I think The Obesity Myth helped the most.
The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is
Hazardous to Your Health, by
Paul Campos.
It wasn't even that it
was completely new information. I read about it on blogs where I was already
getting similar information anecdotally. It was helpful to have someone but it
all together and correlate with studies.
Three things stand out as
notable now. One is that obesity only becomes a health risk when it affects
mobility. That helped the things that are good about my health make sense, and
gave me a motivation to maintain mobility. I mean, I like my mobility anyway,
but it is important enough that it should be emphasized, and Campos did a good job of that.
The story about Susan
Estrich may have been even more helpful. A very accomplished woman at size 12,
her proudest accomplishment came when she went down to a size 6, though it
meant not having any other notable achievements because losing those sizes in
between took everything she had. Enjoying food and exercise and work -- life, I
guess -- could not coexist. Given the things that I have tried that haven't
worked, I can't want thinness enough. It would not be a good choice for me.
The other thing The Obesity Myth did was send me off to some other books: The Panic Virus: A True Story of
Medicine, Science, and Fear by
Seth Mnookin; Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern
History by David Aaronovitch,
and Innumeracy:
Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos.
None of those books had
anything to do with fat or body image, but they had a lot to do with how wrong
people can be about all sorts of things. I don't know that this specifically
helped me get over caring what other people think, but at least it didn't hurt.
Still, I was done with
all of those books in March and April. I may have felt better about my body
then, but it was not where I am today.
I know Beauty Sick helped a lot:
Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and
Women by Renee Engeln.
That was in July. Originally
I would have thought it was not going to make much of a difference. I have been
considering myself not even in the running for beautiful for so long that my
reactions were more about feeling terrible for other women. That worked out
though, in two ways.
Some of the exercises
they use to get women out of these patterns involve role-playing explaining the
destructive patterns to others. After you have told someone that they don't
need this and should not be hurting themselves, it is harder for you to stick
with that behavior. They harness the cognitive dissonance of it all.
Now, I know women have a
long tradition of thinking everyone else is beautiful, and reassuring other
women of their beauty while holding on to a deep knowledge of personal flaws,
and are rarely bothered by cognitive dissonance there. Focusing on the
behavior, though, is different. It appears that I can tell you that you are
beautiful without believing I am beautiful, but I can't talk to you about the
dangers of purging and still feel right doing it myself. Perhaps actions do
matter more than appearance, but my empathy having been activated by everyone
else's stories seems to have mattered.
That wasn't even one of the
exercises that I was able to replicate, but I did try a few, and they were very
affirming. I realized some good things about myself, and it was a boost. Once
there is a focus on substance instead of appearance, I come off a lot better.
There is another tradition for women where we are not supposed to know good
things about ourselves, because that's conceited, but I may be past that too.
I felt better, and yet I
still wasn't where I am now. I was on the way. Some of that may just be that
even after you have intellectually realized something it still takes time to
assimilate it emotionally. I have had some time.
There were other points
along the way, and things that made the realizations more clear, and that will
be something to post about tomorrow.
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