Difficult question.
I think we’d all like to say: no, actually, I don’t care at all about how fat other people are, I’m captain of my own waistline, thank you very much.
I don’t want to get in any fights, so I’m going to go ahead and let you say that, if you like, and just talk about me. Hi. I’m Dutch, currently living in the UK. Even before I looked up these statistics I could have told you that obesity is much more widespread in the UK than in the Netherlands. Here’s some actual data from 2003 (yes, that’s kinda old, it’s illustrative):
Netherlands: 10% of population has a BMI over 30 (that means obese, by the medical definition)
UK: 23% of the population
(USA: 30% of the population)
I moved to Wales to spend a year in an English speaking environment as part of my university course in 2000, when I was twenty. I was there for two years, moved back to Holland for two years, and then moved to Bristol where my BMI slowly climbed to its high point of 26.8 last April. I’m now down to 25.1, which is only very just overweight. (Calculate your BMI.)
Bold supposition: if I’d have lived in the Netherlands for the last decade, I would not be as heavy even as I am now.
And I don’t think that because I would have been eating differently, or cycled more, or anything like that. I might have cycled more, but I cycle here, too. And trust me, they sell cake and chocolate chip cookies and pizza in Dutch supermarkets, as well as many other specifically super-yummy things. (Cheese, people. You don’t know cheese until you’ve been to where I’m from.)
I just think that I would have had my OK, enough of this it’s time to lose some weight now moment earlier. I think there is a little accountant living in my brain keeping a tally of who’s heavier than me and who’s thinner. And so long as these groups are roughly equal, he declares me average size and happily shuffles his papers and puts stamps on things. But when the thinner than me group becomes much larger than the heavier than me group, he punches his alarm button and jumps up and down until I do something.
There’s a lot of bellyaching about super-thin models in glamorous magazines, and don’t get me wrong, they annoy me too. But I think most of us normal looking people measure ourselves not against magazine models, but against the other normal looking people around us. If the people around us get heavier, it takes more before we’ll consider our own weight a problem.
That’s what I think, anyway.
When talking about “the obesity epidemic”, people often point to large portion sizes, fast food, sugary drinks, and what not. And I’m sure those all play a role. I can also see that saying “people in the UK are fat because other people in the UK are fat too,” is unhelpful and doesn’t lead us to a solution.
I’m pretty sure it’s part of the puzzle, though. What do you think?
{ 3 comments }
Interesting theory. Like you, I also rank myself related to my ‘normal people’ peer group, not celebrities of any kind. I think this is a result of social conditioning and I try to not do it anymore. My peer group is mostly Dutch, but I also have many foreign friends living here in the Netherlands. I’ve noticed that the people that are settling, e.g. long-term relationship, home-ownership, fixed jobs, tend to gain weight, more so than people who are single or in short term relationships, move about and hop from job to job. Not sure what that has to do with anything or why that happens.
Anyway, I don’t keep my weight in check based on that ranking. About a decade ago I wasn’t really bothered by or aware of my weight, even though I was 15 kg heavier. That changed when I became aware of my health and energy level. Now, my alarm bells start ringing when my clothing starts to be too tight. Not because of how I look, but I know that when I pass a certain weight my health becomes worse and energy goes down exponentially. When that happens, I watch my diet for a while, pick up my slacking exercise regime and life continues. This practice keeps me at a fairly stable weight, + or – 2.5 kg.
Recently, I’ve been reading about food and the food industry. Eye-opening. Some of my less healthy eating habits have proven hard to eliminate permanently, but opening my own eyes to what it is that I put into my body and what that means to me and society as a result has. I’m sure that there’s still a long way to go, but everyday I’m moving more towards healthier practices. Regarding weight, my main issue is not so much food, since I don’t consistently consume too many calories, but it is exercise. Mindfulness about eating and fitness, very important, so I’m really interested in your process as well.
So, I think your theory holds true for those that see and value themselves mostly in relation to others, and less so for those that decide what is a good state of being for themselves, regardless of others. Sovereignty issue?
Also: brevity issues, I haz them.
It is a sovereignty issue, yes.
Ideally, if you were strong in your sovereignty, other people’s sizes would not matter to your own, because you would make your own decisions about how you want to look and feel. I think this is where the sovereignty ideal runs into the fact that we are social monkeys, and are programmed to care about what other people think, and how we measure up compared to them.
I think that, to be sovereign, it’s important to notice when you’re not in it. So it’s useful to be aware of the comparison game going on in your head, and take a moment to go, “Hey, I know why I’m thinking of starting a new diet. It’s because of my new neighbour, who is disgustingly thin and makes me feel fat. OK, let’s try a more rational way to decide if I need to lose weight.” Or whatever the situation may be.