So a week and a half or so ago I was checking my livejournal, as one does, and I came across an article in a community that calls themselves ed_ucate. "ed" here means "eating disorder". I joined the group a year or so ago, when it became relatively clear to friends of mine in the know that I have disordered eating habits. Anyway, I find the community good in a number of ways. It is helpful, first of all, to read about other people's disordered behaviour and how they deal with it. I also find it quite intriguing from an academic perspective. I am an academic, after all, and I like to read up on medical issues of this caliber (I really should have gone into medicine. Perhaps it's not too late...). I especially enjoy reading about people's perceptions of eating disorders, and reading up on these perceptions and seeing what sort of evidence these perceptions are based on.
Anyway, a week and a half ago, I came across an article written by a German girl with bulimia currently on exchange in Copenhagen. She's 21, so my age, and she was talking about, essentially, her life at the moment. It's not been easy for her of late - she's been feeling bad about not taking all of the opportunities Copenhagen has to offer her, she's struggling with her eating disorder, she's got boyfriend-related worries, etc. But one thing that I noticed in particular was that, in the beginning of her post, she talked about the "good goals" she'd set for herself when she first arrived in Copenhagen a few months ago. Most of these goals were indeed goals that I myself set when I first came to Japan - learn the language, study hard, etc. But one of them gave me pause - "lose weight".
Hmm. I didn't like that. Not at all. And there are reasons for that. So, I present to you all now the looooooooong rant I posted on livejournal that day about this. Let me know what you think.
There was a post over at ed_ucate earlier today from a woman of 21 (my age) who is struggling quite a bit with a whole manner of things. Obviously, since ed_ucate is an eating-disorder-based community, her ED was one of the primary things that she was struggling with. Not that I think anybody with an ED doesn't struggle with it, but anyway.
One thing that bothered me in particular about this person is that she said, fairly early on in her post (and it was a pretty long post) that her BMI fluctuates between 25 and 35, and at the moment is at around 30. For those unfamiliar with the BMI... I encourage you to continue being unfamiliar with it, because if ever there has been a more bullshitty excuse for a measure of body physique, I have yet to find it. However, 30 is considered overweight. And throughout the article it became fairly clear that she is overweight, as it were. At one point she even mentioned how a doctor told her that, while she certainly had symptoms of bulimia, she was too fat to actually be bulimic (and at that can I just say to this doctor, in the most heart-felt way that I can manage, FUCK. YOU.). She also talked about having "good" goals for the next few months, most of which were pretty good (learning another language, studying hard, etc), but one of these goals was "losing weight".
This is a tricky situation. Obviously when one is trying to get over an eating disorder, thoughts about losing weight really should not exist. But if a person is actually overweight, then what?
There are two related problems here. The first is that some would follow the beliefs of that, *ahem*, "doctor", and think that proper eating disorders are not possible in overweight people, unless of course that eating disorder is binge-eating disorder (yay! *waves the BED flag*). The other is that close friends and relatives of the overweight ED-sufferer in question will, while being concerned (hopefully) about the ED, think that maybe the ED can be re-wired in such a way that the sufferer can lose weight.
Either way, there is this general idea that losing weight is of extreme importance here, DESPITE the eating disorder.
It occurred to me, while I was trying to think up a suitable reply for this poor woman, that her struggles would be made so much easier if losing weight wasn't an issue for her. But sadly, it is an issue. Not for any logical, valid, important reason (like, say, because her health is in actual danger - in fact, she seems to consume so little every day that I'd almost be prepared to say that the fact that she is overweight is saving her from dying of starvation. Note the "almost"), but because everybody around her - her parents, the "doctor", and society at large, is telling her that she should. Diversity doesn't seem to apply when it comes to body mass. As soon as a person is overweight, the all-around belief is: "You, my friend, are too fat. Conform!"
Does anybody else think, in this day and age, where diversity is supposed to be encouraged and celebrated, that this still-completely-acceptable way of thinking is INCREDIBLY STUPID?
The part that really broke my heart was when she said something along the lines of: well, as it stands, all my life I've thought that if only I could lose the weight and become thin, then I could become prettier/more loveable/more acceptable. How am I supposed to completely change that life-long belief?
Indeed. How is she supposed to change that life-long belief? I think it broke my heart because for so long, I thought exactly the same thing. Hell, quite a lot of the time I STILL think exactly the same thing. And when I say "so long", I mean, like, since the beginning of high school. So, 12. Probably before then too, I don't know. And was it my fault that I thought that way? I don't know. But I definitely don't think that the people who cared for me are entirely blameless, nor are the people who care for any overweight child, who think that telling the child shit like "you'd be so pretty if you lost weight" is helping them. In saying that you are indirectly saying that the child is currently ugly, and the only way for them to not be ugly is to be thin. Please, carers, why not go one step further, and roll out the eating disorder red carpet for them? Help them to take those first few tentatives steps into the world of constant. food. obsession, and a complete inability to think about anything, really, except food, and create a final result: a young adult who is probably fatter than ever before.
I'm sorry. This sort of talk makes me think really angry things about the people who, had they been more accepting of me the way I am, have stopped me from being controlled by something that I should be able to control. Just think, if they had said to me "Gillian, you're fantastic just the way you are. Do not change who you are. At all." rather than "Gillian, you would be so much more amazing if you were just a little bit thinner", or "Gillian! You've lost 5kg since I last saw you, right? You look SO much prettier now! Keep it up!", I could, quite possibly, not be in this hell that stops me from having ANY confidence to do ANYTHING, AT ALL, EVER.
Am I angry? TOO RIGHT I AM! This obesity stigmatism is the STUPIDEST, most UNFAIR, most INCREDIBLY HORRIBLE THING EVER. So many skinny people out there think that by promoting weight loss and healthy eating and exercising around the clock, that they are helping us poor, disadvantaged, ugly, helpless tubby people to lead better, more fulfilling lives. Would you like to know instead, you people, what you are promoting? You are promoting prejudice. You are promoting hate. You are promoting shame. You are promoting disgust. You are promoting an attitude whereby conforming is the only solution. You know what? Go away. You don't give a flying toss about our health. If you did then you would spare a second to realise how your propaganda is making fad diets, over-exercising, eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression acceptable, and you would see that what you're doing isn't improving our health at all. What you care about is that not everybody in the world is the same as you, and you want to change that, because fat people are not aesthetically pleasing enough for you. You're bullies. Plain and simple.
I'm through with believing that the only way that I can ever find love, be successful, and have a happy life is through fruitless dieting that I know from a literal lifetime of experience is going to do Sweet Fanny Adam. I'm through with all of the pretentious talk that most women seem to think is totally normal and sociable (you know what I mean. "Oh, you've lost so much weight! You look terrific!" "You think so? Thank you!" "Oh, I envy you, I have these rolls all over me and I just want them to go!" "Oh, I know, me too. I recommend this new thing I'm trying. Basically I eat 20kcal a day, feel like total crap all the time, and have barely enough energy in the evening to give my husband a decent knobbing. The weight's been just flying off me!" "That's amazing!"). I'm going to congratulate people if they lose weight and they are proud of themselves. But the second they start giving me weight-loss advice, I am going to throw the packet of biscuits that I will probably be eating right in their face, then be bitterly disappointed because those biscuits would have been tasty, and now would have face all over them. I am going to walk confidently with my skinny friends, knowing that, despite my fatness, and indeed maybe a little because of it, I bring a uniqueness into this world that cannot be matched by anybody else. I am going to believe that I am just as deserving of love, success, and happiness as any skinny person out there.
To tell you the truth, I probably am not actually going to do any of these things for a good long time, because I'm still riddled with the doubt and insecurity that comes from a lifetime of knowing beyond any question of a doubt that I am too fat to be considered deserving of any of these nice things. But hopefully, some day, I'll get there. I live for that dream.
This was the reply I ended up posting to the woman on ed_ucate :
I know exactly what you mean, because I have been there (and I mean, seriously. I've been there). There is such stigmatisation over being overweight, and it is a ridiculous, unfounded kind of stigmatisation. The only possible argument there is for being overweight being a bad thing, is if some health-related deficiency always occurs as a result, and many studies are showing that this is simply not the case. It is your actions, rather than your physicality (as well as other factors arguably out of a person's control, like environment, genes, gender, ethnicity, age, that sort of thing) that aid a person's health. Which is why there are so many incredibly fit, agile, healthy fat people out there, and so many disgustingly unhealthy thin people.
As for being thin making a person ok/loveable/worthy... well, as I said, I absolutely know what you mean, and until very recently I very firmly believed that there was no way that I would ever find love or be successful or be anything else that I want to be, while I remain fat. But I've gotten involved with a community on LJ that's really been helping me change that opinion. I won't lie - right now, a lot of the time, I still believe that I would find love and be more successful if I was thinner. But when I realise that thinking that is absolutely wrong and that in saying it I'm selling myself drastically short, the feeling that that realisation brings about is unspeakably wonderful. Funnily enough, when I do think like that, and when I can do things like tell my mum (in my head, of course) to go away and that I don't have to spend my life being ruled by how much I weigh, my ED seems to be much better.
This is merely a suggestion, of course. But I think, particularly for us overweight people with EDs, that it definitely merits thinking about.
Thanks for reading guys. <3
No comments:
Post a Comment