I went to a talk about what it means to be healthy no matter what our body size and understanding fat stigma. The presenter explained her research to us starting with the idea of healthism. Healthism is a term used to explain the idea that health is a “moral good” and those who experience health challenges are “less than” and not worthy of full participation in society and they are to blame for their plight. This idea behind healthism sounds absurd, but this really is the attitude among most of our society towards unhealthy people. The thin ideal and fat stigma all started around the 1800s. It is tied to Puritanical movements as well as with slavery. One of the ways that we tried to push white supremacy was by degrading black bodies, which by contrast, made white bodies seem like the better thing. This was even more pushed by elevating skinny bodies as well. Black bodies were typically built bigger and so to divide black and white bodies even more than they already were, white people dieted and became skinnier to set themselves apart from slaves even more. This was done, not in health, but simply to make themselves as different from black bodies as possible so that they could make the case that slaves were not people at all.
When BMI (Body Mass Index) was created as a way to indicate obesity or underweight in people, this only increased the fat stigma and thin ideal that was already growing. In a study that the presenter researched, it turns out that people who are considered obese do not necessarily need to diet. In fact, research has shown that people who start a diet will almost always relapse and end up even more obese and less mentally healthy than before they started the diet. What this means is that even BMI is not necessarily a good indicator of health. There are many factors to health and just because someone has a larger body, does not necessarily make them unhealthy overall. In the same way, a skinny body does not necessarily signify optimum health. The presenter told us about social determinants of health. This is a list of factors like environment and childhood that could play a role in deterring or strengthening one’s health. This proves that health is not always individually controlled, in fact only 38% of our health is individually controlled, meaning that health cannot be a “moral good”. Still, the problem of weight loss at any cost remains. Think of the people we watch in entertainment. Nearly all of them are very skinny because that is the ideal that we call for in our entertainers. The point that the presenter was trying to make with her research was that not everyone needs to be skinny and even bigger people can actually be very healthy. If we keep encouraging the skinny ideal then it will continue to cause people to feel self-conscious and unworthy to the point that they become unhealthy. The presenter said it would be better to gain the weight than cause your body and mind that much stress. She isn’t saying don’t take care of your body and never exercise or anything, but she does take more of a “let your body tell you what it needs” stance. So, if you feel hungry, eat and don’t feel guilty for enjoying the pleasures of food, however, if you continue to indulge in a lot of food that isn’t giving your body enough nutrients, then your body will tell you and you’ll make the switch instead of staying sick.