Understanding Fat in America

In the American culture, we often view fatness as undesirable or unattractive and idealize thinness. Kathleen LeBesco, in Revolting Bodies, made her argument about fat and beauty and how she wants to redefine the way we view fatness in Western societies. In Chapter One she discussed how body fat has been portrayed in art in the past. Being in an art history class, I have seen so many examples of what LeBesco is trying to say. In art, the women who are being depicted as wealthy and beautiful are shown having full, curvy bodies. She uses the example of the “Venus of Willendorf”, one of the oldest pieces of art showing the female body. The Venus has a rather exaggerated bosom and hips; she is thought to display fertility. I included a picture directly below.

 In those times being fat was a sign that you could afford to eat and did not have to labor, as well as showing that a woman was fertile. Other cultures and other time periods had much different opinions about fat than Americans do now. LeBesco talked about how the Annang women of Nigeria still go through a fattening period before they are married. In their culture “women of substance” are desired and viewed as being wealthy. Also, in Pacific societies, fat is almost a necessity. Having fat provided protection against the cold and because of the irregular food supply in the area, body fat could keep you alive. I think it is very interesting how in our modern culture being fat can often be a sign of a lower socioeconomic class rather than show wealth.

                In a recent study it was discovered that eating healthy foods costs on average $1.50 more per day which adds up to over $500 a year. It is easy to skip the health store and instead get all the fast food you want for much less money and in half the time. It is much easy to get fat by eating cheap, filling food than eating healthy food that may not fill you up as long. The director of the center for public health nutrition at the University of Washington, Adam Drewnowski, found in his study that “a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods”. These numbers are shocking to me. What this makes me think is that the body type that depicts wealth in a certain area is the body type that is more desirable.

                

What is absurd to me is that some people do not recognize the blatant fact that everyone has a different body type. We are not all destined to be the same size as one another which can be seen in the fact that there are three major body types: ectomorph, endomorph, and mesomorph. Depictions of these three body types are shown in the image above. People who have the endomorphic body type are naturally larger for a number of reasons. They have larger bones and slower metabolisms, making it much harder for them to lose weight. If every different body is naturally occurring how can we say one is better than the others? With society constructing the idea of what body type is the most sought after, our nation needs to be more educated about bodies in general.

                When I saw that our nation’s connotation of fat is socially constructed, I realized there has to be a way to change it. It pains me how often I hear people making derogatory comments about others based on the shape of their bodies. Still, every time I hear one of those comments, I make a point to question the person who said it and ask why that body type offends them so much. When it comes down to it, most people do not know why they view fat as a flaw. It is just so ingrained in our culture to see fat as a bad thing that we hardly even question why it is that way. The United States has the second highest rate of obesity in the world, but if you flipped through an American magazine you would never know that. When researching opinionated articles about fat I found something that literally made me gasp. The article, by Christopher Freind, is called “Solve America’s Obesity Problem with Shame”, which you can read here if you are not already completely turned off by the title. The article is a very drastic suggestion of how we can help end obesity, but makes the point that everyone should have the desire to be skinny. It does not account for people who are plumper and perfectly healthy, but it shames them equally. I found another article that shows examples of fat shaming ads that I cannot believe are real (link here). The most shocking part about this article could possibly have been the comments; one saying how much she loved the ads and how funny she thought they were. With all this being said, I can somewhat see where Freind is coming from. I do not believe we should in any way idealize thinness over being plump or curvy, but there is a point where being fat can become very harmful or even detrimental to one’s health. I think we have to keep this in mind when we attempt to make fat more acceptable in our nation. We cannot simply say it is good to be morbidly obese, because it is just not the truth. However, we should be saying it is equally acceptable to be plump or fat as it to be thin.