The World Health Day (April 7) may have meant fighting AIDS or cancer to the youth 10 years ago. Today, health (in urban India) has become the code word for losing weight, or getting ‘in shape'. With the explosion of the self-styled nutritionists and the so-called professionals on the scene, it is hard to retain perspective on fitness vs. freakishness. More disturbing is the phobia of fat as lazy, ugly and socially inept. I recently heard my friend's five-year old announce that she ought to cut down on food or she would burgeon into X (a chubby friend)! I will try to refute some popular arguments on this Fat vs. Fit issue below.
Fat people are lazy. If they tried, they could be thinner: Fat-thin, like tall-short, fair-dark, etc., is determined by genetics. Our metabolism is controlled by a complex set of parameters, including hormones, insulin, cortisol and other genetic factors. Some of these are possible to regulate by controlling diet/exercise, but their collective effect on body shape/size is impossible to control. Research has shown that 98 per cent of the women who lose weight as a result of a strict exercise-diet regime, gain it back within two years. Drastic lifestyle changes required to lose weight are not sustainable and harm the metabolism and immune system more than doing any good. I am sure that googling will produce much research to convince you otherwise; after all, research has come to mean searching again and again till you find what you want.
If Kareena/ Hrithik can do it, why can't others? Most of us have a regular 9 to 7 job, families, kids, household chores, etc. The capacity of our bodies and immune systems for diet and exercise are different from that of celebrities. When we can't be in their shoes, why try to fit in their pants? Twenty plus are always keeping their clothes from 10 years ago to fit into. Very soon, five-year olds will start keeping theirs and beating themselves up 10 years later with harsh gym subscriptions and cruel abstinence from carbohydrates to fit back in. If you are still not convinced it is obsession, you're probably brainwashed by the fashion industry that is failing to recognise the market for above size-zeroes. The normal reaction to such an industry would be to ignore it and take your business to one that makes products to fit you and not the other way around.
To become fit, lose weight: Healthy cholesterol levels, heart rate, lung capacity, stress levels, among other things, are a measure of fitness irrespective of fat content. Weightlifters, cricketers and many other sportspersons will hardly fit the flat abdomen/low BMI bill, yet one can't argue they are not fit or agile. Besides, if cutting your size involves a constant fear of calories and missing workouts, your high stress levels are likely making up for any perceived physical fitness achieved.
Surely, there are people who must lose weight? The clinically obese are required to lose weight and their goals are not flat abs. Theirs is a genetic condition to empathise with and not ridicule. Being fat doesn't make you obese by default; even the popular BMI is not agreed upon by serious medical practitioners as a measure of fatness.
Thin looks better than fat: This is strictly a personal aesthetic preference, like fair over dark. When we use our personal standards for beauty to group others, we promote a kind of apartheid. How many of us have advised a fat friend to get thinner to look more presentable to society/prospective partners? Fat people need neither sympathy nor advice and do not need to change themselves to fit in. It is really our society that must stop confusing fat for unfit and judging people for their body shapes and sizes.
(The writer's email is: englishnote@gmail.com)
