The last thing my coach said to me before I quit gymnastics was that I would gain too much weight to ever come back to the sport. I was fourteen. After I officially quit, I ran around my neighborhood until it was hard to breathe every day for weeks. Once I returned home, I would drink some water, then sneak into my parents bathroom to weigh myself. At the age of fourteen, I was determined to never weigh more than 100 pounds. Ever.
I don’t entirely blame my coach for fueling my obsession with the scale. From the time I was in elementary school, I was socialized to believe that skinniness is a sign of health, and an intake of locally grown fruits and vegetables in addition to exercise would lead one down that path. Not only was I conditioned to believe waist size determines health, I was also taught to believe that people who aren’t “skinny” are selfish and irresponsible. As we have become accustomed to hearing and using the term “obesity epidemic,” body size (and shape) has become one of the most obvious markers of morality in American society. Obese and overweight people are immediately, subconsciously, labelled as lazy and unmotivated, which highly contradicts American’s association of success with productivity.
Robert Crawford refers to this as healthism – a “preoccupation with personal health as a primary – often the primary – focus for the definition and achievement of well-being.” People should want to lose weight, work out, and eat not just generally healthy food, but non GMO, certified organic foods because it’s the right thing to do, as opposed to a personal choice. This way of thinking undermines social determinants that disproportionately impact BIPOC and those in poverty. Healthism stems from a place of power and privilege, and needs to be reassessed in order to create a more equitable world.
Healthism also accounts for why so many have found it necessary to “get fit” during quarantine. American culture values productivity over everything, which creates a never-ending cycle of feeling like work needs to get done, and then being stressed that not enough has been done. If you come out of quarantine at the same weight you went in with, what have you even been doing? And God forbid you come out of this weighing more than you did eight months ago… This belief is toxic, and creates a culture more concerned about body size than objective well-being.
If we are more focused on whether or not someone is fat than whether or not they have access to affordable, high-quality food, childcare, safe housing, or healthcare, we will never achieve equity. Health is not inextricably tied to weight, and morality certainly should not be. We need to spend less time trying to squeeze into a new pair of Lululemon leggings, and more time advocating for health education reform in schools, more green space in neighborhoods, and policies that bring affordable high-quality food markets to underprivileged neighborhoods. Young children need to learn how to feel healthy in a way that avoids shame. Families need to have space to play outdoors, and time and money to purchase groceries that will benefit their health. As we all become more aware of the fact that we are only products of the society in which we reside, we become increasingly more powerful to change it.