The latest reality show to hit Australia has been Ten’s The Biggest Loser. I admit that I have been seduced by this show and watch it most nights at 7:00pm. The concept of The Biggest Loser is quite simple. Put 12 very overweight people into a house for two months with two trainers and see who can lose the most weight. The pathos, bathos and weight loss that accompanies the contestants makes for great viewing.
As someone trying lose the unsightly pounds (about 25 kilos worth) The Biggest Loser is of interest to me. As much as I enjoy the show certain elements of The Biggest Loser do leave me conflicted.
While the inspirational nature of the show is compelling The Biggest Loser raises questions regarding body image and how society views the overweight. Obesity is a major health issue for Australians and the show fits right into attempts to conquer such a weighty problem. But at the same time the concept of The Biggest Loser doesn’t quite meet the challenge of tackling obesity. There are valid concerns about how the show approaches losing weight and whether it can contribute to a healthier Australia.
The motivations for losing weight for The Biggest Loser contestants are interesting. They feel that this show is the ‘last chance’ for them to lose weight. While some contestants acknowledge that it is for health reasons, sadder are the societal pressures.
For example, Fiona, who is quite attractive, mentions that men would not go out with her because she is too fat. Contestant Harry revealed that his son asked him to drop him off around the corner at school so that his school mates would not see how big his dad is. This is a reflection of how deeply ingrained prejudices against the overweight people are in society.
Men and women are confronted with idealized bodies on TV and in advertisements all the time. We are told that this product will make you sexy and desirable. The message unfortunately leaves out that hard work and good genes that help make what it takes to be desirable and attainable. The rest of us mere mortals have to deal with bodies that don’t bulk up as easily, don’t shed weight at will, don’t have symmetrical curves in the right places, find man-boobs appear with little effort and often need to juggle work and life so we just don’t have the time to exercise all day to attain and maintain those six-pack abs.
The problem is that this unobtainable ideal is considered the norm. Body image pressures are an issue for both men and women these days. Stray just ever so slightly outside what is regarded as sexy and you are a fat. Never mind the fact that you are well within an acceptable bodyweight for your height and are healthy. You are still considered fat. Given that such small deviations are pounced upon it is no wonder that discrimination against the overweight is rampant and fierce.
Reducing discrimination against overweight people is something that should be encouraged. We shouldn’t ‘normalize’ being obese much the same as we shouldn’t normalize anorexia (movements do exist to normalize both as ‘lifestyle choices’) but society needs to get rid of the idea that people outside an arbitray and artificially narrow range are not attractive nor can’t be happy. Instead of viewing six pack abs and waifish models as the ideal, as long as you are healthy and happy that is the message that should be reinforced. There is nothing unsexy about having a few curves.
The Biggest Loser does reinforce that message that being overweight is unhealthy. However the problem with the show I have is how the contestants are trying to lose weight.
On The Biggest Loser Wal lost 16 kilos in the first week! The medical consensus is that a healthy weight loss is about a kilo a week. The second week’s weigh-in reflected a more steady weight loss. The idea of rapid weight loss does fit in with today’s time poor ‘I want it now attitude’ but this approach to losing weight is unrealistic and possibly dangerous. And this is where The Biggest Loser loses the message. They promote Fitness First and eating Subway to lose weight and a have token 5 day diet plan on the website. It may push a few people to lose weight but it doesn’t really offer an overall plan for weight loss. We all can’t go on a reality show to lose weight.
I’ve been following the Weight Watchers For Men plan for a few weeks now. It is a quite simple. You exercise and be careful about what you eat. It works via point system. For example at my current weight I am allowed 30 points of food a day and a recommendation of at least 15 points of exercise a week. The points system does help you avoid certain foods and it a motivational factor. The other great thing is that if you have points in reserve it allows for the occasional treat. It is not about denial but sensible eating and exercise habits. Nothing new under the sun. I’m losing about a kilo a week which is about right. I feel fitter, have more energy, clothes are fitting much better and I will reduce my risk factors for certain medical conditions.
The human element of The Biggest Loser is its strongest point. However even as the show draws a sympathetic portrait of the contestants the wrong message about losing weight is being sent. It is unhealthy to be overweight but it is also unhealthy to view weight loss as something to be done as quickly as possible. Also the show does nothing to show any viewers how to achieve weight loss themselves apart from a hint that eating Subway sandwiches is a miracle cure. The Biggest Loser will boost the ratings of Ten, memberships to Fitness First and the lunchtime queues at Subway. But it won’t do that much for the problem of obesity in Australia.
I’d hate to come across as a sniper here, but avidly following a show like this only reinforces the societal pressures related to weight loss. I think the whole thing stinks and is in fact evil and manipulative. People are overweight for many reasons, and one can be ‘fit and fat’ just as one can be thin and very unfit indeed. Everyone’s body is different. The people who were seduced into appearing on this show, I wonder if they’ll live to regret it.
At least one of the women appearing in the promos was perfectly attractive to my mind, but no doubt she will/can never accept that… or be allowed to accept that.
I think the point I was making Kieran was the same as yours. That poeple are different and that how people define fat is based on an unrealistic assumption. There is a good range in which people can be considered healthy but outside societal pressures re the perfect bod.
The show works well in the reality genre which is why I watch it, not for weight loss ideas. However in the first few episodes did articulate some of the reasons why some of the contestants put on the kilos and that was revealing. In a small way the show does have a postive portrayal of facing up to societal pressures on being overweight.
As for the people in the show, my concern is what they are being taught about weight loss. There is no real behind the scenes in regard to diet, programs or edcation. Some commentary in the press has expressed concern with this. Once they leave the show what will happen? Once the cameras are gone will they be able to carry on losing weight.
Indeed I am fit and not exactly slim!
I do a 2km ergo in around 6:50 as the first bit of a hour and a half workout where I burn over 700 cal about 4 times a week. Yet I have a gut, big hips and weigh 115 kgs. I am losing about 1.5 kgs every fortnight. Around early december last year I was 112 kgs but over the holidays I didn’t go to gym much and ate heaps of nice food. My weight went up to 119 kgs, so it has taken me about 6 weeks to lose just over 4 kgs. The most I have ever weighed is 132kgs.
You know what the real problem is? Not shitty food like mass-produced burgers or some other crap which gives consumers an easy fix, abnd it is not inactive people who are seduced by the comfort of contemporary everyday life, but mass-produced culture that is not at all creative and gives consumers an easy fix by working from simple cultural paradigms.
Junk food for thought! Don’t consume it!
Fatties are overweight because they eat too much shit and don’t exercise.
I am not overweight and about right for my height etc. I cannot understand how people can let themselves go the way some do. It’s an ugly sight seeing a man or woman who if they fell over would probably need a fucking fork lift to get off he ground.
Don’t think I’m kidding about the forklift caper. In what I consider to be the very best of American telvision I once caught a glimpse of a “fat(est”) dude that couldn’t possibly be imagined. He was about 650 pounds (divide by 2.2) who was so sick that he needed to get to hospital. They couldn’t get the fat lug out of the house, as the doorway was too narrow. So the broke open the doorway to fit a forklift inside, stuck the stretcher across the rails and got fatso in the ambulance. They were going to repeat the process, I guess, at the other end.
Russell Simmonds was seen crying over him while lardy was lying in bed. They found dimes and nickels inside the folds of fat round his stomach that had turned the flesh gangrene.
This stuff couldn’t be made up if you tried.
JC, almost every post I have seen you make is full of biterness and venom.
I’d rather be fat than have your thin outlook on life.
A tasty treat for those with a Foucauldian/Norbert Elias deficiency:
Yes JC that is true but the reasons why people ‘let themselves go’ are varied and often relate to trauma in their lives (a few contestant on The Biggest Loser do relate that their weight gains started after tragic events in life). People deal with things differently and food is one way.
I do think Glen’s point is worth noting. One thing that intrigues me is that by using a straight Bady Mass Index as a guide quite a few league players would be considered way overweight even though they are fit. Muscle mass is not taken into account. When I was 100 kgs there was a really intense aerobics class that I could blast through no problems. And I felt good at that weight.
Is this a joke post or is there really a reality show as Shaun described it?
Apropos to your comment dk.au is that in African-American culture large woman were considered attractive for a long time (this has only recently changed).
The blues has a long history of ‘big fat mamas.’ I found this podcast that goes into this subject via song.
But Shaun
We are aren’t talking about someone who’s capable of doing what you can as you sound as though you have you weight issue under control and reasonably (very) fit.
We’re talking about big larders here, right.
You know I can’t buy into the stuff about trauma and binge eating. You must have a predisposition to liking a lot of food and using that as a excuse. Anyway who the hell knows. I don’t.
I just think we are a nation of lazies and eating bad junk is easy and fun becasue it tastes good.
On second thoughts I can understand liking food as I reckon Australian burgers with a round of chips is the equivalent of heaven. Trouble is that you shouldn’t eat that shit every day. I limit myself to that once a few weeks and its the only meat intake I have as I am turning veg. and hope to be in the next few months
Steve Munn
I not angry or venemous. I didn’t think the story i told was in that light.
Listen I owe you and apology for my bad behaviour towards you the other day. Sorry so much if I upset you in any way.
Rob – there certainly is such a show.
dk.au – if ever in Adelaide, have a look at the many statues of portly colonial Governors and Premiers – proudly displaying their girth. Signifying they had enough to eat unlike the poor plebs! If you ever read descriptions of the multi course breakfasts and lunches aristocratic and genteel Ninenteenth century types regularly consumed (if we’re to believe novels), that will reinforce the point.
There is indeed plenty of evidence that BMI can be a misleading measure but nonetheless I agree with JC – the sort of people that society understands as obese aren’t your typical rugby league players with misleadingly bad BMI but those whose obesity is graphical enough to make it into these reality programs -otherwise there wouldn’t be enough of a sensationalistic aspect to it. There is little doubt that a lot of these people can probably make significant improvements in their health and life expectancy.
I agree with Glen that it’s silly to be obsessed with weight as such. What matters is percentage of body fats, this in turn being an indirect indicator of associated health problems, and even that varies according to ethnicity (e.g. Eskimos would have naturally high average body fat but none of the health problems that would come with it in people of other ethnicities). What matters ultimately is endurance, upper body and lower body strength and these are what I work on in my exercise routines. I run 5 km three times a week at over 10km/h, and do weights 4 times a week. Then I feel perfectly justified in eating whatever the hell I want. As long as I’m not panting after my routnes (and I almost never am), that’s all that matters.
Not really, Jason, because certain foods can cause you damage in the long term regardless of whether or not you’re overweight – and not necessarily from heart disease. Gallstones and pancreatitis for instance, are often traced back to fatty and greasy food.
PS I occasionally treat myself to half a kg of suckling pig for dinner purchased from BBQ King (about once every 2 weeks). Nothing more pleasurable than guilt free comfort food! I am as prodigous in my gluttony as my exercise.
As I said, people should just stop obsessing about what they weigh and just focus on whether they can do and improve on the intensity of whatever fitness routines they’ve set for themselves.
16 kilos in one week. Is that right?
How do you lose 16 kg in a week without removing a leg?
dk.au touches on an importnat point. If you look at paintings from a couple of centuries ago the upper classes were mostly “festivally plump”. They were also lilly white. Now that most ordinary folk work indoors in sedentary jobs thin and tanned is the cool look.
Kieran also touches on an important point in noting that fat and fit is better than skinny and unfit. I understand new research on health and weight has demonstrated this.
I agree with Shaun’s point about trauma often being a causative factor in people being overweight.
I wouldn’t go too hard on the Biggest Loser. I think it might help to motivate some grossly obese people to lose weight. That can’t be a bad thing.
How much fat and grease would one have to eat everyday to get pancreatis, etc?
Shaun, to weigh 115 and not to be obese (> 30) on the BMI scale you’d have yo be 196cm or 6′5″ tall. Not to be overweight (>24.9) you’d have to be 215cm or 7′1″ tall.
The BMI Scale is promoted by Health Departments because they recognise health risks associated with being overweight and obese, not because they are in the business of promoting an unattainable ideal.
Jason, if you get gallstones and they’re not treated, you tend to get pancreatitis. I don’t know how much fat and grease you’d need to eat, but basically they’re caused by excess cholestorol. Ironically, some diets can also do the trick. I’m very hesitant to talk about medical and nutrition advice because it’s outside my professional purview, but as someone who’s had severe gallstones, I’d suggest that there are lots more reasons to eat healthily than just not putting on weight.
Trackback
(Slightly O/T: Thanks, Shaun — that’s a great podcast. Not just the Big Fat Mama episode, but the whole series (blog). Very cool.)
Mark, I think Jason Soon was making a smart arse allusion to comrade Latham’s pancreas.
By the way, I just read an article in the Sunday Age about the benefits of red wine. Apparently mice fed a red wine rich diet can live to the human equivalent of 120.
So apparently its a good thing thing we at the Munn homestead keep a cask of red for those recipes that require a splash of plonk. Yum!
Maybe so, Steve. I’m a bit slow on the uptake tonight!
i am 194 cm and the least I have weighed in the last decade is 109kg. I was about as fit as you can get without being a professional sportsperson. My body never works on the BMI index.
The ethics of selecting grotesquely obese people for the sake of all the ‘normal’ people to goggle is atrocious. The majority of people watching this show will never look like that or be that overweight. It is for the pure spectacle of it; pure entertainment. So don’t play the someone-might-choose-to-lose-weight card, because it is bullshit. They should have ads for charities raising money for people starving elsewhere in the world during this show’s run.
I see this show and others of its ilk as indicating that we live in a post-scarcity society and that the environmental and social ills have changed.
16 kilos in one week. Is that right?
How do you lose 16 kg in a week without removing a leg?
What I’ve heard from reputable sources is: One, crash diets will result in a lot of weight lost very quickly, but thereafter it will plateau. Secondly, a lot of the weight lost is fluid. thirdly, the more quickly you take it off, the quicker the weight will go back on.
JC, almost every post I have seen you make is full of biterness and venom.
I’d rather be fat than have your thin outlook on life.
CAESAR
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
ANTONY
Fear him not, Caesar; he’s not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman and well given.
CAESAR
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
Great post Shaun.
Coz the man who lost 16kg in one week probably weighed 140 or 150 to start off with: just cutting out booze and raising a few decent sweats would probably have taken off four or 5 kilos.
Just another chime-in on the fact that the BMI is meaningless applied to active people with lot of muscle and not so much fat. My gym instructor and my doctor both say it’s quite useless for measuring the fitness & health of people in that category, except as another tool for charting changes across a long program of training.
Having been on the crash-diet boom & bust cycle a few times when I was younger, I know only too well that crazy fast weight loss is fun in the short term, but a disaster long term, since all it does is trains your body to store away excess energy more diligently. Not to mention the extra neuroses it adds to your relationship with food. The people actually in the show have made their decisions (informed I hope) and I wish them all the best, but what about all the vulnerable people watching at home? Young children in particular? Terrible, terrible message about crash dieting to be giving out to the nation at large.
I’ve been watching “The Biggest Loser” with the sound turned off, at the gym, since i go to there at 7pm or thereabouts nearly every day, and I’ve noticed two particularly ill-boding things about the psychology of the show:
1) The video is edited to fetishise and dehumanise fat bodies – stuck in between shots of people’s faces talking and their whole bodies doing things, are all these quick extreme close-ups of wobbly bellies and backs and thighs and upper arms. What’s the intention there? I think it’s to portray the contestants’ bodies as abject.
2) Seeing it in the gym environment, it’s blindingly obvious that the competitiveness among the contestants spills over to influence the relationship between the contestants and the home viewer. The show sets up a dynamic where we at home are constantly comparing ourselves to the people on the TV, & the TV people come off worst. That’s quite different to shows like Big Brother & Australian Idol.
Jason,
gallstones are cause by the solidification of cholesterol in the gallbladder. There is no specific amount of fat intake that will cause them (we are all individuals). They tend to affect women more than men, and if you have a family history then you are also more likely to get them. You are also more likely to get them if you lose weight rapidly.
I had my gallbladder removed last year (at age 42) but two of my nieces suffered gallstones in their 20s. I put the earlier occurence down to the fact that their diets growing up contained far more junk food than mine did.
Pancreatitis may be caused by gallstones (although there are also other causes) but getting gallstones does not mean you will also suffer pancreatitis. I did but no-one else in my family who has had gallstones has had it.
On the issue of BMI – it is a good GUIDE to whether you are overweight BUT is not definitive ie elite athletes particularly those with muscle bulk may have a BMI indicating they are overweight because muscle weighs more than fat. BMI is based on averages so if yu have large or small bone structure the average may not apply.
Shaun, good luck with WW – I have lost 33kgs in 2 years using the points system (plus giving up smoking, putting on weigth and losing that as well). Slow and steady will get you there with the end result that you will have completely changed your eating habits and keeping it off will be a lot easier. I have now developed such good habits I lost weight over christmas without even trying!
Just wanted to chime in and say great post Shaun. I have a predisposition to gain weight and I have to work hard to maintain my ‘healthy’ weight — I know a lot of people who exercise much less than I do, and eat more, and easily maintain a lower weight than I do. I like to tell myself that I’m healthier and so forth, but it’s hard to connect with that sort of comment emotionally.
As you say, apart from the mordibly obese and the anorexically thin, body image and weight need to be separated from health.
Has anyone seen a documentary on SBS about men who are called ‘feeders’.
They literally feed their women to get them as fat as they possibly can. One even tried to feed his wife candy bars when she was in ICU because of her weight. I’ve seen this programme twice and still can’t grasp why the women were so willing get this way to please their man. Some were so huge that they would not move from the bed all day and the feeder would leave sugary food along the sides of the bed.
The most telling scene was at the end when this absolutely huge woman was looking down on her man who was sleeping on a load of her fat. I still can’t say what exactly were her thoughts but her face has stayed with me.
I am 134kgs and it has taken me nearly 5 years to lose 10kgs but it has stayed off. I wouldn’t even begin to try and explain the complications of why I’m this big but I will say I don’t let it stop me doing anything that’s important.
Yes, I saw that doco JahTeh. It creeped the hell out of me too.
…
As to the game show, personally I think it’s a relatively good thing that prizes are to be distributed on the basis of effort and skill, rather than simply avarice and venality, as in The Price Is Right or Deal or No Deal model of television. Sure it’d be nice if they made exercise look like the fun it is, rather than a punishment to be endured for the sake of physical beauty, but at least it’s not just about the consumer goods.
Bring back It’s A Knockout and Double Dare, I say. Physical challenge!
http://haloscan.com/tb/fxholden/114102768532794758
I prefer body fat % as Jason mentions rather than relying BMI.
Kate I have the same problem. I have yo-yoed with weight over the past ten years. The thing is that when I do exercise it does seem to shift easily. The trouble is as soon as I relax it call comes back on. The thing I like about Weight Watchers is that is seems to be desgined to educate as well. What I hope is that I’ll have better eating habits.
Also have a partner doing the same thing as well helps. It was The Beloved who signed me up as she was doing WW as well. We have our seperate exercise routines but get up early together to work out. The support is a great help for motivation.
Thanks for a great post Shaun! I couple of point in the comments:
Laura, I’ve been trying to avoid the show where I can, but the glimpses I have seen and the ‘related’ articles in the women’s gladrags (NW) to tend to follow the ‘headless fat people’ model of abejectifying fat bodies.
Feeders= abuse pure and simple. These are men who feed (pun intended) on the low self esteem of fat women, controlling their bodies. Of course, without the social rejection of the obese this abuse couldn’t happen.
As part of the size acceptance movement I have mixed feelings about this program- I believe you can be fat and fit and to some degree obesity can endanger your life; but I am also appalled at the way these people are depicted – the ‘freakshow’ aspect is disturbing. The competition format of the show promotes unhealthy attitudes and expectaitons of weight loss.
I’m with Kieran, there are some good looking people in the show. They should be allowed to accept themselves for what they are now, not what they can be. I’d like to see more good looking people of size on my TV- rather than the headless fat people.
Twmpyn, I deleted the double comment for you.
Two American Biggest Losers series have screened on 10, the second one featured more youthful & attractive obese persons than the first series -young, pretty fat is more telegenic than old ugly fat.
The Biggest Loser fits within the “instant” self-improvement reality format. Physical makeover shows have been wildly popular on daytime TV – Oprah has 4 or 5 each season – her stated mission in the 90’s, was to get rid of ‘big hair’ in the mid-west. Her usual format is hair/make-up/clothes. She has fat/fitness makeovers when her favourite fitness gurus are spruiking their new books. Dietary fads feature as Oprah has a yo-yo-ing weight problem.
Queer Eye extended the m/over formula to grooming/clothes and home improvements/romance/lifestyle tips.
“Dr Phil” the ‘instant life-coach and counsellor is an Oprah guest spin off, and gives instant closure/instant family/personal counselling.
“What not to wear” is a British ‘clothes only’ makeover show – featuring two Sloanes who prod and push the make-over victim’s bits including breasts. “Doesn’t she have nice big ones, Trinny – here, have a feel. OOh.”
But the winner is:
“Extreme makeover” – the plastic surgery m/over show that cut away big noses, saggy jowls, fat arses, realigned jaws, evened out jagged smiles and lifted drooping lids – all at once! “I’ve always hated my ……” (Plastic Surgeons are some of the strangest looking men with or without surgery.)
Good luck Shaun – suffice to say that there isn’t alot of money to be made in saying “eat healthy foods in moderate amounts, and do more execrise”.
Which is why the CSIRO decided to cash in, their diet is a huge seller. It’s a great improvement on Atkins and other weird diets. (It’s still a diet.)
Re: Feeders – that the human body can even function at those extreme weights was amazing. The obsessive men who fed the women were controlling creeps, the women were less psychologically damaged than the feeders.
BTW:
Roy Morgan recently did a survey of voting preferences of TV show audiences. The show with greatest percentage differential of LibNP viewers was “Business Sunday” while “Passions” had the greatest percentage differential of ALP voters. Nothing unexpected there.
The whole list is at http://www.roymorgan.com/news/press-releases/2005/428/
Gallstones: Doctors used to say it’s the “Four F’s” = fat, female, fertile and forty.
I’m recently readings some books on the impact of evolution on human instinct and behaviour – while fat people are fairly reviled in Australia, perhaps there’s also an evolutionary aspect to this – in that fatness may be a sign of a lesser ability to have kids or to earn money (ie to obtain resources). This probably isn’t a conscious thing.
perhaps there’s also an evolutionary aspect to this – in that fatness may be a sign of a lesser ability to have kids or to earn money (ie to obtain resources).
If that were so Sacha, you would expect fat women to be at a premium in the mating stakes – obviously well fed, able to get through 9 months of a pregnancy without straining the tribal food resources too much, well provisioned in the old lactation department. Fat guys? Obvious winners in the dominance game – whatever their hunting prowess, they obviously have what it takes to get a bigger than average share of the spoils.
Let’s stop swapping Desmond Morris “tits are pretend bums stuck on a woman’s chest” fantasies and just deal with the fact that the whole fat obsession is cultural. As evidenced by the paintings of Reubens and others and possibly a bit of anthropological research that I’m too damn lazy to go looking for. But I’m sure that it exists – according to the standards of one of LP’s most prolific commenters that’s enough to win me the argument.
Gummo, I’ll all for getting rid of prejudices against fat – especially with the cult of beauty perfection.
The point I was making was that there appears to be a fair bit of research indicating that a lot of what we do, especially in the mating game, is strongly influenced by evolutionary things.
Perhaps some fat is good in this regard (as you mention), but far too much (eg morbid obesity) might be a sign of ill-health? I don’t know – they’re just ideas. I wonder how many morbidly obese people lived on the African savannah? Possibly not too many!
Sacha
you also have to take into account the impact of different foods into populations with characteristics selected for by certain environment. My understanding is that the Australian Aborigines, living in and being adapted to the tough environment and high conditions of scarcity they did, have not coped well with rich Western foods, hence the high rates of obesity, diabetes, etc in their population.
I think I’ve read something like that too, Jason.
My reading tends to suggest that the African savannah was hardly a garden of eden, either – which perhaps lead to selection for genes which helped people store as much energy in their bodies as possible as fat.
Anyway, I used to be a lean 69.5 kg for many years, and when I started being a sedentary office worker a year ago I porked up to 71kg. Recently I grew to about 73-74 kg which was quite unhealthy (for me), and I’ve been gymming quite hard every day – and now I’m down to 71 kg and feeling much better. It’s not 25kg, but it was a lot!
So I’m buying into the whole fat-is-evil idea as well although I know it’s not a good way to be – but I want to be healthy and also feel good about my body. It’s definitely the dominant paradigm in the inner eastern suburbs of Sydney within and without Gayville.
Good lord, 71 is ‘porky’?? How tall are you Sacha? I presume you’re about medium height (5′ 10”) which I am too.
I’m 76-77 kg last I checked and I feel perfectly fine and never out of breath from my workouts.
Sacha, obesity is considered beautiful in some cultures — primarily African, where big buttocks for instance are highly prized. Extreme thinness, as is culturally preferred in our society, is contra-indicated in fertility: very thin women don’t menstruate, and many of the ‘beautiful’ women in our society have body fat levels low enough to bring about cessation of menstruation (less than 17 percent for some women, as I have discovered through personal experience).
So the whole evolutionary basis for our cultural ideal is pretty weak if you ask me. Having a bit of body fat is an evolutionary advantage: stored for the lean times. That’s why people put on weight so easily: life on the savannah is harsh and so you need to be able to store energy in your body for use when you just can’t find dinner.
Anyway, across cultures the idea of what is considered attractive is so varied, so diverse and so ‘unnatural’ that it’s just not a theory that holds much water. Chinese foot binding, Burmese neck rings, lip extending discs, body paint etc.
The main preference, across all cultures, seems to be to exacerbate the differences between the sexes as much as possible.
Jason, I think I’m extremely average in height (about 175 cm) – but 71 kgs for me is more than I weighed before starting my sedentary office job. For years, I was about 69.5 kg (deliberately putting in the .5 kg) – and hovered right around it. The maximum I’d ever been before this job was 72 kg and that was after trying really hard to bulk up (in a toned kind of way, not in a gorilla kind of way). I really notice the difference a few kilos makes.
I don’t doubt that obesity is considered beautiful in some cultures. All I was suggesting was that there might be some instinctual aspect to peoples attitudes to obesity – maybe there is – maybe there isn’t – I don’t know! As I said, I’m all in favour of all the prejudices against fat disappearing forthwith, and for people to feel they’re ok whatever their body size/shape.
This large economy size blogger caved in and watch ten minutes of ‘The Biggest Loser’ last night. Never again. If any of them come off this show without any self-esteem damage I’ll be surprised and that includes the winner. Since I haven’t watched from the beginning, have they ever measured the height of these people? I’m curious because as big as I am I don’t think I look as fat so I wonder if they not only looked for pretty faces but short bodies.
And to the people who have said to me to try WW. Have you seen how much it costs to take the programme? I’m a vegetarian and don’t spend that much on fresh food let alone their chemically loaded WW specials.
I was much bigger when I had both knees replaced (cartilege problems not weight) and my specialist used me in his lectures as an example of how humour and attitude aids in healing. So *rasberries* to the thin is everything people.
Just like the ethics of selecting “grotesquely thin people for the sake of all the ‘normal’ people in shows such as Australia’s Next Top Model?
I don’t think this is true. I’ve read recently how a lot of OB/GYN are worried about the mothers who were obese and then get pregnant and how it places much more added pressure on the body especially the heart and lungs.
Sacha, the fact that standards of beauty vary considerably in one culture over very short periods of time should signal that they’re cultural.
err, yeah, elizajoey, perhaps you misunderstood the tenor of my comment. it is bloody atrocious that young girls are used to hold up another idealised steroetyped body, which in this case can only be attained by middle-of-the-road young girls through the wholesale appropriation of anxiety-inducing eating disorders. Any objectification of minorities for entertaining the so-called mainstream (thus turning ‘difference’ into a circus act) is atrocious.
“Good luck Shaun – suffice to say that there isn’t alot of money to be made in saying “eat healthy foods in moderate amounts, and do more execriseâ€?.”
What should be in place?
How about An Australia’s Funniest Home Video style show programmed with a bit of that ABC show about young people making docos around the world, but with its sole focus on following REAL people lose weight. People send in a weekly video tape in diary format of a maximum of 10 minutes. In those 10 minutes you need to represent what you have done over the last week to lose weight (bit of food prep footage, working out, buying healthy food maybe, refusing to eat crap, bit of talking head about mental work or something, etc…). Your 10 minutes then gets compiled with however many others and probably gets combined and edited down to a short 20 sec grab about something of interest to fit a segment about everyone who uses, say, rowing machines. This gets turned into a 30 minute show, with each segment organised around particular themes (food, exercise, fun, trials, etc)
Rest of footage then gets put online to fulfill broadcasters broadband/digital TV content quota (just attended a workshop today at USyd and listened to what the ABC is currently doing re: research, broadband and digital TV).
Call it “Real Health”. You get to demonstrate to the rest of Aus you are losing weight and putting in the hard yards and they get to support you.
The first cohort would have to be organised, but if you build it, they will come.
Cultures of amatuer media production spring up on the internet. Companies start selling cheap software and cameras, entry costs to the activity are lowered. MOre people get involved. Sponsorship for fitness clubs who become ‘film friendly’ begins. so on and so forth…
Well I think Celebrity Overhaul did a good job of what you are trying to encourage, Glen, except for the whole celebrity aspect.
It concentrated on eating well and exercising. It didn’t concentrate on the weight loss as a necessary aspect as a source of appearance but showed how losing weight is beneficial to the your overall health and body by showing how many years your body is as opposed to your actual age.