Weight obsession and thin privilege

Exploring the fear of gaining weight

Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash

While I was working on something to post for you this week, I came across something new that demanded my attention.  So, this week, I’m writing the next installment of my exploration of weight, diet culture, and cultural body distortion.

This morning I got up and got on the scale like I do most mornings.  I’ve been travelling and eating out, so I haven’t been on the scale for a while but decided today I needed to know. (Why did I need to know?) Unsurprisingly, I was unhappy with the number and immediately noticed my response - a bit of panic, of fear.  “I’ve got to get back on the program (of counting calories, recording my intake, and accept the hunger that goes with it). Right now, today!  I can’t let myself get any bigger!  We’ll just have to go with the calorie restriction/increased exercise because that does work. I hate it, but it does work.”  All this came from my critical, commanding inner disciplinarian. She tries to be helpful, but quickly gets overbearing and carried away.  The words ‘to work’, of course, mean to lose weight. It’s not health, nor for feeling good, but to lose weight.  This time, I also had another voice countering “No, we’re not doing that again. We need to find another way.” I haven’t found another way yet.  But then I haven’t gotten to a root understanding of the ‘problem’ yet. The voice of awareness can be helpful, if uncomfortable. I suppose I’m just going to have to hover in the uncomfortable place for now rather than return to old patterns.

Synchronistically, in my inbox this morning was an article by Dacy Gillespie entitled “How does white supremacy show up in our clothes?” (I would encourage you to read it now on her Substack^[1].)   This article introduced me to the concept of ‘the ladder of body hierarchy’ that hit me with such an “Aha” that I read the article aloud to my husband. What I’ll share today is my current limited understanding and some of what I’ve learned since I unexpectedly discovered roots of my own body dysphoria within my mother’s letters (and wrote about that here).  Dacy Gillespie references an article by Rebecca Ruiz (also a worthy read), which is influenced by Sonya Renee Taylor’s book, The Body is Not an Apology, that I have just begun to read.  I want to give a shout out to these and some others have been thinking, researching, and writing about our cultural body issues, diet culture, and fat phobia for way longer than I have. I’ll put them in a ‘further reading’ list at the bottom of this post.

Here’s my raw takeaway from the article integrated with other things I’ve been exploring. It’s also my invitation to you to explore further with me. I’d love your input put if you’d like to comment below.  Here goes: We live within a cultural agreement (that we are oblivious to) that gives more value to certain human characteristics than to others, and those characteristics give privilege to those who have them and de-privilege those who don’t.   Privilege translates to social power and social power translates to more generalized power like safety, relationships, money, status, material security.  

We humans are constantly creating hierarchies.  That’s neither bad nor good; it’s just how our brains work.  We encounter things, we assess them, judge them, and rank them. We start with dualism… threat-friend, tasty-nasty, like-dislike, attractive-ugly, belong-exile, etc.  Then we create a scale between the seeming opposites and rank things using that scale.  We do this with most everything.  The ‘why’ of this hierarchy creation is probably buried deep within our survival biology, for mating, for safety, for getting love.  In fact, looking for the ‘why’ of our propensity toward dualism and then hierarchy may be just another example of the same thinking - of looking for something or someone to blame, because if there is a problem or a hurt or a feeling of oppression or injustice, then there must be a villain, right?  Villain-hero, the rest of us in shades of gray in between…and we’re caught in another round of hierarchy creation.

This brings me back to the concept the ladder of body hierarchy.  Here’s how I’m thinking about it. Within any group of people in western society, you could pass out a stack of cards with images of body characteristics on them and ask them to be ranked best to worst. I’m guessing you’d get consistent response.  (One could do this testing one thing at a time while keeping everything else stable.  For example: while keeping skin color, hair, eyes, facial appearance stable, change body size in the images and have people rank those.  This would reveal unconscious, enculturated biases that we all have. Likely some of these studies have been done.)  We carry within us ingrained, imprinted expectations, and judgements of all sorts.  We didn’t ask for them, they’re just ‘in the water’ of our lives.   For example: I still quickly think “the doctor, he…” even though I’m a doctor, and a “doctor, she”.  We still expect people in certain roles, especially those with power, to be male, white, and look a certain way.  However, if you think of the role of housekeeper, you probably don’t picture a white male. Am I right?

According to Dacy Gillespie’s article, the ideal woman’s body is on the top rung of the ladder.  In her view that means tall, thin, white, straight-haired, blonde, blue-eyed, youthful, pretty, and able-bodied.   Other attributes, like dark skin, larger body, older, curly hair, knock one down the rungs of the ladder. We don’t see the ladder, don’t even know it’s there.  However, we constantly use this ladder concept to place ourselves and those around us and we’re trying to get as high up on the ladder as we can, comparing our bodies to those in bodies around us. We do mental work trying to rank ourselves as high as we can to feel ok about ourselves, to feel safe, valuable.  However, ranking requires winners and losers. It creates and amplifies separation between us, dehumanizing all of us. 

Of course, we all lose. Every single one of us fails to meet the ideal, since the ideal is impossible. Nonetheless, we create shame and hatred towards ourselves for our failure to rank higher, or perhaps we feel a certain smugness when we perceive we rank above others.  We look for clues that tell us others are worse than us, responding either out of envy that someone is higher on the ladder than we are or projecting shame and judgement upon those who are lower. We harm others and ourselves with our unconscious thinking. And we treat people differently depending upon what we think about their bodies. We place them on the ladder of body hierarchy and use that to determine their value, their worth to us and to society. We perpetuate the harmful belief that some people are more valuable that other people, deciding that value based on body characteristics.

Although most of us aren't aware we’re doing this, we know and respond at a visceral level to the cues, to the power of the hierarchy. We know its power to affect our lives, how we are seen by others - how we are valued.

 So why do I feel fear and a bit of panic when the numbers on the scale increase – when I gain weight? Well, I’m losing status by gaining weight and that’s terrifying.   Although privileges of youth and pretty have faded for me, I have had white, thin privilege for most of my life. How I look affects how people respond to me and I like the feel of that approval. And now I know my privilege reinforces the current system of white supremacy and patriarchy.  

Did you get that?   This hierarchy of bodies, this obsession with weight, our imprisonment in diet culture reinforces white supremacy. The obsession with thinness is racist in its roots.  In her well researched book Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia^[2], Sabrina Springs traces the origins of western obsession with thinness in women to the emergence of the industry of enslavement of African people. In response to exposure to enslaved Black women, to enforce and dehumanize the enslaved, thinness and accentuated whiteness came to represent superiority. They became symbolic of femininity and virtue.  Although my explanation is simplistic, the author lays out compelling arguments and examples, that fat phobia and diet culture are rooted in racism and classism deep in our history. 

The role of patriarchy in the creating and maintaining the ladder of body hierarchy is easier to see.  Women who are thinner, who weigh less are easier to physically push around, knock around. Restrictive fashion ensures that woman have a hard time running away.  Remember the fairer sex?  And what does fair mean?  Well, it means light skin, light hair, light-weight bodies and, of course, pretty.  There was a time, not long ago where weakness in women was considered virtuous. When I was a girl, my mother told me that women didn’t want to get arm muscles.  It was unattractive.   Muscles were for men.  Slenderness (thinness) is power and reinforces the power of patriarchy.

Powerful women are presented to us in film, art, media, popular culture wearing high heels and body conforming clothing, things that are nearly impossible to wear with any ease.  And of course, the women are impossibly thin. Yet, women often feel powerful when dressed this way.  Isn’t that weird? Yet, I feel it.  I feel more powerful when I feel “well dressed” than when I’m in my day-to-day ranch wear that is comfortable for my rural lifestyle. I’m can flaunting my (elevated) place in the ladder of bodies when I wear something because it’s ‘flattering’; it’s something that shows off my privilege.   

This afternoon, I decided to test out my new awareness about this ladder of body hierarchy when my husband and I went to town on some errands.  I consciously observed my first reactions and thoughts about the women I saw.   And yes, I’m sad to report, I am constantly making quick mental categorizations and then ranking myself, to my advantage if possible. I’m judging the other peoples’ bodies; “They’re fatter than me, their clothes don’t look good on them, she’s too thin - it makes her look older, her hips are too big for her body.”   I’m judging myself, too. “I look so dowdy.  I’m getting pudgy. I’m wrinkled, I’m saggy, I’m short.  They’re looking down on me.  I’m invisible.  My thighs are too big.”  I’m not doing this on purpose, rather I’m catching my internal cultural commentary.  Truthfully, I had no idea this was going on until I read Dacy Gillespie’s article this morning and started paying attention. 

Now that I know, I can’t not know.  Thus, I don’t intend to continue this dehumanizing, racist, misogynistic way of thinking, of ranking myself and others. Awareness is surely eye opening, the first step toward new ways of being.  But what do I do next to rebuild a kinder, healthier way of thinking and being? 

Knowing that this fat obsession, this diet culture, this body judgement, this hierarchy of bodies, that these all reinforce white supremacy is profoundly disturbing.   Flaunting my privilege reinforces white supremacy and patriarchy, the opposite of creating the world I’d like to inhabit.  

 Gaining unlimited weight, hating myself for having privilege, going to an opposite extreme doesn’t solve anything either.  

I’ve got to get off this hamster wheel.   How?  Maybe jump?

Love is always the answer.  For now, I’m excited (shocked and horrified) to have this new awareness.  This awareness opens opportunity to do something different, if only to substitute kind or loving thoughts when I catch myself ranking others and myself.  I am going to observe, with interest, if and when I may be flaunting my privilege and try to do something different.   I don’t know what right action is, but I do know that wrong action is to continue to reinforce this meanness. 

And now, I’m going to finish reading The Body is Not an Apology and use what privilege I have in this moment to point you to the writers below.  

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^[1] Dacy Gillespie writes about clothing ourselves in ways that help escape from cultural expectations and move into healthier self-expression.   Her Substack page is called “Unflattering”.

^[2] Here is a link to Sabrina Strings book Fearing the Black Body

Other reading

1. Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith on Substack.   Virginia writes on navigating fat-phobia and diet culture especially while parenting. She has a new book, Fat Talk: Coming of Age in Diet Culture that I haven’t read yet, but has become a best seller.

2. Body of Truth. How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight – and What we Can Do About It. By Harriet Brown.

3. Body Positivity Isn’t Enough, an article by Rebecca Ruiz (also a worthy read). She reviews and shares her insights from reading Sonya Renee Taylor’s book, The Body is Not an Apology.

4. Sonya Renee Taylor’s website is here. You can find her book The Body is Not an Apology on Amazon here or search for it on your favorite bookstore.