A War You Don’t Realize You’re Fighting

          

        Thud. Thud. Thud.

           

     Clang. Clang. Clang.

 

     Constant and rhythmic noises resound and set a pace for everyone to follow. These are the sounds of humans at war. There are no swords or shields present on this battlefield, however, only exercise equipment and barbells--because the enemy must be fought from within.

Fat wears the target in this fight, and has done so since this epic battle began over twenty years ago. Originally, people thought they were becoming more health conscious by exercising more. In reality, they were feeding an obsession. What started as a push to change one’s health has now turned into a 20 billion-dollar industry that includes weight loss supplements, commercialized exercise routines and even surgical procedures meant to alter the way one’s body processes food.

            

      A number of reasons are now cited for why people exercise. Some do so to perform well in organized sports while others do it to maintain their health and wellness. But more often than not, the reason that someone regularly visits the gym is his or her overall appearance. Most individuals believe if they do not exercise, their body will start to expand, dimples will form, and the giggling flesh of their behinds will remove the possibility of ever finding a significant other. In other words, body fat forms and infringes upon these individuals’ right to pursue happiness.

            

     And what is done when something infringes upon the rights of humans? Humans declare war. This is just what has been done with the soft tissue that occurs naturally to insulate and protect the human body. Rather than understand fat and its true nature, humans have labeled a natural occurrence as a contagious, disease-causing substance, capable of mass destruction. In so doing, humans have left themselves with little choice other than to combat fat with life-altering decisions, chemicals, and even physical devices. In layman’s terms, the human race has declared war on fat and has endangered our ability to truly understand what good health practices are.

 

     “Three to six miles. Five to six days a week. Lift for a half-hour to an hour every week. But I haven’t done anything since October because of school.”

 

We sit, aiding the enemy at a sushi restaurant. She sips a cold beer while I inhale the steam from my piping hot green tea. Elaborately created rolls of raw fish sit before us awaiting our clumsy hands. The above quote is in response to my question: How often are you going to the gym right now? This is a familiar topic of conversation between Britney Hamilton, Britney as I call her, and me. Especially, while at a restaurant where added calories are at the ready to march toward our receptive lips.

            

     Do you feel bad you’re not going right now?

 

Now Britney responds, “Yes, but then again, people have recently been telling me I look skinnier. Probably because I’ve lost muscle rather than fat, but it makes me feel better about not going.”

 

     This is the phenomenon that makes me feel this conversation is worth remembering. When I first asked my friend about her gym-going habits, she answered with confidence in her voice, proud of her accomplishments. But when I asked my follow up, and discovered her current presence at the gym is lacking, Britney felt compelled to tell me people still say she appears skinnier. More striking, however, is the missed gym time has caused Britney to start developing notions of her body undergoing rapid change, thus her comment that her skinny appearance is due to a loss of muscle and not fat; this being just under month after she began attending the gym irregularly.

 

     There is, of course, no reason for Britney to feel bad for having missed time at the gym. She is a young, stunning woman with an obvious athletic figure. Recently, she participated in an Asian cultural fest in which she did a considerable amount of rhythmic gyrating to the music of East Asia, an activity worthy of burning a slew of calories. And as she mentions, her typical expectation is to attend the gym five to six times per week in order to exercise. She also lifts weights to tone her body and reveal muscle definition. It is safe to say she has fared well through the war. But Britney's response to my question left me wanting to delve further into her thinking.

 

     She specifically used the word skinnier to summarize the comments she had received about her appearance. The word, the antonym to fatter, suggests that when Britney receives a comment about her appearance, she automatically attributes it to the amount of fat present on her body. Her reliance on words like skinnier to describe herself are, in the words of Amy Farrell author of Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture the result of fat stigma derived from material propagated by the weight loss industry. She writes, “The authors of weight loss tracts and the advertisements for weight loss products [articulate] anxiety, scorn, even outrage toward the fat they [promise] to eradicate.” Words like skinny, thin, and sexy, then, are woven into the mesh modern warriors wear beneath the battle armor meant to protect them from the attack of the enemy; similar to the attack masterminded by the sushi laid in front of us.

 

    Before preceding any farther, it is important to clarify that women are not the only stone-throwers in this fight, though in his article Prejudice Against Fat People: Ideology and Self-Interest, Christian Crandall does explain that women may be more responsible for allowing the fear of fat to linger in society. Men have just as many thoughts, opinions, and even insecurities when it comes to body fat. From, “a series of t tests by sex…” Crandall learned, “…that men scored higher than women on Dislike [of fat people]…and slightly higher on Willpower [being responsible for losing weight], [while] women scored notably higher on Fear of Fat than men.” To put these findings in context, women battle fat for fear of what it may do to them, while men battle fat to prove the notion that the presence of body fat is a factor of willpower and only exists because certain soldiers are slacking in the war effort, amassing extra layers of armor and stealing rations from others. These thoughts are, of course, absurd, but many men act as if these reasons are a real justification to dislike fat and those who possess large quantities of it.

 

     Case in point, while at the gym lifting free weights, I struck up a conversation with a man stationed next to me, gripping a set of bulky eighty-pound barbells for dear life. The man was about 5’ 7’, with an athletic build. His stomach was clearly flat and toned, and throbbing veins coursed across his arms creating valleys where sweat could pool.

 

     After a few suave comments to introduce the topic in an unobvious way, Mark, his name I later learned due to a girl shouting it into the locker-room, informs me, “Everyone needs a certain amount of fat and that’s good,” Clang. He drops the weights and picks up the next heaviest set.  “…but the rest, the excess, must be purged.” Struck by the word purged, I couldn’t help but follow up. So, how do you feel about fat people then? I continue with the motion of lifting weights, hoping to confirm my status as a mutual crusader so he feels comfortable answering. His reply, in my opinion, aligns with Crandall’s findings.

“There are many people who have genetic disorders who are fat, and I pity them. And then there are land-whales who destroy 4000 calories a day and are simply too lazy to exercise and diet, and they put the blame on genetics. These are the same people who demand laws to be built around them and s***. They can f*** right off in my opinion.”

 

     Mark’s opinions are clearly pointed. To me, his remarks remain unsurprising because at least one person must always be on hand to fuel the fire that signals the troops. But, it is important to take something informative away from Mark’s comments. He believes that willpower is all that is needed to overcome the opposing enemy. In some sense, he is correct--no one should ever enter into a battle they are unwilling to fight, for it will only end in their own demise. But the notion Mark is clearly unfamiliar with, a notion that works hand-in-hand with willpower, is encouragement.

 

     Encouragement is a concept known to have a two-sided approach, both encouragement and discouragement.  But this concept can be manipulated to mislead people, resulting in mass amounts of confusion over what should and should not be done. To provide a relevant example, people are encouraged to be skinny and discouraged to be fat. This manipulation leads to people misunderstanding what good health practices are. What would work instead, is the use of encouragement as a positive tool meant to reinforce self-perception and convey the possibility of a healthy lifestyle suited to each and every individual. And if that means being a size 10 instead of a size 2, or a large instead of a small, then so be it.

 

     Focusing on, and encouraging good health practices instead of proper measurements or body fat percentage, improves many facets of life. As Britney and Mark demonstrate, people expend too much stress trying to appear a certain way. If people are encouraged to focus only on their health, stress over appearance vanishes and, in the process, makes people even healthier and happier. As it stands now, society follows the opposite structure, and the results are destructive to self-esteem, self-image and self-approval.

 

     “It’s not so much that people told me I was fat, it’s that they called me fat. Like it was their duty to describe my appearance to me. Like fat was all I was made of--no personality, no likes or dislikes--just fat.” Sophie White’s words are daunting because they depict the life of a fat person. Sophie is now a slender young yogi, with a facial structure reminiscent of Stefani Germanotta (a.k.a. Lady Gaga). But once, she weighed well over 200 pounds, and endured daily engagement with the enemy. Sophie overcame her internal conflicts, however, and lives a new lifestyle that incorporates a series of healthy changes. “I focus on the changes. It’s what keeps me motivated and removes the fear of slipping into my old ways.”

 

     War is an intricate and time-consuming process. It typically extends a quarrel under the guise that the conflict will eventually resolve itself, or the enemy combatant will tire and give up. In the war on fat, the enemy combatant will never tire because it is the result of a natural process meant to protect and sustain human life. And those who should tire show no sign of giving up as they run ever forward on their revolving belts and lift their heavy objects toward the sky. But this war must end, because like any skirmish this one too has a hoard of innocent bystanders. And these innocent bystanders have tired of this war after suffering numerous casualties to Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and even suicide due to long term exposure. There is no benefit in constant fighting. It is time for brain to outweigh brawn, and drive in a new era where healthy lifestyles are the focus of the day-to-day struggle.