Hello everyone,
I saw a video on Instagram that made me SO ANGRY. It’s a clip from Mirror Mirror, a documentary series by Todd Sampson on body dissatisfaction. I added it here so you can watch it.
Children are more scared of being FAT than getting SICK! I am in shock at how we are failing the next generation and how skinny is now back in fashion.
So, I have asked myself:
Why are we so obsessed with being thin?
I thought it would be a simple answer, but it’s so deeply complex that it took me a whole journey through the history of racism, fashion, the BMI, war and capitalism. The answer to this question is now a 5 article answer. I hope you are as curious as I am about how we got here and how damaging the future can be.
The reason why I feel so passionate about this is that women are constantly bombarded with messages of weight loss from the media, healthcare professionals, and family. This leads to shame and insecurities that push us into diet culture, which ultimately creates worse health outcomes for us. I care so deeply about this because weight doesn’t mean HEALTH. I care because I have a 6-month-old daughter I want to create a better world for. I care because women are spending their hard-earned money to uphold beauty standards designed to keep you spending. I care because women are pinned against one another to compete on beauty, something that is subjective and that we have zero control over. I care because women are taught their worth in the world depends on how they look, and they must seek male and female validation to feel happy and successful! I am so angry, but we must understand where things come from and make peace with them ourselves if we are ever able to fight it.
What happens when children diet
I will be honest, my first reaction when I read that study was that I could bet it is because those girls started restricting. Being told you are “too fat” at 10 is a strong reason to start dieting, and we have just seen what the body does with restriction.
A study following almost 15,000 children aged 9 to 14 found that those who dieted gained more weight over three years than those who did not, and dieting was strongly linked with binge eating. Another study of more than 2,500 adolescents found that those using unhealthy weight control behaviours were around three times more likely to be overweight five years later, and girls were over six times more likely to report binge eating with loss of control.
What all of these studies agree on is that shame does not make children thinner. If anything, it seems to do the opposite.
And I am not making this up:
A study following more than 2,300 girls in the US found that girls who had been told they were "too fat" at age 10 were 1.66 times more likely to be obese at age 19, even after accounting for their weight at the start.
I also want to tell you that:
Weight is strongly genetic
A systematic review that pooled 88 twin studies (more than 140,000 twins) found that the heritability of BMI ranged from 47% to 90%, with a typical estimate of around 75%. Family studies gave lower estimates, between 24% and 81%. Interestingly, the genetic influence seems to be stronger in childhood than in adult life.
A quick note on what heritability means, because it is often misunderstood. It does not mean “75% of your weight is decided by your genes”. It describes how much of the difference in weight between people in a population can be explained by genetic differences. It also does not mean fixed. Our genes have not changed much in the last few decades, but our food environment has, and genes shape how each of us responds to that environment.
What it does tell us is that two women can live very similar lives and end up in very different bodies. That is biology, not character or a failure of discipline.
We will go into more depth here when we discuss war and famine during pregnancy and its impact on weight.
And also:
Weight is not the same as health
Weight and health are related, but they are not the same thing. When researchers looked at more than 40,000 adults in the US national health survey, nearly half of those classed as overweight and 29% of those classed as obese had healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and inflammation markers. At the same time, more than 30% of people at a “normal” weight did not. Fitness seems to matter more than size, too. A meta-analysis of 10 studies found that people who were fit had similar mortality risk whether they were at a normal weight, overweight or obese, while people who were unfit had around twice the risk regardless of their BMI. This does not mean weight has no link to health risk. On average, it does. But the number on the scale cannot tell you what is happening inside one person’s body, and as we know, women with PMOS who are lean can still have insulin resistance and carry risk.
In my next few articles, I will cover:
Race, fatphobia and the history of BMI: how body size became tied to morality and race, and how a statistic from the 1830s became a verdict on individual bodies.
Fashion, feminism and the thin ideal: from the 1920s flapper to heroin chic, and how clothing shaped the bodies women were expected to have.
The weight loss industry: calorie counting, bathroom scales, cigarettes as appetite suppressants, diet pills, and how social media became the industry's newest channel.
War, famine and the body that remembers: what the Dutch Hunger Winter taught us about how scarcity in one generation can shape the bodies of the next.
Bringing it together: what can we do to shape a healthier future for our children and ourselves? Practical advice on what to implement and how to behave around fatphobia
Looking forward to seeing you next Sunday.
Francesca
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Disclaimer: We are all unique in our own ways, so this information is for educational purposes only. In my communications, I summarise research data and bring my experience. This shouldn’t be viewed as medical advice at any point. Please further consult your healthcare provider about your health needs.