like 20 or 30 lbs isn’t drastic, but no. Not drastic enough for me to notice.   It wasn’t just my mother who dieted when I was growing up.  My uncle dieted his whole life, and finally had to have weight loss surgery when his doctor told him that his heart was enlarged, and losing weight quickly was his best chance at living another year.  My grandmother has dieted every day of her adult life.  She has never been larger than a size 2 (today’s sizes…she used to be a size 6, but vanity sizing has changed that).  I suspect that her excessive dieting has played a roll in her breaking her hip at age 40, though the cigarettes she smoked were certainly a pretty big factor as well.  Several years ago, in the hospital after suffering a heart attack, my bony tiny grandmother asked her bony tiny sister to check her chart, to see how much weight she had lost while flat on her back.  When told she had lost a pound and a half, she was dissapointed, she had hoped for more, that she would have been able to ‘do better’.  The last time I was visiting her house while my uncle was there as well, we were looking at pictures from my cousin’s wedding.  My uncle’s ex-wife was in the pictures.  She who tortured my uncle mercilessly about his weight throughout their marriage.  She has gained quite a bit of weight over the years, and my grandma tsk tskd, and said, “I never thought SHE’D give up the fight.”  Wow.  And for so many people, that’s what it is.  A fight.  I also have a sister who had a (thankfully) brief run-in with anorexia when she first went to college, and who still tends to skip meals and get pretty thin when she’s under stress.   Why am I telling you this?  So you’ll understand that this issue has affected my family on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute level for as long as I can remember.  That’s why this show really struck home with me, even though no one I know would think that I have a ‘weight problem’.

Watching the show, hearing the people talk about their struggle, was really sad.  So many people think that the answer is weakness, that all you need to do to lose weight is to eat less, and exercise more.  They don’t understand the complicated games that our bodies play trying to keep the fat in place, don’t understand that willpower is not the issue.  One doctor explained it in such a clear manner, I was really impressed.  He said, “Try to run up 6 flights of stairs, without changing your breathing.  You’ll do fine at first, you can control it…that’s willpower.  But at some point, the body is going to step in, and you will be breathing heavily, there is no way to control it.  That’s the battle of willpower vs. the subconscious, and that’s what people who diet excessively are going through.”

There was one woman, an actress and stand up comic, who has lost a LOT of weight, through diet and exercise.  She’s the one in the picture up top, in her ‘before’ jacket.  She watches her calories, and exercises 3 hours a day.  That’s like a part time job right there, 3 hours a day.  Heck, if I were doing weights and sit-ups and push-ups and a fast walk on the treadmill for 3 hours a day, I could eat whatever I want, and still be a rock.  But because she spent years as an obese person, because her body still has all of those fat cells craving food and trying to efficiently store energy away in case of a famine, she still weighs more than I do.  Where’s the justice in that?  Is that because she’s morally weak, or that she gives in to her cravings, while I do not?  Well, you all know that THAT’S not true, me who ate almost an entire day’s worth of calories in a bag of chips the other day. And I certainly didn’t skip any meals the rest of the day either.

So, the issue here is physical, it’s metabolic, it’s psychological, it’s social…it’s a sedentary lifestyle, fast food, genetics, comfort eating, family issues, etc. etc. etc.  It’s an issue that is haunting so many people every day (like the oatmeal commercial, where the people have their scales chained to their ankles while Willy Nelson sings, “You are always on my mind…”) and so much money and time is spent on it…think of what we could do with our lives if we weren’t worried about our weight.  It’s such a diversion from productivity.

To those folks out there who are naturally thin, who don’t need to diet and exercise three hours a day in order to stay healthy (I’m not talking being skinny, just healthy), I would say, hold off your judgement of those folks who are fat.   They are just as strong as you are, have just as much self control and willpower.

By the way, the doctors on the show were pretty interesting.  They had a lot to say about the physiology behind weight, about nerves and neurons in your gut and how for some folks,  they tell you that you’re hungry all of the time.  They had things to say about our culture, about our lifestyle (like how many people only see exercise as usefull for weight loss, not for general health).  They were compassionate people, looking for a solution.

Lastly, here are a few things that the people being interviewed in the show said that stayed with me.  One young man, just out of high school, on a liquid diet, living next door to a 24 hour Dunkin’ Donuts, says to himself…”I will not eat tonight.  I’m going to be skinny, and then, everyone will love me.”    Or the middle aged woman who said that there’s never a day that goes by that someone doesn’t remind her that she’s fat.  She said, “I don’t know how someone could not know they’re fat, but somehow, people always make sure to remind me.”  Ugh.

16 Comments

  • Ginger

    That was a very good post. Why can’t we learn to accept our bodies as they are? And I’m not talking about morbidly obesity that affects people’s health. We are living in a culture of thinness but so few of us would qualify as thin. I wish I could be happy with my size (and I’m not overweight) but I am constantly dieting because I also like to eat. I have yet to find that healthy balance.

  • Py Korry

    Great post! Bringing the personal stories helped to illustrate the biology, sociology and psychology of eating and body weight. We were talking about diets this morning at work and how a new study on effective diets found that none of them worked. Seems like one of those “no duh” studies, huh.

  • Ml

    Who gets to decide exactly what “thin” is anyway? You brought up a good point in your post and that is, thin does not equate to being healthy and, of course, neither does morbid obesity. Perhaps the focus should be shifted to having a healthy strong body instead of striving to be skinny.

  • V-Grrrl

    Weight is complicated. My mother had six children, including one at 40, and never dieted, never smoked, never exercised, and never weighed more than 120 pounds except when pregnant.

    I inherited her tall lanky frame and for most of my adult life my weight ranged from thin to healthy. In the last 2-3 years, I gained about 20 pounds. I take medication that makes it easy for me to overeat, I’m over 40 and definitely see my metabolism slowing, and I just seem to have a hard time balancing my diet and my activity level.

    I refuse to “diet” but I did read the book Mindless Eating, which revealed subtle ways environment and habit influence calorie intake. Very interesting book.

  • Cherry

    As I often say… “STUPID SOCIETY!”

    My mom has been overweight for most of my life. She never lost that baby weight, and pretty much always looked pregnant. Now with Osteoperosis she is about 5-6 inches shorter then she was before, both hips have been replaced and she has lost a lot of weight. But the doctors keep telling her to keep loosing for her heart’s health.

    Living in a family where food = love, it is not easy to learn portion control. I give it up to my mom for now weighing less then me, but I worry about her nutrition more then her weight.

  • Starshine

    Oh, that last paragraph is so sad! It makes me wonder how we could change our culture if we really loved our neighbor and showed a little compassion.

    When I lived in Spain, the common greeting there was, “Hola, guapa!” (hello, good-looking!). After a year of that, I came home to the US honestly believing it and feeling really good about myself. It didn’t take long for me to start missing that kind of mindset, once I got back to the States.

  • Beenzzz

    I agree that we should change our mind set from “skinny” to healthy. Watching what you eat and exercising is a good thing. Now, going overboard and not eating at all and exercising excessively will just put you in greater danger down the road. Like you mentioned, your grandma and osteoporosis.
    I used to be REALLY hard on myself. Now, I think I have a more realistic and positive view of who I am. I just want to be healthy and I want more than anything to retain my intelligence. After all, it is your wit and wisdom that surpasses your physical appearance in the golden years.

  • CuriosityKiller

    It is so sad how much women revolve their lives around their weight.

    “check her chart, to see how much weight she had lost while flat on her back. When told she had lost a pound and a half, she was dissapointed, she had hoped for more, that she would have been able to ‘do better’.”

    That’s so something my family would do — what? after all these pain, and I’ve only lost a POUND? That’s not faaaaaaaaaaiiiir!

  • hellomelissa

    oh, j, weight is SUCH a touchy subject for everyone, isn’t it? i try not to stress about it, but when health and quality of life become intertwined with fat… it’s so hard.

    my little daily philosophy that keeps me going is “move more, eat less.” easier said than done.

  • Heidi

    Very good post, I saw part of this last night. It was interesting how one lady who is an advocate for obese people (the one who informed doctors) was heavy and healthy, her sister who was skinny and never touched an evil substance in her life was dealt all of the terminal family genes. This post and many others is exactly why I nominated you for a bunch of “blogger’s choice awards”(like three or so, pop culture, parenting and best blog host). Vote for J!

    http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com

  • L.

    Well, I got in major blog-land trouble last year when I responded to MIM`s “False Advertising” piece about weight gain in a marriage, so I had better just keep my mouth shut on the whole issue — I`ve already said waaaaay too much.

    I`m leaving a comment merely because what you said is true: I hardly ever comment on your blog anymore. But I do still read it — really!!!

  • ann adams

    Agreed.

    Thanks for your comment. Did you know you’re nominated under Blog Hosts? I just happened to stumble onto it and voted for you of course. I’m just not sure why you’re in a category with type pad and word press.

  • deja pseu

    Thanks for writing about this so thoughtfully! I didn’t see the PBS special, but this has been a lifelong issue for me as well. I grew up in a family where weight was a kind of moral barometer: I was told that my chubbiness was a sign of weakness, laziness, etc. When people who have never struggled with their weight (or have devoted their lives to the pursuit of slenderness) say “it’s just a matter of willpower”, I ask them if they’ve ever known anyone who was very thin and struggled in vain to gain weight. Invariably they have, and I ask “well don’t you think it can work in the other direction, that for some of us, our bodies fight to hold onto weight?” I’ve found that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge this might be the case, or even if they agree that for some people it might be just as hard to lose as it is for some to gain, the response is almost always “but you have to keep trying!” Sigh.

  • J

    deja pseu, my father is one of those folks…couldn’t gain weight until he got to be about 50. He said that he hated being so darned skinny, but he had a lot of trouble doing anything about it. My mom has the opposite problem. I guess I’m lucky to be in the middle, and would be considered ‘average’.

    Growing up with it, even though I haven’t had to live it really, I KNOW the struggle, and that it’s not a matter of ‘trying’. ugh. So patronizing.