Self-hatred isn't healthy
Nov. 18th, 2013 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livThere's been another round of non-controversy over the use of mannequins with proportions approximating those of average women rather than unusually thin women. Which rather trivial news has been greeted with hysteria over the prospect that the mannequins might promote unhealthy lifestyles.
I find it completely baffling, this idea that even the most mildly positive image of anyone who isn't thin is going to destroy everybody's health. I personally am not convinced by the evidence for the view that being fat causes diabetes and heart disease and cancer, but I appreciate this is conventional wisdom. Even accepting that correlation, for one thing it seems like the only body shapes that don't provoke this health panic are those that are much thinner than the proportions recommended by those who are convinced that weight is the major factor in long-term health. This round it's size 16 mannequins (ie about the median dress size for women in the UK), other times it's been "plus-sized" models who are still thinner than 90% of adult women. And for a second thing, vaguely positive images of non-thin people don't cause people to gain weight and most certainly don't cause serious long-term health conditions. And we're talking really tiny amounts of positivity: a plastic statue of a woman standing in a shop window and wearing fashionable clothes is hardly an aspirational role model. I am incapable of imagining a woman deciding, oh, they have mannequins of about my body type in the window of Debenhams, I won't bother doing any more exercise or maintaining a healthy diet any more.
I've seen two really good, really personal responses laying out the consequences of everybody rushing around with their hair on fire whenever anybody not extremely thin appears in the media.innerbrat: Yes, it's fucking personal, and rmc28: If feeling miserable and ashamed of my body achieved anything, I'd have been toned and slender long ago
In some ways this applies to me too: I'm somewhat thinner than Rachel and somewhat fatter than Debi, and considerably less fit and active than either, (but more active than quite a lot of people who are much thinner than me). But I'm definitely still in the category of people who are not allowed to see any positive images of anyone who looks even remotely like me, because if I get the slightest possible notion of maybe liking my body, I'm going to contract of all kinds of terrible diseases and be a drain on society's resources. Or sometimes it's the other way round, well-meaning people post inspirational images of people who are positioned as challenging body type norms, who are confident and gorgeous in spite of being fat, and yet are considerably thinner than I am. Which sort of boils down to, maybe it's just about acceptable to be a little bit bigger than a typical fashion model or film actress, as long as you have absolutely flawless skin and ideal features and most certainly don't have any rolls or folds.
So people are saying that they want to encourage people to be a healthy weight, but in fact the only message allowed is that everybody should aspire to be extremely thin. (I'm not assuming that people with the figures of models are necessarily unhealthy; population statistics don't apply to individuals, and it may well be that the sort of people who succeed as models are rare outliers who are actually very healthy with body fat percentages that would be dangerously low for more typical people.) And not only are we supposed to aspire to be right at the thinnest end of the population distribution, we aren't even allowed to have any sort of self-confidence or positive feelings about our bodies until we reach that goal. Losing weight is really hard work; where's the motivation to do that hard work for the sake of your health if you also hate yourself? It does appear that self-loathing works somewhat well as a motivator for some people, though that's an emotional response I find hard to imagine personally. But it carries with it a whole swathe of major negative psychological effects, almost certainly enough to outweigh any possible benefit from weight loss.
On an indirectly related note,skud has a brilliant and really fascinating rebuttal to the meme that if you can't find clothes to fit, you can "just" make your own.
I find it completely baffling, this idea that even the most mildly positive image of anyone who isn't thin is going to destroy everybody's health. I personally am not convinced by the evidence for the view that being fat causes diabetes and heart disease and cancer, but I appreciate this is conventional wisdom. Even accepting that correlation, for one thing it seems like the only body shapes that don't provoke this health panic are those that are much thinner than the proportions recommended by those who are convinced that weight is the major factor in long-term health. This round it's size 16 mannequins (ie about the median dress size for women in the UK), other times it's been "plus-sized" models who are still thinner than 90% of adult women. And for a second thing, vaguely positive images of non-thin people don't cause people to gain weight and most certainly don't cause serious long-term health conditions. And we're talking really tiny amounts of positivity: a plastic statue of a woman standing in a shop window and wearing fashionable clothes is hardly an aspirational role model. I am incapable of imagining a woman deciding, oh, they have mannequins of about my body type in the window of Debenhams, I won't bother doing any more exercise or maintaining a healthy diet any more.
I've seen two really good, really personal responses laying out the consequences of everybody rushing around with their hair on fire whenever anybody not extremely thin appears in the media.
innerbrat: Yes, it's fucking personal, and rmc28: If feeling miserable and ashamed of my body achieved anything, I'd have been toned and slender long agoIn some ways this applies to me too: I'm somewhat thinner than Rachel and somewhat fatter than Debi, and considerably less fit and active than either, (but more active than quite a lot of people who are much thinner than me). But I'm definitely still in the category of people who are not allowed to see any positive images of anyone who looks even remotely like me, because if I get the slightest possible notion of maybe liking my body, I'm going to contract of all kinds of terrible diseases and be a drain on society's resources. Or sometimes it's the other way round, well-meaning people post inspirational images of people who are positioned as challenging body type norms, who are confident and gorgeous in spite of being fat, and yet are considerably thinner than I am. Which sort of boils down to, maybe it's just about acceptable to be a little bit bigger than a typical fashion model or film actress, as long as you have absolutely flawless skin and ideal features and most certainly don't have any rolls or folds.
So people are saying that they want to encourage people to be a healthy weight, but in fact the only message allowed is that everybody should aspire to be extremely thin. (I'm not assuming that people with the figures of models are necessarily unhealthy; population statistics don't apply to individuals, and it may well be that the sort of people who succeed as models are rare outliers who are actually very healthy with body fat percentages that would be dangerously low for more typical people.) And not only are we supposed to aspire to be right at the thinnest end of the population distribution, we aren't even allowed to have any sort of self-confidence or positive feelings about our bodies until we reach that goal. Losing weight is really hard work; where's the motivation to do that hard work for the sake of your health if you also hate yourself? It does appear that self-loathing works somewhat well as a motivator for some people, though that's an emotional response I find hard to imagine personally. But it carries with it a whole swathe of major negative psychological effects, almost certainly enough to outweigh any possible benefit from weight loss.
On an indirectly related note,
skud has a brilliant and really fascinating rebuttal to the meme that if you can't find clothes to fit, you can "just" make your own.