The real reason people are weight-obsessed.

[Razzle]

Recently I took a look around some eating disorder forums looking for threads about WHY sufferers want to lose weight. As I suspected, very few said it had anything at all to do with the shallow preoccupation with being attractive that is often attributed to them. Even people who are non-judgmental about eating disorders or campaign against them, often manage to suggest that it's about something as ridiculous as wanting to look like models so the opposite sex will like them. I think the reasons the sufferers I saw give, apply equally well to MOST non-shallow people who are body-dissatisfied. We're not shallow at all necessarily, we're just highly aware, even if unconsciously, of the symbolic MEANING of fat.

Personally, I have a BMI of 19 but I wobble too much for my liking. I think a leaner look would suit my personality better - I feel self-restrained, dedicated, serious, non-threatening, non-confrontational, unimposing and fragile on the inside, and I want to look that way on the outside. Excess fat suits some people a lot. It works great on larger-than-life, jolly, life-loving people, because their bodies represent their lust for life. The other archetype fat can represent is that of comfort-eating and low self-esteem, which is the reason most people who can't pull off the "jolly fat person" archetype want to lose weight. It's about what our bodies mean symbolically, not shallow aesthetics or to copy what's in the media (I HATE the assumption that restrictive eating at a low BMI means you're shallow or vain or want to look like a celebrity - I'm probably the least shallow person I know). Being fat wouldn't suit me at all, it wouldn't feel right, just as wearing clothes that misrepresent my personality would make me self-conscious due to other people's false expectations about me. And people DO make these connections between body shape and personality, it's just usually unconscious.

Can anyone who's ever been dissatisfied with their body relate to this? Or is it just people with eating disorders who feel their own body shape matters for more reason than simply looking attractive? I hope not because I feel that way, ha.

[Longhorn]

I don't hate my body, but it hates me ._.

sorry, it's too late/I'm too tired to make productive comments

[Regina]

The media is strongly to blame

We're shown these size 0 girls and these absolutely ripped adonis men and we are told "this is ideal". However, that is all we are told.

We are NOT told that it takes an extreme lifestyle to get like that. Teenagers (who are most vulnerable to these messages of "you are not good enough") don't learn that these people are payed to look like that, that they don't have real lives, and that they eat rabbit food and spend 6 days a week in the gym to look the way they look. If they're rich, they can also go under the knife. If there was more education that it takes such time, commitment and money to look like these celebrities and models, I think there would be a lot less body image issues in society. Coming to that realisation allows you to be so much more comfortable in your own body, because it allows you to feel normal.

[Razzle]

The media is strongly to blame

We're shown these size 0 girls and these absolutely ripped adonis men and we are told "this is ideal". However, that is all we are told.

We are NOT told that it takes an extreme lifestyle to get like that. Teenagers (who are most vulnerable to these messages of "you are not good enough") don't learn that these people are payed to look like that, that they don't have real lives, and that they eat rabbit food and spend 6 days a week in the gym to look the way they look. If they're rich, they can also go under the knife. If there was more education that it takes such time, commitment and money to look like these celebrities and models, I think there would be a lot less body image issues in society. Coming to that realisation allows you to be so much more comfortable in your own body, because it allows you to feel normal.

But I don't want to look exactly like the ideal - thin, yes, but not what's the most conventionally attractive. That would make me look too threatening, too competitive, too strong. It makes sense that most people want to look stronger, and more threatening to the same sex, but that's not how I want others to see me, and more importantly, it's not how I want to see myself in the mirror, because it's not how I feel. I want my body to reflect my self-concept, I want congruence. 

For me that means looking gentle and delicate AS WELL as looking competent, serious, self-disciplined and self-restrained, and god I hate to say it, but "noble". There's something noble and even spiritual to me about not being bothered about or tempted by food. (I do have a good sense of humour and come across as cheerful and easygoing, if a bit nervous, in real life I should point out - I'm not as boring and dour as I'm making myself sound, haha.) I think that's what most people find appealing about thinness in our Western culture that prizes self-discipline, self-regulation, not being needy or clingy, self-reliance and hard work. I saw a study that suggested cultures that don't value those things as highly are the ones that don't prize thinness. So I think our cultural values of self-discipline and the like are what drive our idealisation of thin bodies for women and muscular bodies for men, and the media simply REFLECTS those ideals that are already there. They came organically from society and filtered up to the media, not down from it. 

I want to look self-disciplined and efficient because I was not seen that way as a child and I always wanted to be that way, it felt like the way I was always meant to be. Now my mental health is better I am that way but it's a fragile self-perception that I have to protect and reinforce, and what I see in the mirror is just another way to do that. I don't want to look as strong and intimidating as the average underwear model does but I do want to look as self-disciplined as they do.

[rado84]

wanting to look like models so the opposite sex will like them

It's quite normal - after all who wouldn't like to look like Brad Pitt? And not just for the opposite sex.

[Razzle]

wanting to look like models so the opposite sex will like them

It's quite normal - after all who wouldn't like to look like Brad Pitt? And not just for the opposite sex.

Oh yes, most people do care about that as well. But I'm talking about the level of emotional investment many people have in thinness, the shame and guilt leading up to and including eating disorders. I don't think that can be caused by wanting to attract a mate, or status among peers, which is another factor especially common for women. The stigma, the deep shame and self-loathing and the obsessive behaviour leading right up to people starving themselves to death, I think must come from something deeper than either of those motives.