So the holidays can be hard, not only emotionally, but physically. Post-Thanksgiving and holidays in general remind us of food babies and resolutions to lose weight. The resolution to get healthy is admirable, but when an individual is in it for self-gratification it becomes questionable.
“Wow! Have you lost weight?”
When did this become an automatic compliment?
“Wow, have you gained weight?”
When did this become an automatic insult?
The stigma associated with weight gain and the congratulations attributed to weight loss encourages unhealthy body ideals, particularly in women. This weight-loss-and-reward system teaches us that when we we lose weight, we are winning, even if we do not need to lose the weight or if our behavior in losing the weight isn’t the healthiest.
The scale becomes the score board, where, like golf, the lower the number, the better we’re doing.
And what kind of assumption does complimenting weight loss entail? We do not know the cause or motive behind the weight difference; it may not have been an active decision, but caused by a new medication or an illness. Or it may have been intentional, but self-destructive.
I’ll never forget witnessing an interaction with a manager of mine when I worked in customer service. A customer asked her if she had lost weight, and without waiting for a response, immediately praised her. I had not known my manager long and so she explained to me that she’d rapidly lost around forty pounds in an angry voice I did not yet understand.
She then went on to say she had lost the weight by starving herself and just recently began to address the eating disorder.
Had the customer known my manager’s struggle, she probably would not have made the same comment. But that’s just it, she didn’t know; she made an assumption that the weight loss was a choice and a positive one. I mean, why wouldn’t a woman want to lose weight?
The first time I was complimented on weight loss was at age 12. I had never been overweight, and had not noticed any change in my weight, so the supposed compliment from my friend’s mother startled me. I had body insecurities, but I never vocalized them because I knew I was too young to supposed to be worrying.
Her words suggested to me that maybe I was wrong; maybe I should be concerned.
The weight, size and shape of our bodies is personal. It is not up to outsiders to decide that a difference in any of these categories is positive or negative. When we automatically compliment weight loss, we reaffirm that women should always be thin, regardless of what it took to achieve it.
When it comes to trying to lose weight, treat it as a means to an end and not the other way around. Choose to work on your overall health and not on other’s perceptions of your health.