Is this double standard what’s making us double sized?

January 19, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments

Once upon a time, I hurt my foot.

Note how I worded that? Not, “my foot got hurt”. Not, “something was wrong with my foot”. No, I did. I own that. I didn’t hurt it because’ve poor form while exercising. I didn’t hurt it from kicking the wrong way when I train in muay thai. I didn’t sprain or shatter it, either. No, ladies and gentlemen. I hurt my foot from overuse. I like running – and I run too much. That’s what caused it. I caused it. In other words, my unhealthy, imbalanced bad habits caused my own injury. That means, I had to take responsibility for that and change my habits if I wanted that to go away.

“Grow a pair, and propel me down the trail properly, damn you!”

Alright. I didn’t, initially. (Because habit change is hard.) But, once I finally gave my heels a break, I healed.

And I could moderate my running well, happily ever after.

Now, that sounds like a fairly basic and boring story, am I right?

Fair enough. Then maybe you can tell me why that warrants a, “Cool story, bro” reply, while this next one elicits a barrage of butthurt and wrathful replies: Sally (a hypothetical woman) is 300 pounds. Sally is also suffering from diabetes, back pain, and sleep apnea – all caused by her obesity. She also suffers from this horrible mystery illness that research has shown to be exacerbated by obesity, as well. Sally’s not overweight ’cause of her illness. Sally’s illnesses are because she’s overweight. And she’s overweight because she overeats unhealthy food and doesn’t exercise enough. Am I slamming Sally? No. Much like me with my busted foot thanks to my unhealthy, overactive habits, Sally’s underactive habits and snack related ones place her in the same sinking boat. She’s suffering because of her detrimental health regimen as well. Much like I had to, she must change her habits if she doesn’t wanna suffer anymore.

So, why is it – that when each of us leave our doctor’s office hearing that same advice “Change or get worse”, that one of us is only mildly vexed, and the other in pieces? Or – why is it that if we each complain to a friend about our “plight” and they deliver the same dose of ya-brought-this-on-yourself-but-the-good-news-is-you-can-change-it reality, one of us gets livid and the other groans in reluctant acknowledgment?

I see this over and over again. The “body positivity” movement is beautiful. I love celebrating these amazing fleshy temples in which we reside. However, it gets transmogrified into this thing that it was never meant to be. Yes, you are beautiful. You’re the captain of this amazing, sentient machine. What’s not beautiful about that? That said, your overweight status (which is totally changeable, btw) is not. But let’s get something straight there. It’s not un-beautiful because it’s not aesthetically pleasing. It’s un-beautiful because it’s like a receipt, displaying of all the abuse you’ve been doing to that blessed flesh temple. It’s a marquee listing a litany of illnesses that are going to make you, its captain, ultimately unhappy. That’s why. Can we put the “un-sexy” element aside for a moment? And get to the root of why being too fat’s bad? I can’t help but think that a lot of culture is to blame. For someone like me, I don’t necessarily wear my imbalanced sins in jiggly, fleshy form. My sins against myself aren’t on display. If anything, they make me look fitter. (Lucky me – except, of course, for when I wake in the morning, aching horribly.) But, when you’re overweight, these sins are most definitely seen. And, because “being fat” is not a standard for attractiveness, we tend to only look at that factor of it as being a reason for change. Big mistake. Because, A.) we’re no longer motivated to lose weight for ourselves, and B.) under that purely external pressure, we subsequently get anxious. And, when we get anxious about anything, what do we imbalanced folk do? For me – it’s trotting another quadrillion miles until my leg bones end at the patellas. For overeaters – it’s hitting up the local Dairy Queen in various disguises for third and fourth helpings of frozen sugar.

That’s just one reason bad habits are hard to change. They’re our comfort.

But it’s also because we’re even more resistant to it when we feel like we’re being bullied or told what to do. We tend to hang onto our habits as if they’re part of our identity. The problem is, when that identity’s ultimately making you unhappy, why would you want to hang onto it? And therein lies the massive misconception when it comes to being overweight. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating for anyone reading this for the first time. You are not fat. That’s not who you are. Maybe you’ve been overweight for as long as you can remember, but I stand by this: you’re not fat. You have fat. You have fat which you can get rid of. And you only have fat because of your current habits – which you can alter. (See the rest of this site for insight on how to do that exactly.) Which brings us to the final reason these habits don’t get altered at all: denial.

(Saying your bad back or knees isn’t caused by your own bad habits, is like me saying my bum foot wasn’t caused by mine… But, in the end, we’re both in the same chair that’s rolling downhill at top speed.)

See, when we’re that attached to our comfort bringing habits, we begin to convince ourselves that they can do no wrong. They can’t bring harm. There’s no way they could be the cause of anything bad in our bodies or minds. Because, if we admit that they might be causing some of our problems, then that means we’d need to change them. Otherwise, we’d be insane, right? To be battling reality ’cause it’s “unfair” that we can’t have our comforts? But, when you finally do, all those horrible maladies that’ve befallen you, seemingly spontaneously, are far more likely to dissipate. Because obesity (and all the illnesses caused by it), for the most part, is a malady brought on by lifestyle choices. Just like my injured flipper.

Changing our habits on an active level is only part of it.

Changing the way we think about what our habits are doing to us must come first.