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Why do some people act like one's body is merely a result of genetics?
It's annoying and inaccurate. That skinny teenager likely had parents giving her balanced meals and shuttling her to and from expensive sports teams all her life. Not to mention the other aspects that affect weight and general development, like the effect of stress, and etc. I once had a coach that said our high school bodies would be the best we could ever attain. I'm a recent graduate, and that's one of the things that motivates me at the gym. I wasn't my healthiest in high school, and had many things stressing me out, leading to a lot of stress eating. I was actually my healthiest when my family first moved to America, 15 years ago. Then the "America effect" happened to my whole family. We're still in the process of combating it. It's annoying how on one hand America promotes cheap, big burgers, and on the other, skinny women in most forms of advertising. A horrible combination being those Carls Jr commercials, where women as skinny as Paris Hilton pretend to enjoy high calorie burgers all the time.
I've never been obese, but I never had the supposed miraculous "teenage metabolism" I so often hear about, so it annoys me to hear it from that perspective. For the most part, my family eats home cooked meals, and I would normally eat healthily at lunch, with a cookie or something once or twice a week at most, but a lot of my peers could get away with eating junk food every day and being very slim, and yet I'm looked at as the one out of shape, even though we're on the same school sports team, and I've done sporty things from a young age.
Anyways, my issue with that leads to how society nowadays is so accepting of becoming obese. I go to Khols after working out at a gym for 2 hours, and hear "All About That Bass" and it just makes me roll my eyes. I'm a size 8 dress size, but I'm still very close to becoming obese, and I need to shed a lot of weight. So why promote a size 14 dress size, however normal it is? Why should we promote something that leads America to have the highest medical bills in the world? The highest rates for cancer, heart issues, etc? Just for looks? Cause on the other hand, being really skinny is also unhealthy, but really skinny models are everywhere. I tried seeing a trainer at my gym and he didn't understand why I didn't want to look "fit and muscular", and instead wanted to look "skinny fit", like a Victoria's Secret model. I mean, he's a guy, so maybe that's why he's kind of out of touch, but still. He said he didn't like the "bony" look in women but I want to look good for myself. If a guy doesn't like the figure I'm trying to pursue, he's not for me. It's just frustrating that I say I want to look skinny fit and he interpreted what I said as some kind of eating disorder. It's like he doesn't know the body a normal woman dreams of, which is more like Candice Swanepoel's than Jillian Michael's, to be honest. Not that anything is wrong with Jillian, she's actually a great example of someone who got to her ideal figure after high school, but hopefully you get what I mean. I mean, women should be free to aspire to any healthy figure, but healthy doesn't mean obese just as it doesn't mean anorexic/bulimic.
Excuses like "I'm just big boned" or "Everyone just has different bodies" just piss me off cause we're all malleable humans. Yeah, adults can't grow taller, but our weight and muscle mass is fully within our control. It might be difficult, like for the rare person with a thyroid problem, but it's not something you have to be genetically blessed with and it's weird for trainers and people in general to give that pessimistic and inaccurate impression to people.
This country is very awkward! It's been 15 years and I still feel like an alien, at times. I'm not really sure how to interpret what it means for me personally to be an American, even though I spent a lot of my formative years here.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Health?
There is something called the Metabolism in your body. This is what determines how 3 different basic types of peoples bodies are going to react to diet and excercise. A person with a high metabolism and eat and eat and no pounds will add to their weight. In fact, it doesnt have to be healthy food and can be nothing but a junk food diet, and icecream candy, that stuff that adds onto others easily, doesn't with the tiny person with high metabolism. Even with the weight but a poor diet, they could be very unhealthy heart wise because of their diet. This type also doesnt need to do much exercise to stay in shape, a simple walk or bike ride occasionally is enough. Then at the far end of the scale is people with a very slow metabolism. They can watch their diet and just looking at food seems to add on the pounds. Their exercise needs are extremely involved, to the point that they must exercise daily and for long amounts of time to get the same results as the person on the opposite end of the metabolic scale and then there are those who fall in between. In India Indian medicine there is a system that addresses these different needs in the basic 3 different body types. It is called
Ayurvedic medicine and is a natural health system thats been around 5,000 years in India. You might research this more and see if there are any Drs in your area who practice this. The popularity of this and other natural medicine systems has spread around the world and can be found in the US if thats where you're from. I would think even a few visits to learn what body type you are and about the specific needs it has in order to be at optimal health is a good thing. Regular medical Dr.s are not trained in depth on preventative health. They can refer you to a dietician but they only know what they have studied and been taught to get their degree which does not include the many other natural health systems known around the world. In the US are naturopathic Dr.s who train not only on everything a regular dr. has to but also on many of the natural health systems too. If you can find a clinic that has both regular physcians and also natural health physcians, theres a chance insurance might pay but generelly natural health practioners are not covered or accepted by health insurance which is a shame. So if paying out of pocket, it's gonna be a big deal financially but I would think even a few visits could help, especially if you let them know you can't afford to keep coming and ask for what books or information or study you can follow on your own to lose weight and become what will be your natural healthy body weight. Good Luck.
www.livescience.com/42153-ayurveda.html
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** Note ** I use the word "fat" as a descriptor quite often in this answer. I know it carries a lot of weight (haha) as a derogatory term, but I'm using it as a descriptor. Just like people are tall, short, blonde or brunette, people are fat, thin or average. Not an insult.
I think that the thing that everyone tends to forget about is that people are different. Your experience is not the same as my experience. So while your opinions may be valid for your particular life experience, they may not apply elsewhere. Personally, I was always a little heavier, even when extremely active. My fighting weight was 170 lbs and a size 12-14, but my happy weight seems to be somewhere around 220-240 lbs and a size 16-18. Right now I'm above my happy weight, trying to find a good balance.
I am a big (literal and figurative) advocate of health at every size and size acceptance. This can mean different things to different people, but here's what it means to me:
Size acceptance emphasizes that I am no less a human being just because I am technically obese. I am no less deserving of love, care, safety or happiness than someone who is of average size. I deserve the same opportunities, within reason, at a size 20 as a person who is a size 2 (you know, I don't expect to be a VS angel any time soon). Sounds pretty reasonable, right? But it's not how things tend to work on the upper end of the BMI scale. Fat people are told that we NEED to lose weight. We NEED to go on diets that may not be safe. We NEED to adhere to punishing workout routines that push us to the point of injury. We need to do this in order to be thin, because thin is desirable. Comfortable in your own skin? Forget about it. That's for thin people. So fat people are often downtrodden and suffer from low self esteem.
Health at every size means taking good care of yourself, regardless of where that lands you on the BMI scale. Personally, my ideal figure is the one in which I'm not limited in what I do. I don't want to be limited to eating dry lettuce and boiled chicken 2 times a day, but I don't want to be unable to hike 20km a day either. I don't want to be too tired to go for a run because I'm not eating enough, but I also don't want to be too lethargic from eating junk food all day. I really don't think that's unreasonable. Heck, I eat healthier food and am more active than many of my teeny-tiny friends. My blood pressure is spot on 120/80 and my cholesterol and blood sugar are well within normal bounds. Is that not healthy? How am I any less healthy than my 120 lb friend who lives on poutine and bagels?
I agree that there's a pessimistic attitude being passed on, but I would argue that it's different from what you're seeing. You see a society telling fat, unhealthy people it's not their fault and that they're stuck that way. I see a society telling fat people that being fat is a death sentence, and that you might as well give up hope unless you're willing to punish yourself thin. Then you get people wondering why they should eat healthy foods and exercise if they're not losing weight (because it's very possible to have a higher body weight with healthy practices, depending on genetics and other factors). Rather than people eating healthy food and moving their bodies for the sake of feeling great and having fun, they're doing it as a sort of penance for being fat. It's pretty messed up.
I once lost 60 lbs in 3 months. I went away from home to work for a summer, and was miserable. I was homesick, bullied by my coworkers and was struggling with mental illness. I stopped eating as a way to regain some control over my situation. I came home looking "great" and feeling worse than I've ever felt before. So yes, it's possible to change your physical shape, but often at the expense of your mental shape. Dieting is not a healthy way to be. Exercising compulsively out of a fear of being fat is not a healthy way to be. Taking care of yourself, body and mind, regardless of how it makes you look... that's a healthy way to be.
So there's my perspective. It doesn't jive with yours, but that's a good thing. Sometimes it takes seeing through the eyes of others to adjust how we look at ourselves.
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