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The big
debate
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

the sunday indian 51 14 february 2010

l i f e
T
wenty-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 woman-
hood”. That was 1912. In
2010, Miss Scheel’s pear-
shaped body would be ridi-
culed at, the BMI index
would place her in the over-
weight 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, ad-
vising various surgical meth-
ods of removing the ‘fat’. La-
dies 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 be-
coming ‘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 dic-
tate the parameters their
bodies must fit into and blog-
gers over the ‘fat-o-sphere’
are boldly voicing their in-
dignation. Like racism
evoked a civil rights move-
ment, 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 eas-
ily relate with their cause.
Shikha Sharma, who pro-
motes a thriving chain of
wellness centres, says, “In In-
dia 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 happen-
ing in their lives. Even boys
in colleges, though they may
not admit that they discrimi-
nate, but they do.”
“Global studies point to
women’s growing dissatisfac-
tion with their bodies. As we
export the current western
aesthetic for tall and skinny
women, which causes so
much anguish and body ha-
tred, it’s now being absorbed
all over the world, and this
includes women in the devel-
oping economies who feel
that attaining this ‘western-
ised’ body is part of becom-
ing more mod,” says Susie
Orbach. An Indian Council
for Market Research (ICMR)
study mentioned that 68 per-
cent 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 per-
cent had tried various diets!
“I believe that what we are
seeing now with the relent-
less attack on women’s bod-
ies, 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 ver-
sion of it except that girls are
willingly limiting their appe-
tites and buying products in
the belief that they are doing
good,” she added. India has
the sunday indian 52 14 february 2010
been aping the West in sever-
al 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 dec-
ades. “Five years ago, I would
talk about anorexia and eve-
ryone 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 Chaud-
hary.
A small section of the
American society has been
urging people to move on to
the next stage – fat accept-
ance. 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 Ac-
tivity which is pleasurable
and enjoyable, and Normal-
ised Eating that emphasises
upon intuitive eating i.e.
“learning to recognise hunger
and also physical satisfac-
tion,” says Susan, and adds,
“…that is what babies do nat-
urally and that is the way to
b i g p h at l i f e
1 2 3 1 2 3
eat.” Author of
Health at Every
Size: The Surpris-
ing Truth About
Your Weight, Lin-
da Bacon ex-
plains, “HAES
encourages peo-
ple to eat atten-
tively, respecting 4 5 6 7 4 5 6 7
your body sig-
nals. 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 8 9 10 8 9 10
food is best for
you and in what
amount.”
Size zero isn’t
supposed to be
ideal for every-
body. While this
may sound ele-
mentary, it is
ironic that what Go figure: Before and After pics of 1. Renee Zellweger, 2. Nicole Richie, 3. Madonna, 4. Amy Winehouse, 5. Lindsay Lohan, 6. Jennifer Connelly,
7. Christina Ricci, 8. Courtney Love, 9. Teri Hatcher, 10. Sophie Dahlalong…
the West is reminding us – of
health at every size – is some-
thing that our culture ac- Ayurveda, in which they have fluctuations) is as common as popularity on the catwalk other, the world is clearly
knowledged since ancient defined that there are three the common cold in the and on magazine covers, es- missing the point. A balance
times. “Being healthy at every sizes, which they call the West, and people who’ve pecially after Lizzie Miller is what the world needs to
size is an age-old concept of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. At been there done that speak of posed nude for a magazine seek out and if necessary,
each size, it says, you can be how diets only caused them (see lead pic) and her little idolise. Whether you fit into
healthy if you do such and endless urges to binge. Mean- belly roll was, to the shock of small, medium or large
such things,” informs Dr while, a study by University some and happiness of oth- clothes or into sizes 4, 10 or
Shikha. One needn’t empty of California showed that ers, not airbrushed away. 14, you have every right to
their pockets over diet foods people who fol- However, every per- feel proud and confident of
or fret over their BMI (Body lowed the HAES son needs to un- the shape you feel the fittest
Mass Index). The latter more principles ex- derstand that and most comfortable in.
so because it is widely known hibited long- Size neither are frail, A hundred years ago
to be flawed today, as the term behav- zero isn’t bony ladies they loved women with
150-year-old method disre- ioural supposed to healthy, nor are curves. A hundred years from
gards the muscle content of changes and be ideal for the excessively now, people might just look
the body, and incorrectly la-
bels healthy, well-muscled
improve-
ments in
everybody the pink of plump ones in back at our times and our
glorification of diminutive
people as obese! health over health (Miller be- figures with the same horror
“Obesity is a symptom; it’s those who toed ing in the middle – we now perceive the Chinese
related to infertility, hormo- the line of tradi- beautiful and real). custom of foot-binding,
nal imbalances, diabetes, tional diet techniques Fashion magazines these which plagued women in
high cholesterol, heart at- A few weeks ago people in days are going overboard en- their pursuit of beauty for
tacks, arthritis, skin prob- the US were raging against couraging ladies to be proud years.
lems, emotional problems, Ralph Lauren for using imag- of their fat. It is entirely up to Love yourself. Stop the
osteoporosis, blood pressure, es of models who had been every individual to make ed- violence.
and even cancer,” explains photoshopped to unrealistic ucated decisions about main-
Dr Shikha. Yo-yo dieting proportions. Meanwhile, taining their health. Swinging With inputs from Aakriti
(people with frequent weight plus-size models are gaining from one extreme ideal to an- Bhardwaj
the sunday indian 53 14 february 2010