Between a pocket-size princess and a fat-alicious diva, what do you think is ideal? Anu Gulmohar urges all to stop the mockery and harassment of fat people and think again if people the size of matchsticks are really hot or just a health hazard for the world
Twenty-four-year-old Miss Elsie Scheel of Brooklyn, New York, stood five feet seven inches tall, and weighed about 77 kilos. Her favourite food was beefsteak. Her vital statistics were 35-30-40 and out of 400 ladies she was judged as the “most nearly perfect specimen of womanhood”. That was 1912. In 2010, Miss Scheel’s pear-shaped body would be ridiculed at, the BMI index would place her in the overweight category, she would constantly be harried to give up beefsteaks and to join a gym.
Standards of beauty have been a changin’ in the last century and it has left very few untouched. Television and films show barely-there women as the beau ideal and doctors and quacks are laughing their way to the bank by counselling women and men about ‘wise’ diets and exercises, or worse, advising various surgical methods of removing the ‘fat’. Ladies and gentlemen, there is an epidemic in the world, and I’m not talking about swine flu. It is making people starve themselves, denying their bodies even the basic nutrition. With every morsel they refuse, the phobia of becoming ‘fat’ is eating away into their soul…
Susie Orbach, author and convenor of the organisation Anybody, believes that such behaviour equates to violence against our bodies. But now more and more people are refusing to let the world dictate the parameters their bodies must fit into and bloggers over the ‘fat-o-sphere’ are boldly voicing their indignation. Like racism evoked a civil rights movement, full-bodied men and women in the US, who face discrimination every day are now crying hoarse for their dignity to be restored. Lakhs of people in India would easily relate with their cause.
lakhs Shikha Sharma, who promotes a thriving chain of wellness centres, says, “In India every girl of marriageable age is discriminated against if she’s overweight… the reason why girls actually come to lose weight is because they see discrimination happening in their lives. Even boys in colleges, though they may not admit that they discriminate, but they do.”
“Global studies point to women’s growing dissatisfaction with their bodies. As we export the current western aesthetic for tall and skinny women, which causes so much anguish and body hatred, it’s now being absorbed all over the world, and this includes women in the developing economies who feel that attaining this ‘westernised’ body is part of becoming more mod,” says Susie Orbach. An Indian Council for Market Research (ICMR) study mentioned that 68 percent of people in the metros believe they are fat while 71 percent of the respondents remembered being made to feel uneasy about their weight. And another 63 percent had tried various diets! “I believe that what we are seeing now with the relentless attack on women’s bodies, which is disguised as ‘taking care of yourself’ with this product or that diet, or ‘empowering yourself’ with this or that procedure, is a form of violence. We just don’t notice it but when we look back we can see that foot binding was a form of submission and this is a version of it except that girls are willingly limiting their appetites and buying products in the belief that they are doing good,” she added. India has been aping the West in several ways, and with malls and fast food joints dotting most of urban India, most of us have been committing the same mistakes that America has made in the last few decades. “Five years ago, I would talk about anorexia and everyone would just laugh at me and say there is no anorexia in India. But today it's a huge issue,” notes singer and former VJ Sophie Chaudhary.
A small section of the American society has been urging people to move on to the next stage – fat acceptance. They believe that diet does more damage than good and the fitness mantra for everybody should be HAES – Health at Every Size. HAES is based upon three tenets – Self Acceptance, Physical Activity which is pleasurable and enjoyable, and Normalised Eating that emphasises upon intuitive eating i.e. “learning to recognise hunger and also physical satisfaction,” says Susan, and adds, “…that is what babies do naturally and that is the way to eat.” Author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, Linda Bacon explains, “HAES encourages people to eat attentively, respecting your body signals. It’s not about giving up; it’s about moving on so you can make better choices. Trust yourself! You’re the best judge of what food is best for you and in what amount.”
Twenty-four-year-old Miss Elsie Scheel of Brooklyn, New York, stood five feet seven inches tall, and weighed about 77 kilos. Her favourite food was beefsteak. Her vital statistics were 35-30-40 and out of 400 ladies she was judged as the “most nearly perfect specimen of womanhood”. That was 1912. In 2010, Miss Scheel’s pear-shaped body would be ridiculed at, the BMI index would place her in the overweight category, she would constantly be harried to give up beefsteaks and to join a gym.
Standards of beauty have been a changin’ in the last century and it has left very few untouched. Television and films show barely-there women as the beau ideal and doctors and quacks are laughing their way to the bank by counselling women and men about ‘wise’ diets and exercises, or worse, advising various surgical methods of removing the ‘fat’. Ladies and gentlemen, there is an epidemic in the world, and I’m not talking about swine flu. It is making people starve themselves, denying their bodies even the basic nutrition. With every morsel they refuse, the phobia of becoming ‘fat’ is eating away into their soul…
Susie Orbach, author and convenor of the organisation Anybody, believes that such behaviour equates to violence against our bodies. But now more and more people are refusing to let the world dictate the parameters their bodies must fit into and bloggers over the ‘fat-o-sphere’ are boldly voicing their indignation. Like racism evoked a civil rights movement, full-bodied men and women in the US, who face discrimination every day are now crying hoarse for their dignity to be restored. Lakhs of people in India would easily relate with their cause.
lakhs Shikha Sharma, who promotes a thriving chain of wellness centres, says, “In India every girl of marriageable age is discriminated against if she’s overweight… the reason why girls actually come to lose weight is because they see discrimination happening in their lives. Even boys in colleges, though they may not admit that they discriminate, but they do.”
“Global studies point to women’s growing dissatisfaction with their bodies. As we export the current western aesthetic for tall and skinny women, which causes so much anguish and body hatred, it’s now being absorbed all over the world, and this includes women in the developing economies who feel that attaining this ‘westernised’ body is part of becoming more mod,” says Susie Orbach. An Indian Council for Market Research (ICMR) study mentioned that 68 percent of people in the metros believe they are fat while 71 percent of the respondents remembered being made to feel uneasy about their weight. And another 63 percent had tried various diets! “I believe that what we are seeing now with the relentless attack on women’s bodies, which is disguised as ‘taking care of yourself’ with this product or that diet, or ‘empowering yourself’ with this or that procedure, is a form of violence. We just don’t notice it but when we look back we can see that foot binding was a form of submission and this is a version of it except that girls are willingly limiting their appetites and buying products in the belief that they are doing good,” she added. India has been aping the West in several ways, and with malls and fast food joints dotting most of urban India, most of us have been committing the same mistakes that America has made in the last few decades. “Five years ago, I would talk about anorexia and everyone would just laugh at me and say there is no anorexia in India. But today it's a huge issue,” notes singer and former VJ Sophie Chaudhary.
A small section of the American society has been urging people to move on to the next stage – fat acceptance. They believe that diet does more damage than good and the fitness mantra for everybody should be HAES – Health at Every Size. HAES is based upon three tenets – Self Acceptance, Physical Activity which is pleasurable and enjoyable, and Normalised Eating that emphasises upon intuitive eating i.e. “learning to recognise hunger and also physical satisfaction,” says Susan, and adds, “…that is what babies do naturally and that is the way to eat.” Author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, Linda Bacon explains, “HAES encourages people to eat attentively, respecting your body signals. It’s not about giving up; it’s about moving on so you can make better choices. Trust yourself! You’re the best judge of what food is best for you and in what amount.”
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