It has been difficult not to notice the increased media
attention recently – in regards to weight. The subject of obesity appears a
particular favourite – with accompanying television programmes such as ‘Katie
Hopkins: My Fat Story’ and ‘Outweighing the Enemy’ . These shows attempt to project weight as a
terror to ‘tackle.’ And why not? In
light of statistics that In the UK, 67% of men and 57% of women are either
overweight or obese, according to the Lancet Medical Journal, it could appear
that the media is feeding from what is certainly a social concern. It is a
concern so apparently acute this includes being bombarded with images of
various states of undress; women weeping
in their underwear in front of a camera, Katie Hopkins exhibiting her swollen
stomach, and so on. However, this undress is leaving something unaddressed, I
believe. In portraying weight as something to be ‘tackled’, like a terror to triumph
over, this is ultimately leaving the psychological foundation unaddressed.
Cultivating shame in regards to weight refuses to feed the mind with what it
really needs.
Too often weight is presented as a spectacle. Too often this
is presented as ‘acceptable’.
I am writing this as someone who has faced issues with
eating. It is a subject personal to me after all, weight is a personal thing –
and throwing it as something to be ‘tackled’ almost seems to advocate a fight
with the self. Take Katie Hopkins for example. In her recent documentary ‘My
Fat Story’, Hopkins gained an unhealthy amount of weight in a very short time (
up to half her weight in 4 months) – in order to demonstrate that it indeed can
be lost again. Indeed, we already know that weight can be gained and lost and
having a media figure advocating it with lines such as ‘I hate all you fat
people’ and the calls of 'you chubsters’ are not necessarily encouraging. Considering her
comments about weight in general, it appears (though this be my own opinion)
that Hopkins was not particularly compassionate despite her determination to
diminish human bodies. An area increasingly appearing unaddressed, (rather than
undressed) is the psychological issues underlying eating behaviour. It seems
almost convenient that the television can make only the external the
issue. Admittedly, in the programme
there was reference to a psychologist who discussed the potential factors
behind Hopkin’s competitive, even cruel attitude towards weight – but then
again, the notion of competition still continued.
What I saw was saddening – both in terms of Hopkins and the
emotions she was apparently evading. Here was a woman going against her own
apparent principles (her views on healthy eating and exercise) in a course not
of illumination, but humiliation. Still
her comments continued ‘I hate you fat people’, stirring again and again the
factor at the very centre of the issue - shame. Indeed, many peoples eating
behaviour is determined by shame, with what are regarded as ‘abnormalities’ in
eating behaviour being especially the case. The reason many people overeat
involves features of shame – such as turning to food as comfort from insecurity,
having poor self-esteem and continuing to eat, feeling afraid to exercise out
of embarrassment, television programmes and articles circulating this continued
shame towards bodies and their ‘management’ like it is a competitive task is
not constructive. And it is just not the case for obesity. This culture of
competitive conditioning of bodies
harbours an unhealthiness towards food, if anything. It advocates that food is
not something to be appreciated and enjoyed, but controlled and counted. Such
patterns of control and calculation underlie many unhealthy relationships with
food, especially in regards to eating disorders.
It is an especially disturbing consideration in accordance
to young people who are especially vulnerable to the masquerade the media can provide.
According to Schools and Students Health Education Unit, about 40 percent of 10
and 11-year-old girls in the U.K. want to lose weight. That number rises to 54
percent for 12 and 13-year-old girls and to 63 percent among 14 and
15-year-olds. These are ages at which children are also especially sensitive to
their own changing bodies ,and the bodies of those around them – and ‘shame’ is
one of those emotions we should not want to see becoming associated with
natural growth and development. Food has its own particular power to evoke a
fondness, especially when reflecting upon childhood favourites – I used to love
the slow ceremonial eating of my grandma’s chocolate cake on a Thursday
afternoon in primary school. And food can evoke a love which can continue –
without the label ‘fat’.
Yes, Televising the issues of weight and weight management may
be a way some people see of ‘getting it out in the open’, but I feel that the
real issue still lies under wraps. What many people are doing as they unpeel
the fickle foil from the chocolate bar, as they wait for the sudden punctured
pop from the bag of crisps – is waiting for some kind of comfort, some kind of
confirmation. A person’s relationship with food is governed so significantly by
the mind - and yet the mind appears something the television
seems to shy away from. Katie Hopkins' continued name-calling, Christian Jessen’s
‘Weighing Up the Enemy’ leave only a bad
taste, adding to food as a fear factor, something to be afraid of.
Furthermore, for the majority of people with weight issues,
unlike Hopkins and the contestants on ‘Weighing up the Enemy’ or similar
programmes where losing weight comes with a financial incentive – many face
financial worries, may struggle to afford gym memberships or even the time to
embrace regimes which are advocated as ‘accessible’. Hopkins claimed "My project was to prove
that all the excuses for being fat are nonsense — and it is proving that"
– and this is exactly where the falsehood lies. Hopkins perhaps showed emotional
vulnerability as she teared-up in her programme and talked of the negative
emotions she felt by being overweight, but neither did she confront the
emotional issues as to why people eat what they do, when they do. It is easy to
advocate a conceptual regime of ‘eat less and move more’ but what if those
comparative terms of ‘less’ and ‘more’ seem only bewildering to a mind which is
too depressed to fully comprehend, set in a body it fears and despises?
The word ‘regime’ itself I hate – it emphasizes a lack of
accessibility in it’s very self. What is accessible is actually embracing food
and its emotional connections. If a person is unhappy with their weight, it is
highly likely that they are not fully enjoying their experience of eating –
feelings often thickened with guilt and displeasure. Many people have become trapped in cycles of
consuming for comfort, unsure of any way out. In turn, this is why I believe
the current media focus upon advocating ‘shame’ in regards to weight and food
is only worsening the problem. Instead, by advocating healthier alternatives
and by showing food as something which can be enjoyed in a variety of ways,
this offers a much more constructive approach . Why not now? I can see no harm
in opening minds in this way, but in continuing to shame and shock people into
‘controlling’ their weight (simply the succession of verbs shows how negative it
is), the underlying issues of anxiety and insecurity will only continue to
swell. That is why I am determined, even
in the days where the depression is difficult, to post a picture or recipe
which makes me smile – we should be spreading ideas about eating and showing
that a healthy lifestyle can be accessible and is evident when the individual is content in themselves,
rather than saturating the screens with shame.
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