In this new millennium, women are supposed to know that Lara Flynn Boyle’s proportions are less realistic than those of her “The Practice” co-star Camryn Manheim.
Yet, despite the fact that more Americans battle their bulge than don’t, the heavy in this country–women, in particular–continue to be ostracized in what one weight expert, Howard Rankin, head of the Carolina Wellness Retreat, calls “the only case of majority discrimination.”
Obesity undeniably poses health risks, and some studies link it to economic ones too. But many who carry a spare tire or more around their waists say other people’s concern has less to do with higher health care costs and lower productivity–and more to do with shallow judgment about looks, especially regarding women.
As a case in point, women are more preoccupied with their weight than men are, according to a November Gallup poll. While a similar number of men and women indicated they weigh more than their ideal (69 percent of women and 58 percent of men), women (68 percent) were more likely than men (49 percent) to want to lose weight.
And for good reason: Women say their weight is a heavy burden in the workplace, in the dating game and even in the soccer mom carpool.
When Heather Phillips was 28 she was laid off from her technology job in Austin, Texas, a decision she still thinks, two years later, was made because of her weight.
“I was counseled confidentially by not one but two people higher up in the company that my appearance did not fit in with [the firm’s] `young, active, with-it’ image,” says Phillips, who describes herself and her size as “a blond, more subtle Rosie O’Donnell.”
Jeffery Sobal, a nutritional sociologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has conducted several studies that have confirmed that the workplace is not the only place where the overweight experience discrimination.
“Heavier people are devalued in the dating and marriage pool. People feel less comfortable with the overweight as intimacy increases,” he says.
Sobal suggests this prejudice is an American phenomenon.
“The U.S. is an anomaly,” he says. “In most cultures, being a little plump is healthy and attractive.” He says some studies show immigrants to the U.S. tend to change their images to fit a culture that reveres thinness to unreasonable extremes.
Peter N. Stearns, provost at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and author of “Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West” (New York University Press, $19), echoes that view. He believes Americans’ attitudes about weight are unhealthy and may be part of the reason the U.S. waistline keeps expanding.
Last week, Stearns presented an extensive comparison of Americans’ attitudes toward obesity and those of the French at a two-day conference on poverty and obesity presented by the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago. He documented that in France the national weight gain has been insignificant compared with the U.S., despite the fact that many of the factors that are thought to contribute to American weight gain–reliance on convenience foods, super-size portions, less exercise and longer work hours–exist on the other side of the Atlantic, albeit not to the same degree.
A moralizing tone
Stearns looked at brochures, posters and school curricula and found that the French government emphasized health and beauty as incentives to keep weight down, while U.S. administrators added a layer of morality to the mix, suggesting those who didn’t lose were ill-disciplined and lazy.
“The tendency to talk about weight in moral terms was counterproductive. In the U.S., middle-class moralizing turns other groups off,” he says, citing the increased obesity among minority groups and different socio-economic classes as evidence.
Indeed, the fired Phillips says such implications were clear from her former higher-ups. “Usually the dialogue would start with something like, `I know it’s not fair or reasonable, but big girls just look like they’re not in control.’ “
Phillips since has moved to Jackson, Miss., for a new job and did not pursue legal action against her former employer, but says the experience changed her outlook. “When I was younger I believed that as long as you worked hard and did a good job people would recognize and reward your efforts. I don’t believe that anymore.”
While many overweight women resent being categorized as lazy, many also acknowledge they are accountable for their weight.
“Once you reach adulthood, you cannot blame your parents for your weight problem,” says Eva Rosenberg, a self-described 48-year-old fat woman from Encino, Calif., who says she eats “fried chicken and french fries, not because it is a matter of depression, but because those things taste good.”
Weight management is a simple matter of common sense–but also commitment, she says.
“I know how to lose weight,” she says, “but then I get caught up in work and never leave the computer.”
Others blame Hollywood for bad attitudes about weight, citing skinny actresses wearing fat suits–Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shallow Hal” and Julia Roberts in “America’s Sweethearts”–as encouraging Middle America to laugh at fat people. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, for instance, called for a boycott of the fall movie “Shallow Hal,” in which Gwyneth Paltrow wore a costume to make her look obese.
This and other portrayals that focus on weight draw mixed reviews.
“Regardless of the ending [in `Shallow Hal’]–whether he appreciates the inner beauty and loves her after he sees she is overweight or not–her inner beauty is measured by how thin she is, by sheer nature of who is portraying the inner-beauty part,” says Liz Novak, a 28-year-old from Rochester, N.Y. Novak made a New Year’s resolution “to get in shape,” not to lose weight–but she still hopes that means shedding 20 to 30 pounds from her 165-pound frame.
“For a long time I wanted to be skinny like Gwyneth Paltrow, because that is what I thought guys found attractive. But now I just want to be strong. I want to be able to do 10 full push-ups. I want to [trounce] a mugger,” she says.
Laura Richards of Troy, Mich., who set a goal six months ago to lose more than 100 pounds, is more offended by actresses whining about having to gain weight for a role, than those who don fat suits. Renee Zellweger’s much-hyped weight gain for “Bridget Jones’s Diary” was frustrating to Richards, because the actress was still slim on-screen.
Richards set her own weight-loss goal after noticing that waitresses in Troy, Mich., often brought her a Diet Coke when she ordered a regular one, or rolled their eyes when she would ask for a condiment like mayonnaise. Salespeople rarely offer to help her, she says, despite the fact that the plus-size clothes the 25-year-old needs typically cost more than standard sizes.
Reverse discrimination
As a reflection of how contradictory Americans’ ideas about weight can be, women who lose pounds say they sometimes suffer reverse discrimination. When Pamela Gregg’s weight reached 175 pounds, she decided to do something about it. After a little yo-yo dieting, she settled at 126 pounds and, at 43 years old, the Dayton, Ohio, woman has kept the same weight for over 20 years.
“I have experienced a good bit of discrimination since I’ve been thin,” she says. “I worked in an office a few years ago where most of the women were obese. Their comments about my eating habits were constant and critical, and I was often left out of ladies-only dinner outings.”
Other women make snide comments, cloaked in humor, about the unfairness of her being able to “eat anything she wants” and still stay thin. “The truth is that if I ate anything I wanted, I’d become heavy again in no time,” she says.
Still, some women who shed pounds say it opens their eyes to just how severely society penalizes the overweight.
Jean Renfro Anspaugh of Durham, N.C., author of “Fat Like Us” (Windows on History Press, $16.95), lost 100 pounds on the famous rice diet, an intensive weight loss program built around grains.
“Being thin is like living in a foreign country. Before losing weight I applied for jobs and people thought I was the secretary,” says Anspaugh, who is 48 and has gained back 20 pounds of the weight she lost. “Afterwards, they did not see me in a support system role.
“I never thought I was discriminated against before.”
Where poverty and obesity meet
Researchers discussed the country’s growing weight problem at a two-day conference on poverty and obesity presented by the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago last week.
According to the American Obesity Association, 61 percent of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight, and 27 percent are obese, nearly twice the percentage of adults who were obese in 1980. People are generally considered overweight when their body mass index is 25 to 29; for obesity it’s 30 and higher. Some researchers also define obesity as 30 pounds over ideal weight.)
The American Dietetic Association reported that 14 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds weigh more than they should, as do 12 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds, and that more than half of those chubby children are likely to grow up to be overweight.
For the first time, many of the world’s poor children, historically more at risk for starvation, now are suffering from obesity.
According to a report released by the non-profit educational organization Grantmakers in Health, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher says the problems of being overweight or obese soon may cause as much preventable disease and death as cigarette smoking. The report says that in 2000 the conditions were responsible for as many as 300,000 premature deaths and cost the country $117 billion in health care expenditures. Carrying extra pounds has been linked to an increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and other chronic illnesses
— Margaret Littman
